Week 69

Well to start off, I want to say sorry because I didn’t take pictures this week, woops. But I will say that this week was full of work.

We taught 20 lessons and found 11 new investigadores hicimos 72 contactos, and we invited 4 people to baptism. The only goal we didn’t come close to meeting is investigators in the church.

My new comp is great. He is helping me leave from my comfort zone a little bit more and actually talk to every living soul that walks by us. Some reject us very coldly, some say some crazy stuff about something their pastor told them, but there are a lot that accept to let us come to their house to talk to them. We have a few families that we just barely started teaching that look like they are going to progress really well.

We really didn’t do anything for my birthday. We did drop Angel y Victor. They weren’t progressing anymore, so we had to drop them. Then we went and had dinner with President and the Hermana. We celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary. It’s the same day as my birthday. Then after [that],we ate cake.

Yep, I actually got a sunburn last Monday. [It was the] first time in a long time since I’ve got burnt. It’s probably because I’m in the office all day during the hottest part of the day menos lunes [except Monday].

Well that’s about it. I’ll let you all know how these new investigadores turn out.
Elder Nuevohombre

[As it turns out, Elder Newman did send pictures that he must have gotten from some of the other elders.]

Week 68

Well this week was a lot less stressful. We didn’t have much going on in the office, so me and my new comp were able to leave and get some work done in our area. We were able to find 12 new investigadores.

We did another capilla abierta [open chapel], and we put 3 baptism dates. The thing is none of the people who came lived in our area.
 

I did a little bit more of cooking. I made some fruit leather with some apricots, and I made some baked potatoes rey llenos for my district because none of us had a member to help us out with lunch on Saturday. They were super good, not drowned in oil and not noodles. We need to teach the members how to cook here haha.

Thanks everyone that wished us a happy birthday! I miss you all. hope you are enjoying the snow up there. We could use some of it here. It’s freaking hot!

Love you all,

nos vemos [see ya]
El Elder Newman

Week 67

Well this week was really busy. Like you have seen in the pictures of Presidente, llegaron 30 misioneros [30 missionaries arrived]. I was really stressed out, but at the end everything turned out great.

 
I had to change my clothes after I loaded all the suitcases of all the new missionaries. If you think, we had 30 missionaries, and every missionary has about 3 bags, I had to load and unload 90 or so bags in the truck and take it to the office.

The day they all got here and the next I was literally running around all day. Plus it was transfers, and some people were waiting to go to their area with their new compañeros. So I had a ton of people all over the place for about 3 days, I was talking on my phone constantly. At the end of these three days I had no patience. But now I am doing much better.

I now have a new companion, Elder Ramirez. He is also from Santiago Chile. He lives kind of close to Elder Rosas. I’m thinking that one day I will have to go visit Chile to see all my comps.

We didn’t do much teaching this week either. We got a total of 2 lessons in. We were in our area for about half a day. We had to do a lot of stuff with the 30 new missionaries and the 30 trainers that were here.

When the newbies got here, we had to rent a bunch of rooms in a hotel because there were so many people here. I was able to stay in the hotel to help control all of them and help talk to the workers. It was a fun change, but stressful. I was up till 12:30 that night because I was waiting on my comp (in this moment it was Elder Ortiz) to get back from taking an elder to the hospital, who got here and was really sick. So he got back, and we went to bed. The next day the Hermana Casariego told us we could take a nap.

Well that’s basically it. We spent the New Years in the church. We made some wings with a hot sauce. Well that’s all for now.

Love You All- Elder Nuevohombre

Week 66

Well this week we have done a lot of running around. I helped my comp open a few apartments and move some closetes and stuff like that. We were also trying to help Angel y Victor get ready for their baptism the 25th after church, but they ended up calling us the night before and told us that they weren’t going to be able to come to church. We are going to have to work a lot more with them so that they are actually ready to be baptized.

We also helped a kid that is 9 years old get baptized in San Lorenzo. There aren’t any missionaries there, so we went to teach him the lessons. He was baptized Friday and it was great. He was so happy. I think this little kid will help reactivate his mom and get his family going in the right direccion.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with President and his wife. For a gift the whole office pitched in and we bought them a little leather thing that is used to carry mate and yerba around. They loved it. They gave us a mate and a bombilla (straw). Mine is red and has the migrations symbol on it.

I did a lot of cooking for everyone this week. I made grasshopper brownies, blueberry muffins and some orange julius. Yep, then I did Skype, which was super fun. I can’t believe that the next Skype call will be my last Skype call in the mission. It all has just flown by. I was able to talk a little  with the family of Elder Mendoza. They were super cool. They had a lot of energy and were all super excited to see him. Well that’s basically all that happened this week.

Chao! Elder Newman

DYC 88:22-24

Christmas Zone Conference..

 

 
Christmas Eve at the mission home...

Week 65

Well this week was fun. We had two concerts of Christmas, and we are doing a lot of stuff here in the office preparing for the group of 30 new missionaries that are going to be getting here.
 

We have talked to a lot of people inviting them to the concerts. One day we had an activity in our ward so we went around singing Christmas carols to the members, and we invited all of them to invite one of their friends or someone that wasn’t a member. It worked great, about 11 people came that weren’t members. We talked to all of them, and none of them lived in our area, but the other missionaries are going to go visit them.

We are also going to start up an open house in our ward for the 7th of January. We have a lot of plans and a lot of stuff that we need to do here in the near future.

Well that’s about it.

Love you all,
Elder Newman

Victor and Angel..our investigadores that might get baptized this 24.

Week 64

Well this week we were able to teach a lot of new investigators. We found 11 new investigadores. None of them seem to be too interested in changing their religion.

We have two baptismal dates for the 24 de Diciembre. They are brothers, and they seem to be pretty set on getting baptized, but they don't come to church, ahhhh! It’s the same old story. We have people that would love to get closer to God, but they are afraid of having to do stuff and changing stuff.

Like you saw in the videos and pictures that one sister sent, we are helping sing some songs for a Christmas event that they are going to do. We practiced a few songs yesterday where we have to sing super fast. Hopefully I will be able to keep up. Like I can say the words, but that's all I’m doing. I can’t sing them haha.

Anyway, we had an open church activity in a barrio que se llama San Lorenzo. We put 3 baptismal dates there for the 24 of December also. But there are no elders there, so we being oficinistas, we are going to go baptize and teach them.

We have seen a lot of miracles this month. President made the whole mission a promise that if we all worked really hard, that every companionship in the mission would baptize. He has had some great revelation. For a lot of people investigadores are just falling right out of the sky.

Well that’s about all I have to say for this week.

Love you all - Elder Newman

Week 63

Well not much has happened this week. We have been busy with working in our area and doing office work. I was able to do an interview with a guy named Sebastian to get baptized. He had passed through a lot of trials in his life, and in this moment he is living in a truck of a friend he has. He was super happy to get baptized, and he loves the ward. He feels like he just got accepted into a great big family he has always wanted.

This week we had 14 lessons, which was great. A lot of them were with new investigadores. We also went and did a capacitacion [training] for an open house in a barrio que se llama San Lorenzo [neighborhood called San Lorenzo]. They haven’t had missionaries in their ward for about a year or so. They are great people, but the area is a little dangerous. That’s why there are no missionaries there.

We also went to Heller to help sing. Apparently they think I can sing well or something. Little do they know, I know nothing about music. Well I don’t have anything more to say. Thanks for everything!

Love, Elder Newman

 

[He says he has tennis shoes. He's just wearing his boots right now. Haha.]