3-25-13

I love Hermana Kirk! Yeah she was in my zone in Adrogue. She is super funny. and her accent is awesome. lol. 

Woo! Two talks in one day :) Who do you think I am, a missionary or something??? :) NAh that`s fine. But Just wondering, are there any topics assigned or anything that they want me to speak about?? And let`s not do the dinner thing then, I`m soooooo down with just chilling at the house :) 

It`s cold out there?? It`s cold out here too... sweaters!!! I am using my sweaters again :) All my clothes are starting to get nasty lol. They will last until I get home, but my shirts are starting to turn like a yellow color, and all my pants are ripped, and my shoes are falling apart. lol. Luckily I have that new suit, so I can go to church and have nice clothes and not look homeless. I`m probably going to leave all of my clothes here though... nothing fits anyway all my shirts are made for fat Rhet so I`ll probably just donate my clothes to the mission home or to the ward or something like that if that`s okay with you. I think I`ll take my suits home, and maybe we can get them tailored? The one green suit, I never wore. Maybe once on the mission, but it`s just toooo big. The black one I used every time, until I got the new one, but I`ll probably bring that one home... But I`m just going to leave all my bedding stuff too, my sleeping bag and my pillow and stuff because I won`t need it. 

I did get my package! Sorry I totally spaced about telling you. And FYI I really liked that paisely tie you gave me... lol. So I am switching it out for another ugly tie that I don`t want and then keeping that one :) The other red one... yeah.... that one is ugly. :) Did you get those from DI or something?

A new weight set sounds awesome! I`m going to have to start exercising when I get home to not get fat again... here we walk all day long so I don`t really worry about it... 

Well I love you guys, and we`ll talk next week!

 

Rhet

 

PS They asked me what airport I am going to fly home to today, I`m telling them Vernal for sure. 

PSS They are havingt problems getting the paperwork to renew my visa before I go home. Hopefully they get it all worked out before we go home. IF I leave illegally, I either can`t enter the country for ten years, or we`ll have to go to the Argentine consulate and pay him like 300 dollars... so hopefully they get it worked out before I leave. 

 

3-18-13

Hey family!!!!

So things are going super well :) I love my new area, my new comp, and the ward! This ward is having a lot of success right now, so it´s a good change from ______. The ward actually works. It´s weird. The first counselor is a very strict person, but that´s why the ward works I think. This is the first ward I´ve been in with ward missionaries that actually know how to work and DO work. The ward mission leader got home from his mission a month ago... so he knows exactly what to do. He is actually talking to me a lot lately because he wants to go to the U of U to study medicine. I told him we should room together :) 

So this week we were able to help _______ get baptized. I just met her this week, but she had only received two lessons, so we finished teaching her the lessons, and got the interview done and taken care of, and she got baptized yesterday after church. She has 16 years, and is a really smart girl. She asked me to baptize her, so yeah, I can´t complain about the week! 

This next sunday, we have a special stake conference and it´s directed by an apostle, and then in May Elder Cook is coming to our stake center for another special stake conference. This stake is one of the only stakes where the members know how to work. It is a well knownn fact about the stake, and it has a lot of success because of the members. I don´t know if it´s because the mission president belongs to this stake, or if it´s just because they are awesome. But either way, I´m glad to be here. It will be a good place to finish my mission. 

There is a couple in our ward that are from St. George! Lol. Funny right? The dad is from here, from this stake, and went to study in Utah and met his wife there. They come here and live here for 3 months every year and so they are here right now. They are super cool though. they kept running up to me yesterday to talk. I think they miss speaking in English or something. 

I don´t know about the dinner thing. It´d be nice, but a lot of work and stuff. I´m going to be super tired too. Plus when would we do it? After my homecoming talk? And from which ward? 

 

Love you guys! We´ll talk next week.

 

Elder Gardner

3-11-13

Hey family!

So I have news! I did get transferred, and I got a new comp. I am now in an area called Parque Baron, in the zone Banfield (where the mission home is). I`m excited for a new area, and I`ll be here until I go home more than likely. My new comp is Elder ________ from Chile. He goes home one transfer before me, so we`ll probably both end up dying here in this area. He`s super nice. It`ll be a good transfer I think. Right now, this area is having a lot of success so we`ll see how it continues!

 

This last week my old comp  had his parents come visit him because they were traveling in Buenos Aires, and they took us to lunch :) YUMMY! We ate really well, and they were super nice. They live in Cancun right now, and told me I for sure have a place to stay if I ever want to visit :) His parents are musicians; the mom sings, and the dad plays guitar. They are REALLY good. That`s why they were here in Argentina, they were invited to do a tour here. 

Pics are super hard right now because the computers here are a mess, and they are full of viruses so I have to be reallllllly careful. Two weeks ago I tried again, and it erased ALL of my pictures. Luckily you guys sent me two jump drives so I had to copies of all mypictures, but it was a mess.... and it freaked me out. So yeah. I will get them to you asap. Is pres mcclellan the new stake pres in the stake? Who are his counselors?

 Saying goodbye to everyone in Adrogue, everyone made me promise them that I will come back, I told them in Octubre we are planning our trip. And they are all excited to meet you guys. How many days are you planning on staying? Don`t forget that two days of those will be traveling. Have you already started you papers for your pasport? It would be best to have them all done before I get home so we can just book the flights and hotels and be done and not have to worry. 

That`s awesome about ______ :) He will love it. That is so crazy about ________ already being home. Ic an`t believe it still.

Wow another one of my comps went home today. Elder _______ left. That is soooo weird for me. In 4 days, I will be home in 4 months! Super crazy. 

I`m feeling a little better, but I still have a stupid cold. It`s been like 5 weeks now... BOO! I bought new scriptures for me in Spanish. My others ones have been destroyed, so I wanted new good ones for me to take care of and bring home. 

Well I love you guys, and will talke to you next week :)

 

Elder Gardner

3-4-13

Hey family!!!

So this last week was a long one, and a short one. ha ha. All of our investigators dropped us, or we dropped them. So that was kind of a bummer... But we still have a good view of things and aren`t dragging our feet at all. The week went super quickly! I have no idea why, but it just flew. I spent a couple of days doing missionary exchanges with my district, so that could be why. But it was fun! On saturday, we got together as a zone to help one of our companionships find new investigators by doing a ¨white storm¨ and just all going to their area and doing contacts for the whole day. They got 41 references :) I think they`ll have some work to do for next week :)

Elder Siler and I are doing well. He is super awesome, and is a great elder. He really helps me a lot. This is the last week of the transfer though, and I kind of feel like I`m leaving. I only have three trasnfers left, so if I don`t leave this trasnfer I`ll probably die here with 9 months in the area. Or I could leave this trasnfer and have 4.5 months in Adrogue, and 4.5 months in the new area. Who knows though, just depends on what Pres thinks! Next trasnfer, 29 people leave the mission, including president and his wife,and 2 senior couples. Then the trasnfer after, when I leave, another 20 leave. So yeah, like 1/4 of the whole mission is leaving in two months! Crazy. There will be a lot of changes with new missionaries, and a new president! I will be with the new president for 15 days lol. The only time I will see him is my exit interview lol so that will be a little weird.

The economic inflation is kind of hard right now on the missionaries. Everything is like 3x`s the prise as when I gothere. I bought a bag of bread today and it was 16 pesos, and 4 bananas was 14 pesos. It is crazy. A bag of milk (milk is in one liter bags here) is 7 pesos. It`s rediculous! I bought sandwhiches today for us four elders, and then dessert to make for our activity on friday, and it was 200 pesos! That sucks a lot when we are only allocated 800 pesos a month. But supposedly atthe end of this month we will be getting a raise :)

Wow, I can`t wait to be able to drive again, and have a car... When I first got here taking the bus andtrain was cool and fun, and exciting because it was something new. BUT now itjust takes up SOOOOOOOOOOOO much time... it`s rediculous... Just going shopping takes soooo much time because you have to wait for the bus, go shopping, and then wait for another bus, and take it back. It takes like 2 hours. You guys will notice that when you get here! We`ll be traveling like an Argentine :)

Well I love you guys a lot, and I hope you are all doing well :) Talk to you next week!

Elder Gardner

PS Thanks Dad for handling that stuff! That helps a lot :)