5-28-12

Hey Fam!

Today, I am sick again... I am just exhausted, and sore everywhere. Nothing to worry about, but I`m down in energy. I`ll get back up and going soon. We have asado (realllllly good meat) planned for us tonight, so I hope I feel well enough to eat it!!!

Thanks for the birthday wishes, I got the packages. All 4! From you two, the sisters, my friends, and aunt peggy. It was super nice and thoughtful, thanks!! Over all I got 4 new awesome ties. Ties are the best things ever, I didn`t think I`d ever say that! The jerky was real good, I`m eating a lot, and sharing a lot. Everyone isn interested in trying elk jerky. It did have some mold parts, but I just ripped them off.

This week was a slow week, We didn`t get to work too much because of so many meetings, and activities. They`re dividing our ward into two wards hopefully next month, so yesterday the area 70 came to meet the stake and see if we have enough priesthood to make a new ward. Listening to their spanish made me feel good about mine, but I can`t blame them being 60 plus years old and learning a new language. It was a reallllly amazing meeting, and a spiritual boost to hear from 3 apostles.

We decided to move our baptism to this coming saturday, but there shouldn`t be any problems there.

Transfers are on monday, I have no idea what`s going to happen. BUT I did hear that 14 missionaries from the U.S. recently received their visas and are headed to our mission this next week, so that should put us back to a normal amount of missionaries, so I don`t think that I`m leaving my area. I really like my area, I would love to stay. But missionary work is the same wherever you are, and I`m going to love the people I teach so it doesn`t really matter where I am. I just don`t like packing! I have to go buy either carts for my luggage or new luggage today... BOO! Because if I get transferred this transfer meeting, it will be a mess trying to get to the meeting with two broken suitcases. We`ll see how much new ones cost.

Well, I don`t have too much news this week, just that Elder Wheeler and I have a ton of awesome new plans for our area, and a strong desire to work hard so I hope we can get our area moving! Today we did a contact on our way to buy groceries, and we found a family of 10! They want us to pass by any day. The only question is if they`re married... lol. I sure hope so.

Well I love you guys! Thanks for everything, I`ll have a great week, and a great birthday. Thanks!

Chao

Elder GArdner

5-21-12

Hola fam!

Thanks for the photos!!! Best pics ever.

Shopping went well, I didn`t buy anything... lol. Just looking around. So for the Jordan Kenczka story, I went to the members house that I skyped at my first day in the area, and their daughter is serving a mission in mexico and she sent some pics. They were showing us the pics and in one of the pics she was sitting next to Jordan, he is her zone leader right now and gets to see her all the time. ç

Medium for the sweaters is perfect.

I`m happy you guys had such a great time with tiff and the kids. I`m a little jealous, but I think I`d rather be here doing what I`m doing :) I`m loving it. Honestly I can`t even explain how much I`m learning and growing. This past week I was already planning and thinking about a senior couple mission with my future wife. I can`t wait to serve another! You two need to get yours planned and hopping. I`ll help you learn spanish if you want!

I made a withdrawell today from the bank. it was 200 pesos so about 45 50? dollars. I`m already out of money for the month!! YIKES!!! but i`m good :) La Plata is a little bit more expensive.

Rotisserie chicken sounds supppppper good. But I`m eating rotisserie chicken with chimichurri :) MMMMM. You`ll love it dad.

We don`t talk to pres too much. We see him at least once a transfer so once every 6 weeks. And we write him a letter every week on pday and he responds sometimes. But other than that we don`t talk to him unless it`s an emergency. I live with the zone leaders, so we`re in constant contant, and my comp is the district leader. So I`m just surrounded by leaders! Hopefully I can learn something. ;)

This past week went well! We ate a TON of cake. Just about every other family we visit baked my comp a cake for his birthday last friday, and then we bought him two cakes as well. lol. I`m alllll caked out. We had two baptisms planned for this coming saturday, but one of them didn`t come to church... one did! So we should go through with that one on saturday, but the other one for a different week once she comes to church. We`re working hard and trying to find more people.

I got a cold this last week, but it`s already almost gone. I think it`s just the weather freaking out. One day it`s freezing, the next it`s spring weather, then the nights are freezing, and then it`s warm. It just can`t make up it`s mind. It`s worse than Utah.

Transfers are coming up in two weeks. I have no idea what`s going to happen with all the changes going on. I could be sent somewhere else if they shut down our area. But who knows! I don`t want to go, I`m loving my area. But I`ll go where he wants me to go!

Church was awesome yesterday. All of Argentina is freaking out with the temple opening in August. We have already started doing plans for the cultural event for the prophet and stuff it`s exciting. I hope that we can participate with the open house or somethign.

Well things are going great! I`m happy, and working hard with my comp. I should get my packages on thursday, but we`ll see. I`ll let you know.

Chaocita

Elder Gardner

5-14-12

Hey fam!

It was soooo great to see you guys. I miss you all a ton. I`m super happy, and the language is a lot better. Not really improved a ton, but I feel comfortable with it :) I feel like it`s getting better, so I`m very content with that. I`m super tired too! I could definitely go for sleeping in a day. But maybe in a year and 2 months.

The kids were super cute. Gracy talking up a storm! Bailey was tired. But I don`t blame her. Ryder is a crack up. I can`t wait to see him. Not having heat isn`t too bad yet... I say that in the fall weather so we`ll see. I do use my sweaters. Almost every day! I wouldn`t mind more, but I`m making due with what I have so no worries. I know it`s expensive to send packages and stuff. Something else that I would love to have would be those tiny post it sticky notes that are transparent little tab ones, so I can put them in my scripture. I want quite a bit if it`s possible, maybe liek 2 or 3 packages. Just whenever you get another package ready, no rush. I have hi-lighters in pink, green, blue, and yellow thanks to moxy :) so it`d be nice to have them match the high lighters, so I can color code that`s what I want to do.

My comp is awesome. I really like him a lot. He`s a great missionary, and works hard. He`s a great teacher too, so I am learning a lot. Plus it really does help to speak spanish all the time. I actually like it because I want to get better. I don`t want to get back and not be able to speak well.

I hope grandma and grandpa were happy, They looked tired. please let them know how much I love them and appreciate all they do for me.

Well not too much has happened since yesterday. lol. We did some shopping with elder martindale today and got some ideas for stuff to get for you guys.

I love you guys! thanks for everything. I`m really greatful I can be here serving right now, it`s been such a blessing, and it`s changed my life.

chao chao

Elder Gardner

5-7-12

Hey fam!

How ya`ll doin? I`m doing super well. I had some more subway for lunch, and we had an uno (the cards) battle with the other elders and sisters, it was so much fun. FYI Amber, Ali, and Casey, I have taught half of the elders in our mission Ultimate Uno. Yeah, we all love it.

I will send Peg a letter when I get the package, we won`t get packages for a while. They might be at the mission home, but I won`t get them for a week or two at least. No worries about the entertainment center.

Sounds like a lot is happening in Vernal in the baby business.

A lot of the members here are Peruanos from Peru, and so I`ve been eating a ton of food from Peru. Mmmmm. Spicy. Argentina has no idea what spicy is, they think that the pepper we put on food is spicy. But the Bolivians, and Peruanos know how to make things spicy.

This week was a pretty good week. It was a little rough for me, but I`m headed in the right direction :) I got discouraged a couple times, so thanks for the Hinckley quote. But I`ve learned that attitude is soooooo important. Attitude really makes all the difference. If things don`t happen how I want, I can`t get upset or worry about it. It`s best just to move forward with faith, and a positive attitude.

We took out three baptismal fechas with a family of 3 this week. Woot! For the 26 of mayo. I hope everything works out. It was really cool. On Thursday, we taught an 8 yr old boy with his grandma who is a recent convert. We taught him, and he agreed to be baptized. The next day, we went to invite him to church, and his mom came out to talk to us. And we talked to her very frankly and invited her to be baptized as well the same day as her son, and she accepted as well! THEN, the Sunday after, the 8 yr old came, the mother couldn`t because she has bad health, but his sister came. We talked to her after church and she really liked it, so we invited her to get baptized with the rest of her family, and she accepted. Woot! lol. That part of the week was really cool.

4-30-12

Hey fam,

All is well. It is winter! Sweaters, and my big coat all the time now lol. Today was a semi nice day so we played soccer this morning. Then we went to downtown to go have some fun, but because it`s a holiday, we have no money... lol. The transaction hasn`t gone through on our missionary cards.  We got some subway, and now we`re here writing! La Plata is so cool. I love it. It`s a lot colder, but I like it a lot. I`ll probably be here for a while though. There is still one kid who came with me who is still in his first area. It`s rare to already have three areas. The zone leader with me only has 5 and he goes home at the end of this transfer. Oh ps, the zone leaders name is Elder Martindale, from price. He was best friends with Branden Gagnon. Branden went on a mission to Africa, and already is home.

So the new area is nice. It`s small, and there aren`t any villa areas. It`s actually the nicest area I`ve been in. It has it`s poor parts, but there`s not too many. We have a couple really cool investigators, and I`m excited to find some more.

The ward is huge! So many active members, that`s nice to see. And we have lunch every day. It`s really nice. We are planning to do skype, but we go to church at 2-5 our time you guys are 3 hours behind, so we`ll talk and see when we are planning to do it. I`m guessing if we have to call, we`ll just go to the church and call for free.

my comp is awesome. I want to send pics, but the usb port is locked up. I can`t find where to plug it in. I`ll keep looking. Elder Wheelers sister just got married in the bogotà temple in columbia, he was happy for her.

We`ve been working a lot with looking through inactive members, and old investigators, because we don`t have very many. We only have like 2 or 3 real investigators. Which doesn`t fill up the agenda all day 7 days a week... lol. But that`s okay, we`re doing well.

It was Elder Martindales birthday on Sat, we had a big party for him. Elder Wheelers birthday is the 18th too, so we are just going to party it up here in Villa Elvira.

I have finally hit 9 months. I don`t feel tooooo young in the mission anymore. I still have a long way to go, but it`s a good chunk.

Well I love ya guys! I`m doing well, and I`ll talk to ya soon.

Elder Gardner

4-23-12

Well... a lot has happened in the last week.

First off, we had some problems with our baptisms, so we only ended up baptising 2 out of the 5. I`m happy that two were able to, but 5 would have been so much better. Supposedly, this coming week. I sure hope so for their sake. Second off... I GOT TRANSFERRED! I am now in La Plata. I have officially left the metropolis of Buenos Aires. It is very rare to leave the city. Out of 250 missionaries, about 42 aren`t in Buenos Aires. So, we have buenoes aires which is a province, and the city is the capitol of Argentina, but La Plata is the capitol of Buenos Aires. All of the government stuff is here, and it`s BEAUTIFUL. It`s clean too. lol. There is a lot less garbage on the streets. I`m supre excited though. My new comp is Elder Wheeler, from Columbia. Yupp, my first Latin comp. He is really cool. He`s 22 just about and has about 17 months in the mission. We share an area with the zone leaders, and they are both awesome. We also live with them in the same apartment which I hear is beatiful. It took us about 2, 2.5 hours to get here by train. You should google La Plata, it`s amazing. It`s city, city too. I don`t know about my area yet, we haven`t gone. I ate at BURGER KING today. MMMMMMM. I downed a steakhouse burger, fries, and a brownie milkshake like none other. IT was sooooo good. lol. There is a McD`s here too. WOOT! My area is called Villa Elvira. So a little tip about Argentina, there are things called villas. They are like... the ghetto of the U.S. They are the poorer people with very humble homes and there is a lot of crime there. So, I am headed to a villa. lol. Okay! I`m not worried, I have no idea if it is all villa or what but we`ll see in about an hour. I actually am reallllly happy to be here. I was not wanting to get transferred because there are plans in Glew to baptise about 7 people within the next month, and they are all looking pretty promising, but I know I`m here for a reason, and I love the area. We`re definitely going to visit La Plata.

Mothers day, we will skype. I forgot my password... so I`m going to try to figure that all out before mothers day. And we go to church at 2 in the afternoon, so we will probably call later in the day. I have no idea though. We`ll see. I`ll double check. will you do me a favor? And pay my tithing on my tax return? I would wait and do it, but I`m afraid I will forget to do it.

I`m glad you liked the pictures. I was going to send more today because of the baptisms, and I have a ton from saying goodbyes to everyone yesterday, but `my camer is packed way down in my luggage. My suitcases are falling apart :/ I might have to buy new ones here soon. We`ll see. The wheel on one broke, so that makes it reallllly hard to do transfers lol and then the other one ,the stitching is separating where the handle is so when you pull it, it almost just falls apart. It might make it through one more transfer.... maybe.

The weather here is chilly and beautiful. With a sweater, I feel amazing. No more sweating all day, and all night. So, with the language. I have a Latin comp, so I will be speaking spanish all the time! It will be good for me. And speaking in sacrement, I`ve only done an actual talk once. But they always ask us to bear our testimonies. Especially when we are entering or leaving an area. My glasses are doing well. I only use them when I study in the mornings. I don`t like to wear them out in public because it basically screams hey! I`m American, ROB ME! Plus, it`s a pain when you sweat so much. But I do use them in the mornings.

Well that`s all the great news for this last week, baptisms and transfers. I`m content though.

Talk to you guys in a week!

Love ya!

Elder Gardner

4-16-12

Hola padres.

how are you guys doing? I`m doing well.

This last week was amazing! We had some really great lessons, and it was just great. We have plans for 5 baptisms this week, but we`ll see. It seems all of our plans fall through, but these ones are really looking well. And then, an investigator we`ve had for like 3 months just finally accepted to be baptised. I can`t believe it. We had such a great spiritual lesson with him and it was almost 100% inspiration. The spirit was so strong, and he is getting baptised the 29 of april. We also found like 8 new investigators this week, a whole entire family. And we found some old investigators doing contacts this last week. They were investigators 8 years ago, but got bored. So, wè`re passing by tomorrow, and we`re going to make sure they are excited :) Wow, the work is picking up. I`m a happy camper. We are working hard still and hoping for the best. The only thing that scares me a little bit is transfers! They are here in a week. My comp and I both feel like I`m leaving... which would kind of suck when I`ve worked so hard in this area and am finally reaping benefits and then I have to leave. But I will go where the Lord wants me to go. There would be a reason for it. 

We had some fun FHE`s this past week. With the french toast, and with the cobbler. lol. They loved it. Not as good as ductch oven, but it sufficed. 

I`ve seen a little bit more improvement with the language lately, with understanding people. Now I am better at understanding people than speaking lol. But I`m still doing great. I think I might be getting a Latin comp for my next one. I`ve gone a good while without one. That would be okay with me, I could use a couple weeks speaking only spanish. I`m just glad it is now instead of my first couple of weeks. 

9 months. it doesn`t seem like that is too long compared to 24. But it`s still a good chunk. I heard from 6 months to a year is the longest part of the mission. It kind of feels like it. And then once you hit a year it just sales downhill because you know a lot and are just working through it. So we`ll see! But right now, I still feel very young in the mission and a year and 3 months still seems a long ways a way. 

OH! Also, I think that I can fly directly to the Vernal airport when I come home. That would be super nice. Because I remember Cadin left directly from the Vernal airport to go to England, so I`m sure I could do  the same on the way home. 

I heard Argentina stopped all trade with the US? How odd! I don`t know if it`s true or not..

Well love ya fam!

Elder Gardner

And for bday package, I`m not too worried about anything, and don`t really need anything. I`m doing great! 

I did get your last package, did I tell you that?