March 2, 2010

Hey Family,

So to start off I will answer Jenna´s question and yes I got the e-mail with the new e-mail address. So ya, crazy stuff with the earthquake in Chile. With almost everyone we talk to, in the streets or in their homes, we talk about the earthquake. It was pretty scary. I was lucky to be out here in San Luis. The first night I didn´t feel a thing. I just got a call from the assistants saying that Chile got an earthquake of 8.8 and Mendoza 6.6. Everything is fine in Mendoza. Nothing really got damaged except for the old buildings. It was worse in the northern part. Like Salta, Jujuy and Tucumàn. The night after the earthquake I woke up and my bed was shaking and I looked down from the bunk bed and elder mendoza was out and not moving and it moved for like 5 seconds more. it was a pretty big (oh i dont know how to say it in english) it is temblor i think in is tremble. where it is not an earthquake but it is shaking a little. i have felt them a lot before, especially in san juan but that was the strongest one that i felt. i just feel so bad for all those people in chile. the last i heard is a couple of the chileans here in the mission have not been able to contact their families. i hope they can contact them soon. i havent seen much about the earthquake. you all probably know more then me. but i saw some of the videos in a members house the other day. it looks horrible. i wish we could all just go over to chile and help them out for a while. it is so sad. briges falling down and buildings destroyed. i hope everything will be recovered quicly.

So bryce, i dont know if argentina has any winter sports teams. i really didnt even know the olympics were going on right now. so that answers your question that they dont talk about it a lot. they are more of a summer olympics i think. they play volleyball, soccer and basketball. mainly soccer, a lot of soccer. Wow, you are 17 years old. when i left home you were 15 years old. that is crazy. i still just think of you like a little 15 year old punk. hurry and get your eagle so you can start driving. if you arent driving your senior year that will be sad. you said you were going to send me some pictures of the day when you went up to play in the snow up in payson. what happened? have a good time in school and be safe amigo.

So, this last week was really good with elder mendoza. we are starting to learn the area and we have a baptismal date for the 13th of march. we are looking pretty good. we just have to start with the divisions with the zone. there are a few areas that need to find some more people so we have some pretty busy weeks coming up. with baptismal interviews and divisions and our own area. we can do it though. so, on wednesday we traveled to mendoza for the meeting with president lindahl. it was an awesome meeting. we talked about how we can better our mission and we set a goal for march. we set a goal for 101 baptisms in march. the most the mission has baptized in one month is 103. so we are getting up there. i hope we make it. we just have to work really hard. after the meeting we all went to president lindahls house to eat. oh it was so good. the sister lindahl made tacos. TACOS. they were so good. we had tacos and some other stuff. with jello and whipped cream. but to top it off she made texas sheet cake. it was like exactly the same. it was so good. i havent had anything so good in the past year and a half. i loved it.

on sunday we have interview with president lindahl. it was really good. he talked to be about setting goals and that right now is the time i need to learn how to do it. about setting, achieving, celebrating and going back to setting. it was really cool. he knows a lot about achieving goals. lets just say he has a little bit of money. but interviews were great. after the interview elder mendoza and i had to go to san luis for a meeting with president lindahl and the stake presidency. i am not going to lie. it was pretty intimidating. a mission president, stake presidencey and 4- 20 year old kids. ha ha. they are a really good stake presidency. they are really actually trying to turn around there stake. us missionaries have a lot of work to do also to help them out. it was a really good meeting.

zone conference was pretty good. they talked about how we can better our teaching and ways we can do it. we did a lot of practices and it was pretty fun. when they said that we were doing practices a new missionary named elder Redd turned all red and was freaking out. good thing he didnt get called on. but i am not going to lie. it is pretty scary. in front of thirty missionaries and your mission president practicing the lessons in spanish. it is not my favorite thing to do. but you have to do what you have to do.

today for pday we are here in san luis. we are going to actually try to find the water fall this time. i will take some pictures and send them this week. i dont have the thing to send pictures.

well that is pretty much all that happened this week. i hope mom that you feel better and that everything goes well this week. happy late birthday bryce and josh. i love you all. les quiero un montòn.chao chao.

elder smith