12-31-12

Hey family!!

So things are going super well. It is pouring rain again as we speak, so that means more floods. Hopefully it`s not too bad. The heat today was terrible, and it sucked with having transfers today and having to haul all of my comps stuff to the mission home. I got my new comp Elder Siler. HE is from Colorado. He`s super cool, and really shy. His trainer was an elder in my MTC district. lol. That`s kind of cool. Elder Siler is still pretty new, and this is his first transfer. Imma break him in ;) Luckily, the senior couples that I skyped at their house are realllllly nice, and they brought his lugguge for us so we didn`t have to bring it on the train. That was soooooo nice.
I didn`t get to sleep last night until like 2 AM, so I am super tired. All of the elders from the coast had to travel yesterday, and they all stayed in our apartment. So we had like 8 people in the pench last night, and yeah. We didn`t sleep much. So I am beat today. Luckily, it`s new years eve and we can`t work tongith because of the danger and all of the fireworks and alcohol. So we just have to stay in. I`m going to make tacos, and then go to bed.
You got me excited about the Nauvoo trip! That sounds like a lot of fun. Out of all your years in the singles ward, I haven`t been able to go on one super activity. And this one will be super fun. I was thinking though, because I just love amusement parks so much, that when you are going to the amusement park, that I just go hang out with Tiff. I think I would like that better. I`d be able to do that right? Just an idea. I could use a brother sister date.
I`m glad you didn`t cry mom :) One thing I did notice from all of you though is how strong your Utah accent is. lol I love it. I had no idea how strong it was! But being away for so long, I am just now realizing it. Elder Sorenson said he couldn`t understand you guys lol. Well mostly Grandpa Gardner, you guys he could understand at least. When he said that I just started singing country songs to him.
Marcela and her family are doing well. We have an appointment with her son this week to work with him for baptism. So that will be good.
Well I love you guys lots! And I`ll talk to you next week :)

Elder Gardner

PS What are your guys` thoughts about school for me? do you think that it would be better to wait until January, or push it and dive in for August? I`d like your input.

12-24-12

Hey fam fam!

So this last week was kind of slow, but still crazy. We don`t have too many people to teach, and we can`t even get in with many of the members so that makes for some long days some times. But things are going well. We are coming up with some new plans for the ward that should go really well. So we`ll see :) We had another rainy day this week, but twice as bad as the one from the week before. It rained, but right as it started raining, like immediately there was like 6 inches of water in the streets. We walked just from the church to the apartment, only like 6 blocks, and we were SOAKED. My shoes are pretty much destroyed lol. Good thing I have two pairs. But the streets just turned into rivers, and the actual river that is in our area raised 30 feet and flooded ALL the houses near. Including the three members` homes... so we had some service to do this week. One member completely lost his house and all of his belongings and had to move out. Another member was a little more prepared and the water just entered and then left without destroying anything. The other one lives on teh banks and the house was just a mess. It went up to MY waist so it was about 3.5 feet high in the house, and just filled the house with mud. It was a mess. We just cleaned in the house for like 4 hours on wednesday.
On saturday we did do our FHE and made crikey burgers. They were sooooo good. We grilled burgers, and pineapple, and had teryaki sauce and fried eggs and everything. Mmmmm. It was sooo good. I felt at home :)
The family with the lady that we just baptized, we visited on tuesday and they said that when they got back from church after the baptism their 18 yr old son asked if the mom actually got baptized, then double checked if his sister and dad were baptized too, when they all said yes he was like THEN WHY HAVEN`T YOU BAPTIZED ME YET! So we`re going to start teaching him after christmas :) That was cool.
Elder Sorenson and I are having a lot of fun together, maybe a little too much :) But he is leaving on monday so I`ll be getting a new comp.
We decided tomorrow I will call you guys with skype at 11 our time, which is 7 your time, (I think). Double check. And then I`ll have like 40 minutes with you guys and try to skype with tiff and nick too. We`ll see. But that is the plan. Sorry it`s so early but it`s the only time we have because we`ll be at the mission home all day. Elder Mayer is one of the senior couples serving right now in our ward and he spoke in sacrement meeting yesterday about all of their family traditions for christmas, and it made me miss you guys lots! They talked about all the yummy food, and about doing the natiity scene and everything lol. I laughed.
Well I hope you have a merry christmas, and we`ll talk tomorrow!!!!!!!!

Chao

Elder Gardner

12-17-12

Hey family!!!! So things are doing well. This weekend Marcela did get baptized :) She told us we have 2 months to baptize her other son, because she wants to make it in the temple when she hits a year as member. So that is cool :) That family is amazing. We will definitely be visiting them when we come back. So a Uintah Basin barbeque sounds soooo good. Sooooo good that my comp and I were talking about it last weekend, and we planned a huge FHE party at the church for this week. We are making Crikey burgers :) We are splurging... We`re going to do burgers, with grilled pineapple, fried eggs, bacon, cheese, teryaki sauce, and with veggies. I am SO excited. :) We`re doing that on saturday with Leo and Marcela and their family and friends.
So, SURPRISE! I got a new companion. So you guys remember how I live with all of the office elders, well my comp Elder Romanella got called as the new apartment coordinador for the mission, and so he just switched places with one of the office elders who was finished training the new secretary. So now my new comp right now is Elder Sorenson, he is from San Diego. It`s kind of really nice to have a white comp again after so long lol. But yeah, he is cool.
So the last two weeks in church, I`ve had to play the piano during sacrement. I`ve actually gotten a lot better at the piano since I`ve been here. I`ve learned a lot of hymns. So that`s cool. Also yesterday I taught the lesson in priesthood.
We found two new really awesome investigators this week. They went to the church where the assistants are because they want the elders to rent their apartments, so we went by, and taught them. They are awesome.  We started teaching about adam and eve, and she basically just recited second nephi chapter 2 without ever reading it. She is super prepared. She, and her son both want to get baptized on the 29 of diciembre. So that would be super awesome. :) We are still just doing a lot of walking around, doing contacts, and looking for old investigators and inactive members. It`s tiring, but that means I am able to sleep REALLY well at nights :)
So the new date for me coming home is for sure the 15 of July. Did you get an email too? Or just me? That is crazy. And yeah, I`m happy you guys want to come back in the spring :) It will be so much better.
So for the christmas call, I think we are going to do it tuesday morning. I`ll call you about 11 AM our time, so like 8 AM your time. The mission president invited my comp and I to eat at their house to eat for christmas dinner so we`ll be there all night, so I think morning will be best.
Tell grandma I love her a lot, and thank you so much for the letter, and for the christmas stuff. I love the tie! I wear it all the time :) It is a realllllly nice tie.
I`m going to try to send more pictures, we`ll see how they turn out. The computers here suck so it makes it a little difficult. But I love you guys lots, and I hope all is well!!!

Elder Gardner

12-10-12

HEy family!!!!

So this week was a pretty chill week. It was extremely hot on monday through wednesday, then thursday it just POURED. The rain was litterally like 5 inches in all the streets. So we got a little wet that day. And of course it was the day that we didn`t have any appointments :) But it was fun to play in the rain a little bit. That is so crazy about Jade! I`m so happy for her. You should invite her over again for the christmas call, that is if she wants to. We`re trying to figure it all out, we should know for next week how it is all going to go, and when and stuff. I`m thinking about doing it tuesday the 25th about 10 or 11 for us, so like first thing for us. That would be like 7 or 8 for you guys. But we don`t know our Christmas schedule here yet and when we are working and stuff, so when I know, I will let you know :) I am excited to see you guys and chat a lil bit. If you can`t get it figured out, Coco and Nick will be there with you guys right? And then I can just call tiff apart from you guys after or something. Because the last time when you called her and then put it in front of the screen, I couldn`t see or hear anything lol. I`m thinking that we`ll just go to a cyber cafe to call you guys, so we can do it at the same time, and not have to bug the members here. But we`ll see. I don`t know if many cyber cafe`s here have webcams.
That`s too bad you`re sick dad! I hope all is getting better. Get eem a priesthood blessing :) I don`t know if I`ll be able to give preisthood blessings in english! I was thinking about that the other day about teaching and giving talks and stuff in english is going to be really weird and hard.
So last night, we had a party in the pench lol. We made tacos, and a really yummy cake. It was a good sunday :) On tuesday as well we did an FHE with an amazing family and their friends. I made tacos for them, and they LOVED them lol. WE made a ton too, so they were eating tacos all week last week :) I love cooking! More than cooking, I love cooking for other people :) Too bad I`m not rich enough to cook always for everyone else. It was an elders birthday too, an elder in my district, so I made everyone french toast, with dulce de leche on top with bananas. MMMMMM. It was delightful.
Wedneday was ¨milagro miercoles¨ we haven`t had like any work for us to do except touching doors, but on wednesday we got a reference for a person who has already received all the lessons, she just lacks the actual baptism, and we found two more people that day and they both said they`d get married. We were actually looking for her husband, he`s a member, but we couldn`t find his house because the addresses here in Argentina are soooo screwed up. So we were just wandering around looking for it, and a woman yells hey! Are you the mormons? And I look at her house number, and it is the house we were looking for. It turns out that she is the wife of the member we were looking for, but he died like 9 months ago. But she said that yeah she would get baptized and loved the change the church made on her husband. So that was a good day :) We`ll see if the luck keeps going with them.
Marcela (the mom in the family that we made tacos for on tuesday), is going to get baptized on saturday. That family is amazing. They are so humble, and they just love the elders.
NEWS! So I asked the office elders if we have to pay for my plane ticket home if you guys come and pick me up, they said no; that the church will pay for it. Just so you guys know. I don`t know if you guys want to come in the middle of the winter, or wait until spring and be able to enjoy everything. I would prefer to wait until spring to be released, and then we would be able to go to the beach and stuff. But it`s totally up to you guys. But if you want to come pick me up, I have to know like now to let the church offices know to when to buy my plane ticket. And you guys would have to organize the hotel and everything. It`s totally up to you guys, whatever is best for you, but I would prefer to wait.
I loved the christmas picture :) You guys are looking good! Well I hope all is well, and I`ll talk to you later :)

Chao!

Elder Gardner

12-3-12

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey I hope you have a good birthday today :) Imma eat mcdonalds to celebrate your birthday for ya, deal?

This last week was very eventful. It was a little tough too, no one wants to let us in! So we do a lot of tracting. But a lot of working is not a bad thing :) Luckily we had lunches this last week. The week before we had none. We had dinner twice too, thanks to an amazing family. They`re called the family Gamboa. They always share food with us. She is teaching me how to make empanadas. Hers are sooooooooo good. Mmmm. That`s like all I have eaten since I`ve gotten here to Adrogue is just like empanadas and pizza. I could use some veggies and fruit. BUT I found a blender in my pench so Imma start making smoothies for breakfast.
On wednesday we had Elder Giovani of the seventy come and do the mission tour. After the training meeting, he wanted to work with some elders. And the closest area is the area where the church is, or rather the area Adrogue... so on wednesday we just got to go work for a little bit with a member from the quorum of the 70. That was really cool. Him and his wife came to visit the familia Gamboa with us. They were supposed to come visit our pench and stuff too but there just wasn`t enough time... darn it! ;)
How were the holly days? Are you guys all ready and prepared for christmas alone with coco? That will be fun for you guys. They aren`t sure yet what they are going to do about transfers. Pres doesn`t like the idea about changing the dates, but we`ll see what happens. It`s so nice living with the office elders! I get all the news first :)
That is so crazy that Layken, and Sara, and all of them are coming back from their missions! I was with them in the MTC! That is nuts.
Is it cold now in Utah? It should be winter winter :) And here we are just getting hotter and hotter!
Well I hope all is well, and that you are all happy and healthy! Talk to you soon!!!

Elder Gardner