Not much of a letter from Lawrence this time around....here is the entirety of the email we got on Monday:
I'm alive!!!
Ok, just saying hi and that I'm still alive. We had a pretty busy week and it's going to get even more busy but I'm going to write very soon, hopefully later on today. I love you all!!! BYE!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
I guess they're keeping him busy! Hopefully we'll get something later this week.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Technology Strikes Again!
Dear Family,
Thank you all for your love, letters, support, and PACKAGES!!! Both packages made it here safe and sound and I thank you so much for sending them!!! I wrote a really long letter that explained how I've been working on the Mission Annual History and how President thinks he found my replacement (Elder Lloyd) and how he'll need at least three months to learn my job and how we met a lady from the US that worked at Sears and in Los Angeles as security...and then the computer erased everything...which makes me really frustrated with computers, and particularly with Microsoft (who decided to scrap Vista according to Elder Jarvis meaning I have a nice $400 brick waiting for me in my room at home). I just ran out of time too and I'm really sorry but I'll send the mission annual history I wrote up to make up for my tiny letter I'm writing right now. I'm really sorry and I promise not to make stupid mistakes when I'm making computer programs. There are a lot of improvements to be made and goodness gracious me am I ever going to make some improvements when I get out into the computer world. I love you all so much!!! Thank you again!!! Bye!!! Have a wonderful week!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. Elder Quist is married to Hermana Quist and is from Idaho, and is about 60.
Just a quick note concerning Vista, Lawrence obtained a free copy of Window's Vista right before he left on his mission, and he was so excited to use it when he got home. It's sitting on a bookshelf in his room. Lawrence is one of the most giving people I know, but he made it very clear that he didn't want anyone touching Vista before he had the chance to get to it in two years. If it's true that it's useless now, he is no doubt very disappointed. Poor Lawrence :(
And also....we all have no doubt that he will revolutionize the computer world when he gets home!
Thank you all for your love, letters, support, and PACKAGES!!! Both packages made it here safe and sound and I thank you so much for sending them!!! I wrote a really long letter that explained how I've been working on the Mission Annual History and how President thinks he found my replacement (Elder Lloyd) and how he'll need at least three months to learn my job and how we met a lady from the US that worked at Sears and in Los Angeles as security...and then the computer erased everything...which makes me really frustrated with computers, and particularly with Microsoft (who decided to scrap Vista according to Elder Jarvis meaning I have a nice $400 brick waiting for me in my room at home). I just ran out of time too and I'm really sorry but I'll send the mission annual history I wrote up to make up for my tiny letter I'm writing right now. I'm really sorry and I promise not to make stupid mistakes when I'm making computer programs. There are a lot of improvements to be made and goodness gracious me am I ever going to make some improvements when I get out into the computer world. I love you all so much!!! Thank you again!!! Bye!!! Have a wonderful week!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. Elder Quist is married to Hermana Quist and is from Idaho, and is about 60.
Just a quick note concerning Vista, Lawrence obtained a free copy of Window's Vista right before he left on his mission, and he was so excited to use it when he got home. It's sitting on a bookshelf in his room. Lawrence is one of the most giving people I know, but he made it very clear that he didn't want anyone touching Vista before he had the chance to get to it in two years. If it's true that it's useless now, he is no doubt very disappointed. Poor Lawrence :(
And also....we all have no doubt that he will revolutionize the computer world when he gets home!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Extra Long Letter
Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your love, support, letters, and the package!!! I did indeed get one package, the one with the stockings for Elder Miles and me that had a tie and socks in it. The mail system here is a little on the slow side so don't worry about the other two packages. We only pick up mail on Tuesdays anyways so they'll probably be there waiting for me tomorrow. There's actually a pretty funny story about how I got the first package. So Tuesday morning last week Elder Quist took the Jarvises to pick up the mail. They were gone for a little while and we were all busy working in the offices. Pretty soon we got a call from Elder Jensen (one of the four assistants) saying that Elder Quist had gotten in an accident and we had to go pick them up. Well we of course race down there though luckily enough no one was really hurt. Elder Jarvis and Hermana Jarvis were a little mad at Elder Quist so they just wanted to leave and as Hermana Jarvis came up to me she handed me my package. When we got back to the offices she told me that the package was the first one in that day and since the post office had a power outage my package was 50% off (I did actually have to pay but it was like $10). Everyone's alright but we did have to do quite a bit of paperwork and things first to make sure we got the car back from the police and second to make sure no one sued the church. Fortunately our bishop of Trapiche is a lawyer and he just happened to be passing by when he saw the accident scene. He definitely saved us. Needless to say, we'll be traveling a lot in taxi for a little while. Well, it sounds like some people weren't sure about who my companion is and where we're working now. My new companion is Elder Salmon from Alabama. He was my district leader during my second transfer in San Martín when Elder Cabrera was my companion. If you look in the district photos I sent when Elder Cabrera was my companion you'll notice Elder Salmon in there. I'll try and send a photo of us now though pretty soon. He is the materialist which means he works in taking care of all of the missionary apartments, all of the materials inside like beds, fridges, and furniture, and manages the mission's store of materials from the Church like scriptures, church CD's, and scripture protectors. We are now the only Elders left in the offices, the other missionaries being the Jarvises who are senior missionaries. The Browns are coming pretty soon and they'll work in the offices as well but they won't be replacing Elder Salmon and me. I think Hermana Brown will be the mission nurse but I'm not sure what Elder Brown will do. We work in Trapiche which is an area right next to the area where the offices are actually located (Godoy Cruz Centro Ward). Elder Miles works with his new missionary Elder Lauritzen in Godoy Cruz Centro and they don't work in the offices so they can work all day like normal missionaries. Elder Miles was really excited to work full time in the mission field again. Trapiche is not as large as Godoy Cruz Centro's Ward and we use folding chairs in the chapel instead of wooden seating like in our chapel. It's a two story chapel with a big soccer/basketball court in the back with a nice size field. It's also one of the few chapels with an elevator. We don't actually work in the Mission home where President Lindahl lives but we work in an office building that's right next to the Godoy Cruz Centro chapel. It used to be part of the Godoy Cruz Centro chapel but the old chapel burnt down years and years ago but this part of the building wasn't as damaged though they have since remodeled the offices after rebuilding the chapel to a three story brick huge chapel. President lives on the seventh floor of a high rise building as per order of the Area Presidency because they want the mission presidents in Argentina living in safer buildings. All of the guards who work downstairs in President's building know us, the missionaries, and always open the door for us before we get far enough to ring the door bell. They also open the door to the underground garage when we pull up in a car and can't find the remote. It's weird now thinking about President Avila's house and when I showed up at his house, fresh off the plane. I found the picture archived on the Historian's computer (my computer) and saved it to a folder I'll eventually burn onto a CD.
That's really amazing that Mom remembers the Espinosa family so well and that they were such good friends. I'll definitely pass on Mom's e-mail address so they can get in contact. I think the mom of the family still lives in Lujan where there's still sister missionaries there right now. I'm not sure where the sisters live but I'll ask Hermana Rossi when I see her next. Yesterday her husband was called to be the High Priest Group leader of the ward so that was pretty interesting. We almost went to visit her on Tuesday or Wednesday but because of the car accident we didn't get out of the offices very much.
I have one question for Jennifer. While I was working on other things I noticed that the Church came out with some new website called "A Brand New Year" and I was just wondering if she had any activities or dances that had anything to do with that. It looks like the church went all out on the website and everything so I was just curious if it was big in our ward too. It's kind of funny because even though we work in church offices we don't exactly get news very quickly. We didn't hear about Elder Wirthland until someone from Salt Lake called and among other things basically said, "so did you hear about Elder Wirthland?" In other mission news, we've made major progress in making a mission website. It's not posted on the Internet yet but we've basically finished all of the hard stuff. It's mostly going to be for missionaries to send in their weekly letters to President Lindahl but we may expand it if everything works out really well. We had to call in two zone leaders who had HTML experience though in the end we just found a free service that does everything for us. President was pretty excited because it'll save everyone a ton of time which is quite valuable when we already have quite a bit to do. With any luck we'll be able to use it to pick up numbers from Zone Leaders and soon make public websites where we display the weekly newsletter of the mission. I know this will lead to tons of ideas for how we can use the website. Even the church is moving towards an online system called iMOS which will be the Missionary Office System which we use except all much more advanced and all online. It'll have access to records online so we won't have to be constantly updating our records with every change that occurs. It'll also have an electronic system to keep track of missionary transfers and where everyone is. It'll be much more efficient than President's whiteboard which I have to update by hand every six weeks and sometimes more often in the middle of planning transfers. Basically everyone's excited for it to come out and we hope the Browns will be trained on iMOS and not on the old system. They'll probably teach us a thing or two since we haven't had any experience on it yet. Ok, one quick story and then I have to go: this morning I got a call from one of the Zone Leaders who had their Zone Conference today. They couldn't get the projector to work so I was trying everything I could to figure out what the problem was. Finally while explaining everything the Elder said, "should I try one of the other USB ports?" Basically, he was using the wrong plug and I didn't realize it until after trying everything short of reprogramming Windows myself over the phone. He plugged the other cable in and sure enough everything worked. It just reminds me to pay better attention. Well, I hope you all have an amazing week and I love you all!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
Thank you all so much for your love, support, letters, and the package!!! I did indeed get one package, the one with the stockings for Elder Miles and me that had a tie and socks in it. The mail system here is a little on the slow side so don't worry about the other two packages. We only pick up mail on Tuesdays anyways so they'll probably be there waiting for me tomorrow. There's actually a pretty funny story about how I got the first package. So Tuesday morning last week Elder Quist took the Jarvises to pick up the mail. They were gone for a little while and we were all busy working in the offices. Pretty soon we got a call from Elder Jensen (one of the four assistants) saying that Elder Quist had gotten in an accident and we had to go pick them up. Well we of course race down there though luckily enough no one was really hurt. Elder Jarvis and Hermana Jarvis were a little mad at Elder Quist so they just wanted to leave and as Hermana Jarvis came up to me she handed me my package. When we got back to the offices she told me that the package was the first one in that day and since the post office had a power outage my package was 50% off (I did actually have to pay but it was like $10). Everyone's alright but we did have to do quite a bit of paperwork and things first to make sure we got the car back from the police and second to make sure no one sued the church. Fortunately our bishop of Trapiche is a lawyer and he just happened to be passing by when he saw the accident scene. He definitely saved us. Needless to say, we'll be traveling a lot in taxi for a little while. Well, it sounds like some people weren't sure about who my companion is and where we're working now. My new companion is Elder Salmon from Alabama. He was my district leader during my second transfer in San Martín when Elder Cabrera was my companion. If you look in the district photos I sent when Elder Cabrera was my companion you'll notice Elder Salmon in there. I'll try and send a photo of us now though pretty soon. He is the materialist which means he works in taking care of all of the missionary apartments, all of the materials inside like beds, fridges, and furniture, and manages the mission's store of materials from the Church like scriptures, church CD's, and scripture protectors. We are now the only Elders left in the offices, the other missionaries being the Jarvises who are senior missionaries. The Browns are coming pretty soon and they'll work in the offices as well but they won't be replacing Elder Salmon and me. I think Hermana Brown will be the mission nurse but I'm not sure what Elder Brown will do. We work in Trapiche which is an area right next to the area where the offices are actually located (Godoy Cruz Centro Ward). Elder Miles works with his new missionary Elder Lauritzen in Godoy Cruz Centro and they don't work in the offices so they can work all day like normal missionaries. Elder Miles was really excited to work full time in the mission field again. Trapiche is not as large as Godoy Cruz Centro's Ward and we use folding chairs in the chapel instead of wooden seating like in our chapel. It's a two story chapel with a big soccer/basketball court in the back with a nice size field. It's also one of the few chapels with an elevator. We don't actually work in the Mission home where President Lindahl lives but we work in an office building that's right next to the Godoy Cruz Centro chapel. It used to be part of the Godoy Cruz Centro chapel but the old chapel burnt down years and years ago but this part of the building wasn't as damaged though they have since remodeled the offices after rebuilding the chapel to a three story brick huge chapel. President lives on the seventh floor of a high rise building as per order of the Area Presidency because they want the mission presidents in Argentina living in safer buildings. All of the guards who work downstairs in President's building know us, the missionaries, and always open the door for us before we get far enough to ring the door bell. They also open the door to the underground garage when we pull up in a car and can't find the remote. It's weird now thinking about President Avila's house and when I showed up at his house, fresh off the plane. I found the picture archived on the Historian's computer (my computer) and saved it to a folder I'll eventually burn onto a CD.
That's really amazing that Mom remembers the Espinosa family so well and that they were such good friends. I'll definitely pass on Mom's e-mail address so they can get in contact. I think the mom of the family still lives in Lujan where there's still sister missionaries there right now. I'm not sure where the sisters live but I'll ask Hermana Rossi when I see her next. Yesterday her husband was called to be the High Priest Group leader of the ward so that was pretty interesting. We almost went to visit her on Tuesday or Wednesday but because of the car accident we didn't get out of the offices very much.
I have one question for Jennifer. While I was working on other things I noticed that the Church came out with some new website called "A Brand New Year" and I was just wondering if she had any activities or dances that had anything to do with that. It looks like the church went all out on the website and everything so I was just curious if it was big in our ward too. It's kind of funny because even though we work in church offices we don't exactly get news very quickly. We didn't hear about Elder Wirthland until someone from Salt Lake called and among other things basically said, "so did you hear about Elder Wirthland?" In other mission news, we've made major progress in making a mission website. It's not posted on the Internet yet but we've basically finished all of the hard stuff. It's mostly going to be for missionaries to send in their weekly letters to President Lindahl but we may expand it if everything works out really well. We had to call in two zone leaders who had HTML experience though in the end we just found a free service that does everything for us. President was pretty excited because it'll save everyone a ton of time which is quite valuable when we already have quite a bit to do. With any luck we'll be able to use it to pick up numbers from Zone Leaders and soon make public websites where we display the weekly newsletter of the mission. I know this will lead to tons of ideas for how we can use the website. Even the church is moving towards an online system called iMOS which will be the Missionary Office System which we use except all much more advanced and all online. It'll have access to records online so we won't have to be constantly updating our records with every change that occurs. It'll also have an electronic system to keep track of missionary transfers and where everyone is. It'll be much more efficient than President's whiteboard which I have to update by hand every six weeks and sometimes more often in the middle of planning transfers. Basically everyone's excited for it to come out and we hope the Browns will be trained on iMOS and not on the old system. They'll probably teach us a thing or two since we haven't had any experience on it yet. Ok, one quick story and then I have to go: this morning I got a call from one of the Zone Leaders who had their Zone Conference today. They couldn't get the projector to work so I was trying everything I could to figure out what the problem was. Finally while explaining everything the Elder said, "should I try one of the other USB ports?" Basically, he was using the wrong plug and I didn't realize it until after trying everything short of reprogramming Windows myself over the phone. He plugged the other cable in and sure enough everything worked. It just reminds me to pay better attention. Well, I hope you all have an amazing week and I love you all!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
Thursday, January 8, 2009
I think we found another one
We received this letter on January 5th. Lawrence actually ran into some people who knew my mom during her mission there!
This is Elder Lambert. He heard about the family’s Christmas gifts and decided to give me this shirt in honor of the occasion and since I couldn’t play…and yes I’m going to get my hair cut today.
This is a Picture of everyone enjoying the fireworks on Christmas.
Thank you so much for your e-mails, love, support, and letters!!! Things have been pretty interesting as usual here in the offices. I also have some interesting news. I was talking with a lady who lives in my new ward of Trapiche and I mentioned that Mom had served a mission here in Argentina. She said, “Well, I’ll talk to my mom and I’ll see if she remembers an Hermana Williams.” I then said, “well back then she would have been the Hermana Beigh.” Her eyes got all big and she said “Hermana Beigh!!! I know Hermana Beigh!” Her name is Graciela and her maiden name is Espinosa. She’s the youngest in her family and said she was about 10 years old when Mom was in Lujan where she used to live. Her sisters’ names are Patricia and Ellie. She said she looked online for missionaries who had been in her branch when she was younger but that she could never find Mom. She even remembered “Lorraine? No…Lorrie!” She still remembers hanging out with those “cool” sister missionaries when Mom was here. I guess that brings the total up to 2 people who really remembered Mom. She said she’d bring pictures when we come by next so I’ll bring some pictures of Mom and I’ll bring Mom’s e-mail address (if Mom doesn’t mind). It’s really funny too because this Sister from church is one of two members of the church who always come with the new missionaries to get their Argentine paperwork taken care of. I guess I never really struck up a conversation with her. I’m glad I started getting to know the members of my new ward as fast as possible. She said Mom’s companion at the time might have been an Hermana Molina so we’ll see if Mom has all of this written in her journal. We’re also in the middle of Zone Conferences so all sorts of interesting things are “coming to pass.” Elder Lauritzen, Elder Miles’s new companion, is starting to get adjusted to missionary life and it’s fun watching his reactions to new experiences. In order to let him try some good Argentine food we took him to Las Tinajas, the giant Argentine buffet and it sounds like he had a good time. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to let him tour more of downtown Mendoza. We’ve been having some good discussions with the members and investigators in Trapiche. Yesterday we helped a member with a flat tire on their car. This is the same member who has given us one of her friends as a reference and it sounds like she wants to be baptized. She wants to wait a while so we’re going to do all we can to help her realize the importance of this message. The gospel is like a giant cake and you can have as much cake as you want. If someone offers you a cake, are you going to say, “well that’s a really nice cake, but I’ll wait a couple of months and then think about eating it.” Wouldn’t it be nice to receive the cake now? The blessings of the gospel are there waiting for us and not just in the fridge :) . All we have to do is reach out and grab them. For many they just need to enter through the door of baptism. There are so many wonderful people waiting for baptism who maybe just don’t understand what baptism really is. It’s one thing to tell everyone, “um, you should probably leave this building,” and it’s something totally different to say, “RUN, THE BUILDING’S ON FIRE!” When we talk about the church and baptism we need to help people understand that their very salvation is at stake and the least they can do is ask God if this really is the truth. If salvation is something even remotely important, I know that God would want us to know the truth about it. I love this church and this Gospel because I know it is true. I know it is true not because it’s easy, comfortable, or just what everyone else is doing. This church is true because we receive the very tools to confront challenges head-on. We need not fear when we know truth is on our side. We need not fear when we know God is on our side. If we can think of no power greater than that of God then there should be no influence in our life greater than that of God. Satan cannot destroy us for God is invincible. We are on His team and in the end, He will win. I love you all and I wish you the best week on this side of the Mississippi!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. Elder Salmon’s family is having the best week on the other side of the Mississippi…He’s from Alabama…that’s on the other side of the Mississippi right?
Getting ready for New Years
I'm playing catch up tonight because we don't have internet access right now. Thank goodness for late-night computer labs at BYU! This letter was sent December 30th.
Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your e-mails, love, and support!!! I loved Lisa's pictures of all of the Christmas festivities and of the birthday party :) . We've been going through a bunch of changes in the offices (yes even more changes) and now I'm reading and responding to e-mails in a Cyber (internet cafe) since President wants us to be more like the other missionaries who work in the field. We're also getting ready for the Zone Leaders meeting in which they'll all meet together and plan a little for zone conferences and receive a little bit of training. We just barely finished transfers yesterday and now Elder Miles has a new companion, Elder Lauritzen (I think that's how you spell it). So now I'm companions with Elder Salmon full time. Two of the four assistants were transferred and replaced with Elder Anaya and Elder Sander who're from St. George and Uruguay respectively. Elder Sander was my Zone Leader and was in my District in San Ignacio. I went on divisions once with him so it's interesting seeing him again. Also, the Asistant who lives with us is moving to another appartment and Elder Romano is moving in in his place. It should be interesting though because supposedly they'll be moving all of the assistants with their junior companions (which makes for a total of 8) into another appartment of their own so they'll all be together. Speaking of big groups, this was a pretty fun group of nuevitos since there were 17 of them. It's interesting getting to know them just a little bit since they were here a couple of extra days. They missed their flight in Buenos Aires so they had to come on a bus to Mendoza. Their luggage also got left behind so they had to have it shipped after they had already gotten there. We've been so busy getting everything ready that we haven't had much time to stop and think but it's been pretty good. It's always a learning experience. It's not exactly something you get to help out with every day of the year. February should be pretty interesting as well since there'll be around 20 who are on their way home. Hopefully none of them miss their flights. Also, we're getting the offices ready for the Browns who are going to be couple missionaries here also in February I think. The technician guy from the Church offices came in to install an extra internet line into Elder Salmon's office for them, but that's enough about the offices.
Today was my first official day in Trapiche even though it's also technically P-day (so I wasn't in Trapiche very long). We ate lunch with some members of the ward who were really friendly and served us Milanesa. They also had a mini argument about whether or not you could see Orion's Belt (as in the constellation) from both the northern and the southern hemisphere. The dad and the daughter disagreed and the daughter kept telling him that's what she read in the book he gave her but still didn't believe her. The mom jokingly told us how important it would have been for us to have studied astronmy so we could have settled the argument. It was also pretty funny because the dad had garment tops on and then proceded to tell us he wasn't a member. It kind of worried me for a second until the wife called him "¡Mentiroso!" (liar). He actually has a calling in the Stake. I think I had seen him before while I was still in San Ignacio. It's pretty funny really because now I've been in San Ignacio, Godoy Cruz Centro, and now I'm in Trapiche. Pretty much I might end up spending time in every single ward in Godoy Cruz before I finish my mission. San Martín isn't exactly all that far away either but I don't mind staying in Mendoza for now. The weather is pretty nice here at the very least (although the summer is indeed on its way). Speaking of summer (and this has absolutely nothing to do with summer) Elder Sean Paddok wrote me a letter that I received this week a couple of days ago and now I'm really excited because the rule has been changed so that we can read letters on days that aren't P-day. President and Hermana Lindahl figured that it makes the Elders more unfocused knowing that they have a letter or package waiting for them than if they just read it and worry about responding on P-day. It sounds like he's doing really well and has already had three baptisms. He said his family had to do a little bit of searching on the internet to find my address so I feel kind of bad that I never left it with them. I am going to write him a letter today though. I was also very proud of him because he told me that he doesn't like the Sith anymore and that he's a Jedi through and through :) . I knew he would go to the light side :) . Elder Ryan Spencer's written me a couple of times but I think we found out that it takes like 2 months for us to get return letters from each other even though he's only in Brasil. I wonder how long letters would take to get to Uruguay if I said "hi" to Aunt China. I guess it might be faster to send a letter with Elder Sander since he's not too far from going home.
Ok, one little funny story: so the Libertad (I don't know if I already told you this) has a card, kind of like Ralphs Club, where you build up points until you can buy things with the points. Well, there was also a deal with Grido Ice Cream in that with 800 points you could get $10 off a kilogram of ice cream (which only cost $20 in the first place). On Christmas eve we bought 4 kilos of ice cream which we shared between 8 Elders and we polished off every last bit of it watching fireworks on the roof. You can probably do the math on how much ice cream we ate. Unfortunately, ice cream is also on sale here in the libertad for about $11 for 3 liters but I shall refrain so that I don't get too fat here in Argentina (besides we have a few coupons left for New Years :) ). Supposedly the fireworks are even better for New Years so hopefully we'll have a good view from the roof tomorrow night (I can't believe 2008 is already basically over). It's been really crazy thinking that I've already turned 20 and been here for over 10 months. I still remember the MTC very well and it brought back such memories seeing Elder Barrow. I still can't believe he really did end up going to my ward after I had kind of jokingly told him to look up my family. I never thought he'd actually end up going to the Carbon Canyon ward. Speaking of Carbon Canyon (and this actually does have to do with Carbon Canyon) the Jarvises were making maps with Google Maps for new missionaries to be able to find the offices easier. They asked me to help them out a little bit so they could put the maps in the binders in an easy to read format. While I was fiddling with Google Maps I found out that they've greatly expanded the "street view" maps. Before long I found out they had a street view of Carbon Canyon and pretty soon everyone wanted to find their house on Google Maps. It was pretty funny because on some streets we went right in front of their house as if you were pretty much in their driveway. At the same time, the google van passed by Elder Jensen's cul-de-sac without even going near it so he couldn't see his house. We also got to see President's house in Utah which was pretty nice. When we went by my house they got to see our lovely Nissan and the Campbells getting into their car as the google van went by. That was pretty weird. Well this has been a pretty unorganized letter but it's really good to hear from all of you and hear how you're doing! I love you all and I thank you again for all taking the time to write to me. Have a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious week! I love you!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. Sorry for not sending any pictures this week but I was caught off guard when they called me into the offices today for a meeting. I'll bring pictures next week!
Dear Family,
Thank you so much for your e-mails, love, and support!!! I loved Lisa's pictures of all of the Christmas festivities and of the birthday party :) . We've been going through a bunch of changes in the offices (yes even more changes) and now I'm reading and responding to e-mails in a Cyber (internet cafe) since President wants us to be more like the other missionaries who work in the field. We're also getting ready for the Zone Leaders meeting in which they'll all meet together and plan a little for zone conferences and receive a little bit of training. We just barely finished transfers yesterday and now Elder Miles has a new companion, Elder Lauritzen (I think that's how you spell it). So now I'm companions with Elder Salmon full time. Two of the four assistants were transferred and replaced with Elder Anaya and Elder Sander who're from St. George and Uruguay respectively. Elder Sander was my Zone Leader and was in my District in San Ignacio. I went on divisions once with him so it's interesting seeing him again. Also, the Asistant who lives with us is moving to another appartment and Elder Romano is moving in in his place. It should be interesting though because supposedly they'll be moving all of the assistants with their junior companions (which makes for a total of 8) into another appartment of their own so they'll all be together. Speaking of big groups, this was a pretty fun group of nuevitos since there were 17 of them. It's interesting getting to know them just a little bit since they were here a couple of extra days. They missed their flight in Buenos Aires so they had to come on a bus to Mendoza. Their luggage also got left behind so they had to have it shipped after they had already gotten there. We've been so busy getting everything ready that we haven't had much time to stop and think but it's been pretty good. It's always a learning experience. It's not exactly something you get to help out with every day of the year. February should be pretty interesting as well since there'll be around 20 who are on their way home. Hopefully none of them miss their flights. Also, we're getting the offices ready for the Browns who are going to be couple missionaries here also in February I think. The technician guy from the Church offices came in to install an extra internet line into Elder Salmon's office for them, but that's enough about the offices.
Today was my first official day in Trapiche even though it's also technically P-day (so I wasn't in Trapiche very long). We ate lunch with some members of the ward who were really friendly and served us Milanesa. They also had a mini argument about whether or not you could see Orion's Belt (as in the constellation) from both the northern and the southern hemisphere. The dad and the daughter disagreed and the daughter kept telling him that's what she read in the book he gave her but still didn't believe her. The mom jokingly told us how important it would have been for us to have studied astronmy so we could have settled the argument. It was also pretty funny because the dad had garment tops on and then proceded to tell us he wasn't a member. It kind of worried me for a second until the wife called him "¡Mentiroso!" (liar). He actually has a calling in the Stake. I think I had seen him before while I was still in San Ignacio. It's pretty funny really because now I've been in San Ignacio, Godoy Cruz Centro, and now I'm in Trapiche. Pretty much I might end up spending time in every single ward in Godoy Cruz before I finish my mission. San Martín isn't exactly all that far away either but I don't mind staying in Mendoza for now. The weather is pretty nice here at the very least (although the summer is indeed on its way). Speaking of summer (and this has absolutely nothing to do with summer) Elder Sean Paddok wrote me a letter that I received this week a couple of days ago and now I'm really excited because the rule has been changed so that we can read letters on days that aren't P-day. President and Hermana Lindahl figured that it makes the Elders more unfocused knowing that they have a letter or package waiting for them than if they just read it and worry about responding on P-day. It sounds like he's doing really well and has already had three baptisms. He said his family had to do a little bit of searching on the internet to find my address so I feel kind of bad that I never left it with them. I am going to write him a letter today though. I was also very proud of him because he told me that he doesn't like the Sith anymore and that he's a Jedi through and through :) . I knew he would go to the light side :) . Elder Ryan Spencer's written me a couple of times but I think we found out that it takes like 2 months for us to get return letters from each other even though he's only in Brasil. I wonder how long letters would take to get to Uruguay if I said "hi" to Aunt China. I guess it might be faster to send a letter with Elder Sander since he's not too far from going home.
Ok, one little funny story: so the Libertad (I don't know if I already told you this) has a card, kind of like Ralphs Club, where you build up points until you can buy things with the points. Well, there was also a deal with Grido Ice Cream in that with 800 points you could get $10 off a kilogram of ice cream (which only cost $20 in the first place). On Christmas eve we bought 4 kilos of ice cream which we shared between 8 Elders and we polished off every last bit of it watching fireworks on the roof. You can probably do the math on how much ice cream we ate. Unfortunately, ice cream is also on sale here in the libertad for about $11 for 3 liters but I shall refrain so that I don't get too fat here in Argentina (besides we have a few coupons left for New Years :) ). Supposedly the fireworks are even better for New Years so hopefully we'll have a good view from the roof tomorrow night (I can't believe 2008 is already basically over). It's been really crazy thinking that I've already turned 20 and been here for over 10 months. I still remember the MTC very well and it brought back such memories seeing Elder Barrow. I still can't believe he really did end up going to my ward after I had kind of jokingly told him to look up my family. I never thought he'd actually end up going to the Carbon Canyon ward. Speaking of Carbon Canyon (and this actually does have to do with Carbon Canyon) the Jarvises were making maps with Google Maps for new missionaries to be able to find the offices easier. They asked me to help them out a little bit so they could put the maps in the binders in an easy to read format. While I was fiddling with Google Maps I found out that they've greatly expanded the "street view" maps. Before long I found out they had a street view of Carbon Canyon and pretty soon everyone wanted to find their house on Google Maps. It was pretty funny because on some streets we went right in front of their house as if you were pretty much in their driveway. At the same time, the google van passed by Elder Jensen's cul-de-sac without even going near it so he couldn't see his house. We also got to see President's house in Utah which was pretty nice. When we went by my house they got to see our lovely Nissan and the Campbells getting into their car as the google van went by. That was pretty weird. Well this has been a pretty unorganized letter but it's really good to hear from all of you and hear how you're doing! I love you all and I thank you again for all taking the time to write to me. Have a Supercalifragilisticexpialidoc
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. Sorry for not sending any pictures this week but I was caught off guard when they called me into the offices today for a meeting. I'll bring pictures next week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)