10-1-12

HI FAMILY!!!

Things are doing really well. We found 12 new people last week, so that is neat. We are just burning rubber right now, and moving forward. It`s so weird to think that this coming transfer should be my last in Glew. That is weird seeing as how I have been here 1/2 my mission, but a change will be good. The members are doing well, and we are getting really good church asistance right now because it is warming up :) Argentines... The don`t come to church if it`s cold, or rainy. It`s so funny whenever we invite people to church they will say yes, but only if it`s not raining. Lol.
We committed 5 people to baptism this week, so that is cool. All for the 14 and 21 of october. So we should have some baptisms this month. The standard for the mission is two a month. Yesterday, we taught the fifth lesson too! lol. We kind of just yelled at the members to help us, and that we can`t do missionary work alone, but they all got the idea :) I wasn`t nervous yesterday either, first time. Usually if I`m nervous and I have to speak or something, spanish is really hard for me, but I did fine yesterday so that is improvement.
General conference! I am super stoked. Glew is the stake center so all the stake comes to glew to watch it and it`s via satellite. And the stake president is nice, and sets up a room for the english speakers to watch it live. So taht is awesome. It`s always sort of a big party. We all just buy tons of junk food and party. Plus we have 4 chances to get investigators to watch it so that always is awesome too.
Three things I wanted to comment..
1. For Christams, I need more socks... lol. Mine are all holy. (get it :) ) and I need like 15 pairs. Ties are always good too. Plus I want a christmas CD that is the Mormon Tab choir singing with David Archuleta. If you can find it, that would be AMAZING!!! :)
2. Can you send me an absent balet to vote?? Just a question... I would like to vote if I can.
3. There is a member that asked me if I know construction workers that could use help in the states. I thought directly of Clark Flake because he speaks spanish. I said I would ask and try to get his email address or something to put him in contact with Clark. I have no idea if Clark even lives in Vernal, I don`t remember. But yeah.

Well things are going super well. Tiff sent me pics of the NYC trip, it looks like we all had a good time, I was there in spirit :)

Chaocito! Un beso

Elder Gardner

9-24-12

Hey family!!!!

Things are doing AMAZING!!! I`m super happy, and almost 100 percent better with being sick. I still have the trail ends of a chest cold, but almost better :) It doens`t help that one day it`s super nice and hot, and the next day it`s freezing cold with rain and tornado winds. lol. But we`re getting through it :)
We were lucky enough to have a baptism on saturday! She was raised speaking Quetchua, which is the Indian language of Bolivia.  I`ve been told that historians have said that Quetchua and Guarani are the two languages closest to the language that the Nephites and Lamanites would have spoken :) Makes ya think a little. But she is so cute lol. She says the funniest things. Her son is a member thank goodness, and understands Quetchua. He lives in La Tierra de Fuego, which is the most southern part of Argentina, we call it the end of the earth ;)  She asked me to baptise her, so that was a cool experience. After she was baptized, she just looked up at me and said ¨how beautiful!¨ She is so sweet.
On saturday we also were able to find a new investigator!
I am gaining a little weight, but that`s okay, because I was so skinny. Plus it has been winter, so I`ve been hybernating. But once summer starts, I`ll sweat it all off. :)
Well family, things are going well for us here in Glew! The ward is starting to get in action, and we are finding lots of new people. When I first got to glew about 45 people came to sacrement. Yesterday we had 67, and 9 of them were investigators :) So I`m pretty happy right now.
I love ya family! And I hope all is going well.

Elder Gardner

Ps. Look at you guys enjoying life and going to visit Peegs :) Me alegro!!!!!

HAsta luego

 

9-17-12

Hey family!!!

 

Things are going well for us here in Glew. We had a pretty normal week. The first half of the week went really slow... but the last half went quickly and we got a lot of work accomplished. We found a new family of 8!!! So that is exciting. They are from Peru. I hope they cook for us sometime... I love Peruvian food. So that is awesome. Also we have reactivated several inactive members and started them on the path towards the temple. So, that is really awesome as well. I hope you got my email with the photos.

 

Well I`ve been getting a little sick this week, and yesterday I lost my voice completely; today it`s even worse. So that makes a little hard to teach. lol. Luckily today is pday. WE watched ratatouille. I love that movie.

 

Ali sent me an email with her news about her mission. That is soooo cool, Frankfurt Germany!!! That is so exciting, I`m happy for her. She studied three years of German, so she has got a great head start. She leaves in January I think.  

 

My comp is great. He works hard, and we are working well together. He has a really thick Paraguyan accent, so it`s really hard to understand him a lot because they speak horrible. They just yell as quickly as they can with their mouth open and don`t pronunciate anything. But that is thanks to the Guarani, the Indian language that they speak. It`s hard sometimes, but it`s going to train my ear a little better so in the future I will be thankful.

 

I pulled out the short sleeve shirts this week! WOOT! Lol. And then today it was cold... lol. But it`s spring here, officially next week on the 23.

 

Right now I am helping 4 families prepare for the temple :) I am super stoked for that. They were all inactive when I showed up, so it`s a really great feeling. They are all planning for about a year from now. I told them it would be amazing if we could plan our trip and they could all try to go to the temple the same weekend so I could be there with them :)

 

Well fam, I love your guts!!!

 

Chaocito.

 

Elder Gardner

9-10-12

Hey family!!!!

 

So I´m super happy you all had such a great time :) The pictures look amazing, and I can´t stop laughing at the pics with a cut out of my head :) My favorite is the one with taylor swift... :) Did I ever tell you we got her christmas album last christmas to listen to it during the holidays. It was a good couple of weeks!! lol. It sounds like you guys had a lot of fun adventures!!! If you all enjoyed it, I´m glad. It´s been a long time since we´ve had a family vacation! Only a year left, and then we can all be together again. 

So things are going well here! The weekend was AMAZING!!!! Friday, we had the fireside with pres eyring. He is so amazing. He talked for an hour, and then Ballard and Christofferson talked for a half hour each. They were all super amazing. We learned a lot of amazing things. Elder Ballards grandpa was the apostle that iniciated missionary work in South America, and they did it from here in Buenos Aires. And also his son, and his grandson both served here in the south mission. Elder Christofferson served in the Cordoba mission, with Elder Scott as his mission president. lol. So they all had neat connections, and good feelings about Argentina. Elder Christoferson speaks spanish SO well. lol. I´m jealous. I was suprised! I didn´t think that any of them were going to be able to speak, but he did. 

Saturday, we had the cultural event. It was amazing. There were soooo many people there. I got to see people from past areas that I´ve served in, and they were all soooo happy to see me, so that makes me feel good. And I´m happy they haven´t forgoten me. Wow I can´t spell anymore! In the cultural event All the missionaries along with the future, and ex missionaries sang called to serve. It was awesome. And we gave eyring, ballard, and christofferson honorary panchos :) 

The dedication was amazing as well. The talks were great, and the dedicatory prayer was inspiring. I love our prophets and apostles. They are such great examples, and I just love them!

That´s about all the important stuff that happened this last week. Things are going well!! I learned how to make a new dessert. It´s called bizcochuelo. But really it´s just like a really yummy cake without icing. lol. But I make it homemade. mmmm. 

I meant to send pictures today, but I forgot the camera in th epench. sorry!

Love ya fam! Don´t have too much fun without me, kay??

Get me again. 

 

Elder GArdner

9-03-12

I just never know which email to send itto, so I just email both :)
Well This last week went really well!!! I got my hijo, his name is Elder Agüero, and he is from Paraguay, fresh out of the MTC. He is awesoem, he is 19, and served two mini missions, so it`s like I`m not even training. He speaks Guarani, which is the indian language of Paraguay and northern Argentina. So he is teaching me some things as I teach him English. He has a REALLY thick paraguayan accent lol. But that`s okay, it`ll help my spanish come along.
OH!!!! This last week, we had the wedding :) Two of our contacts got married on friday morning. And on friday also, we had his baptism, and the reception as well. It was a realllly busy day. She got confirmed on sunday as well. It was a great week!

My new comp really likes to work, which helps a bunch, so we are getting a lot of great work done and finding new people and stuff. It`ll be a great 3 months! Hopefully we can get a lot more work done before I go.

Well fam, I hope you are enjoying your time in NYC.

Chao!!!

 

Elder Gardner

8-27-12

Hey fam!!!!

Well the big news for this week is I`m not getting transferred... I am staying in Glew until the end of November because I get to train a new elder. I`m excited, and by the end, I will have 11 months in Glew. That almost never happens lol. Everyone in the ward was super suprised I wasn`t leaving. They all made me lunches, and we had tons of dinners too in the week. Yummm. I am super full (especially of pasta). So today I am staying in another area with some other people waiting to train. The new elders don`t come until tomorrow so yeah. We`re just waiting for them to come. I heard that they are almost all latinos because of all of the visa problems with the states. But we`ll see :)
I hit 13 months today! Time is just flying by. by the time I hit 16 months, 11 of them will have been in Glew :) Lol. We for sure will be spending a lot of time here when we come back.
The wedding is this friday! WOOTT!!!! I am so excited for them. And I am so excited that Ï will still be here for it. I was super scared I`d be sent far away and wouldn`t be able to come to it. But even better that Ï just get to stay in Glew. :) Sheesh someone here must be waiting for me to find them.
I`m glad everything went well with the super activity, and am super excited you have the NYC trip. That will be super fun for you. All of us here are just waiting for pres eyring to get here and for the cultural event. That will be super exciting.
Not too much news here. Things are going well.
I love you family! Hasta luego.

Elder Gardner

8-20-12

Hey fam! How was your crazy week in st. george? I hope everything went well, and there weren`t any major accidents. With the singles, there are always accidents, but hopefully nothing huge. Tiff told me that today grandma has surgery, I`m sure you`re busy with that today. Tell her I love her, and I hope everything goes well. I got the package too! I love the tie. It`s real nice. And the chocolate was soooo good. Mmmmmm. Elder Parker and I found nutella in a supermarket today. YEah.... we will be eating well tonight!!! :) It was like 30 pesos though... we still have yet to find peanut butter. BUT! There is a giant supermarket going in next to the pench, it`s called a coto. I think it`s owned by cosco, so we are praying that they have peanut butter :)
So this last week was not amazing... lol.  I talked to president a couple months ago and he said you can be a very obedient,spiritual missionary doing everything right, but in the end people still have their agency. I think I mentioned that last letter, but yeah. It`s so true. I just hope that we are doing everything we can. We are struggling finding new people lately, we`re going to focus on that. Clapping houses! YAY. lol.
We had a ward trip to the temple on saturday. SOOOOOOOO amazing. It`s so pretty. And we had a couple investigators and inactive families come. It was so amazing. I just want to go back. It was such a great experience. I think I would love to do a temple mission with my wife when I`m allllll big and stuff. When are you two headed out on your mission?
NYC trip coming up in what, two weeks!!! Wow. I bet you guys are super excited. I`m excited for ya.
Well that`s about it for the week!I love yea guys, and hope to hear from ya soon.

Chao!

Elder Gardner