Week 16

Well I can’t remember much of this week. Me and Elder Rosas were getting along great, like always, and our investigators were awesome. We found some really good people, and then bang, I had an emergency transfer that I didn’t want. It wasn’t because of our ward. They were just shifting missionaries.

I’m in Zapala right now. Elder Rosas is still in Allen and probably wishes I was still there to guide him. Now I’m here, not knowing where anything is, with a comp that didn’t try to learn his area very well. He has had 4 weeks here and couldn’t find the cyber cafe where we write every week. He doesn’t talk much either to me, which is hard for me learning Spanish. I understand everything, but I can’t speak very well.

Saturday was my first day of real work here. We walked all day, had one lesson late at night, wasn’t successful at all, had a huge dog sicced on me, and it was raining most of the day. The next day was better.

We have a dog named Misionera. She follows us to all of our appointments and waits for us to go to the next one. She is a cool dog. She isn’t scared of anything too. She chases dogs that could eat her in three bites. It’s weird, but cool.

I’ve fixed almost everything in our pension and cleaned it pretty good. It’s a mess and has a lot of broken crap that missionaries for some reason have kept. Our neighbors are pretty cool. They gave me the stuff to fix our toilet and our sink. This place needs some elders who care. Other than that, not much. I can’t remember names, but yesterday we got like 4 baptismal dates! :)

Elder Newman

On my way to Zapala...

My new comp. is Elder Martinez. He is from Buenos Aires.

Happy Birthday Elder!!

Week 15

Well this week was good until Sunday. Our investigators are doing great. We have 21 investigators that we teach regularly, but none of them come to church, which was a blessing this Sunday. We think we will have at least 3 people that will accept a baptismal date this next week, so that’s good. Javier is a cool investigator. I like visiting him, but we need to change completely how he thinks, which is going to be the big task. He likes to teach, so I learn something from him every time I go there.

New Years was good. My comp was a little sick so we didn’t really do anything. The rest of the week was all good.

Now about Sunday.. The week previous, the bishop was gone and his counselor wanted to call a meeting. In this meeting he started talking bad about other missionaries and started telling us that what we were doing was not right. He was telling us exactly opposite of what we learned in the MTC. If we did what he wanted us to do, our investigators would feel no love from us and not much would get accomplished. He basically told us to be robots. Apparently he didn’t like that we told him if he ever has a problem with a missionary that he needs to talk to the Presidente about us, because that is how it is supposed to be done. He talked to his family about this meeting, and then this Sunday his daughter stood and instead of baring her testimony she went off about how the missionaries are hypocrites and how she wasn’t going to attend church anymore because of us. Luckily only one of the sisters’ investigators was at the meeting. I think it hurt her. She even looked sad at the end of the meeting. But we have family night with them tonight so hopefully we can fix this. And I think the reason the Bishop didn’t stop her during her testimony is because he doesn’t like us either. A couple weeks ago his wife asked us to visit a lady that is way out of the way of our investigators and out of our area. So we told the President of the Quorum of Elders about this so he could have someone visit her because she is the wards responsibility. The next week when she [the Bishop’s wife] asked us if we visited her, we told her what we did; and I guess she didn’t like that, because ever since then she has shunned us. And normally we write [email] in the Bishop’s office because we don’t have to pay for the time on the computer, and the computer is nicer. But this week and from now on, we can’t because the kitchen was dirty....we (the missionaries) don’t use the kitchen, and when we are with the group of YM and YW that use it we clean everything. It was just an excuse for him to do something about us. He also called for an emergency transfer for the missionaries. The whole bishopric doesn’t like us, but everyone else here loves us. And if we have to leave, we leave all of our investigators that are all progressing. This bishopric is living in apostasy, and its hurting the people in the area. I wish I could speak enough Spanish to call people out and bring them to repentance, but I can’t and it’s probably a good thing. We are trying to resolve the situation with the President’s help.

I love you!
Elder Newman

My study time. I use four different books at the same time.

It rained a ton one day and all the streets were like a river.

Week 14

Well not too much to say this week. It is stinking hot here. We can’t get any lessons taught, and I don’t know why. Like they tell us to come back at a different time, and when we do come back, they are busy...tis the season. We did talk to a few people, but nothing super amazing...

Ernesto is tough. We can’t teach him. It’s like impossible. We start a lesson, and he starts talking about other stuff. I don’t know what we are going to do with him.

Miguel Angel and his Mom are great, it’s just hard to find a time when they are actually home. They are some very busy people, but they really do want to hear the gospel.

[We are teaching English and French here.] First we just started teaching English, but I’m the only one who speaks English, so I’m the teacher in that class. And then I kept hearing about people that love French and want to learn it, so I offered to teach it. I found a book and am starting with the basics. We’ve only had one class, and not very many people showed up. But they all told me they were busy. My next class is in 2 weeks on Friday.

Not much more than this.

Week 13 Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Navidad! I don’t have too much time to write today. We only get 30 minutes this pday.

A lot has happened, some good, some bad. Patricia doesn’t want anymore leccions, and Ernesto hasn’t come to church. We have found a lot of people that we need to visit, and a lot of them seem happy to let us talk to them.

We have this new investigator named Linda. She is 18 and is very stubborn. I don’t know how it will work out, but I’m hoping for the best.

My new comp is pretty cool and a little nerdy. He has magic cards, and he does a lot of magic tricks, mainly with cards. I’ve learned a few, and I’m also learning piano a bit from him.

When is a good time for Skype, and what day?

We are having a lot of fun! Yesterday we had a Christmas actividad en la capilla [activity at the church]. And we dressed up in anything we could find to look like shepherds and kingsmen.

How are you Rusty and otras amigos [other friends]? Oh y feliz cumpleaños madre! [and Happy birthday mom!]

 

 

 

 

Week 12

Well this week was a little better. I was positive that Ernesto was coming to church with us, but we walked to his house and he wasn’t even there. Oh well, maybe next week.

It was transfers today. My new compañero is Elder Rosas. He was Elder Cardenas comp antes me. So i bet he will be great. It was really sad to me to say good bye to Cardenas. He is a really great friend.

We were actually able to teach leccions this week. We have 3 new investigators. One is Patricia. She loves to study religion, which is great because she will let us teach her. Another family is a single mother with a son about my age, and he has sckitzofrenia, or however you spell it. (Spanish is so much easier to spell with, it is great :).

We also had Elida come to church, which was super great. She hasn’t been to church for I think 4 years.
We also have a pretty cool other guy we teach, but he is only in Allen when he works. He knows a lot about ancient people, which is cool because I remember a lot about that stuff from classes I’ve had in school. And scouting is really going to help me out here, because he wants to have a competition in his shop...who can start a fire the fastest using primitive tools. I am so excited to beat him. Haha.

Also I have a less active member that wants to play me at pool because I destroyed Elder Cardenas at it and she loves pool. It’s like baseball to me, but pool for her. It’s going to be fun.

That’s about it.

The score for chess between me and Elder Cardenas finished at: 6 me, 12 for Elder Cardenas.

Elder Newman

Saying goodbye to Elder Cardenas.

 Hello to Elder Rosas from Chile.

Week 11

Everything is well here. This is my compañeros final week of his mission, and he will be able to spend Christmas with his family. My Spanish has its good days and bad days. It depends on how many new words the person spits out.

The other day we were walking down the street and two drunk guys wanted to talk. They had taken lessons before, but they just wanted to chat with us. They were really animated, and it wasn’t too bad. They loved American movies, and all they know of America is from those movies. It was kind of scary when one of the guys closest to us grabbed the knife that was on the table to try and describe a sentence I didn’t understand, but all was well.

Christmas doesn’t seem close here because it’s super hot and getting hotter every day.

We still have Ernesto as an investigator, but we weren’t able to teach him this last week because he was sick. But we have high hopes for him considering as of right now he is our only investigator.

We walk all day to the houses that we have. We have had people talk to us and say yes to listen to a leccion, but we are lucky if we get to teach one any day of the week. We work a lot with non-active members. I bet I go though a few pairs of shoes on my misión.

I was able to help a guy out with his car. The cars here are different, but basically the same. He was having trouble with his breaks, and when he would go to stop, it wouldn’t stop fast and it had a squeaking sound. Sounds pretty simple for me, but for him he couldn’t figure out why because he replaced the front breaks two years ago. We went for a little drive. I figured it was the back breaks so we set up a day I could do service. We took off the driver’s side. It seemed ok, probably could use new pads, but nothing really bad....but we took the other side off, and there was so much rust where the shoes connect together. No wonder it had a hard time stopping because only one side could actually move to stop the car. I did the best I could with explaining what he needed to do with the car, but I don’t know the words so it was really hard.

I’m glad everyone is safe at home, hope you’re having fun. I can’t wait to see you on Christmas.

Oh, another thing, every time I see a flagpole, I look up thinking to see the American Flag, but it’s a big letdown not to see it. I’m still a proud ‘Merican .

Love, Elder Riley Newman

This is the family whose car I helped fix.

This is mate. The people here love it.

Week 10

Well not too much to say this week. We have Ernesto still, and he said he would come to church with us next week. But he invited us into his house, and it was clear to see by the things he had laying around that it is going to be hard work. His home reminded me of the back room of the [old milk ] barn where the toilet is. But the barn was cleaner than what he is living in. I feel so bad. I wish I could do something for him about that. Rusty would have hated it. There were so many spiders in there. Where I sat down, I could have reached out and touched three spiders. I hope I can help him out with the gospel.

My Spanish is much better. I understand the basics of every conversation and can usually respond. The gift of tongues is real! Now I just need to get my English down. Haha.

Also I had to give two leccions this last Sunday. One was with the whole ward because it was the 5th Sunday, and the other was the Gospel Principles classe. I did ok. The members here are really good about helping me with Spanish.

A few days ago I started to use the diary that the mission gave me as a "learning book", because I always say you learn something new every day. I also write in it one thing I’ve seen the Lord’s hand in each day.

Also I haven’t won another game of chess yet, but every match there are like four pieces total left on the board. [My companion] is really good. Not really much else to say. That’s all for now. Glad everyone is ok at home.

Love you all.
-Elder Nuevohombre jajaja
[A lot of people have a hard time saying Newman and Riley, so they like it when I tell them it’s okay to call me Nuevohombre.]

The straw thing is what they use to drink mate. A member gave it to me even though we can’t drink mate here.

 A kid that is not a member or an investigator gave me this (lentes).

We have the nicest pension in the mission. We even have A/C.