Parker - December 18

Hey Everyone! 

I´ve had a really busy week here. First of all, Tuesday and Wednesday, I felt like I walked from one end of Argentina to the other, we walked so much. And then, on Thursday, I had to be in Salta for Trámites (whatever that is, I still don´t know), where I stayed outside for like 8 hours, then signed three papers, then we had lunch at McDonalds (It´s not the same here), and then came back to San Pedro. It was crazy, and then the next day, we had our christmas conference, which was a few talks from missionaries, the mission president, his wife, and testimonies of the people that are going home this transfer. And then food, where it was me and my companion sitting at a table, along with two sister missionaries from another side of Jujuy (our zone), and then the Mission President walks up to us and invites the four of us over to his table....What?! And then, we had a discussion of our areas, and a chat, I ended up telling everyone my ´´right arm´s been broken 3 times´´ story. I also directed our zone in the choir, which went great by the way. And then we did the classic ´´gift giving/stealing´´ party that everybody seems to love. I got to be one of the last ones, so I could basically pick my gift, I sent pictures, it´s a cool bag and a Book of Mormon in the Quiche language (pronounced keechua). I don´t know what I am going to do with it, but hey, its a good souvenir. And then Saturday, we had our Baptisms. I Baptized the father of the two kids that we baptized back in November. I also confirmed him in Sacrament meeting yesterday, my first confirmation. It went pretty nice. And also, on Saturday, we had an activity after the Baptism, it was a movie telling the stories of the Book of Mormon, so people could understand what the Book of Mormon actually is. There were some technical difficulties, like always, but I think it went pretty well. And yeah, that was my week, I love you all, and I can´t wait to talk next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

Elder Blaylock

Brock - December 19

So this week was really good. We worked a lot but it payed off on Friday. One of our investigators has been keeping our commitments and received her answer Friday morning when she went to pray on her own away from other people a la Joseph Smith. So Elder M. had his first baptism on Sunday! It was really good. Now we´re looking to help her family. 

This week has also wiped me out, with Christmas coming. Our enthusiasm for having a fun Christmas made us...overly...enthusiastic...and now I am a poor boy. But, decisions were made by me and so I cannot complain. 

It is getting steadily hotter up here. And rainy. It most certainly not beginning to look a lot like Christmas nearly anywhere you go. Downfall of spending Christmas in the Southern hemisphere. (They call me Heat Miser, whatever I touch: starts to melt in my clutch...I´m too much). It also doesn´t help that Christmas is treated basically exactly like New Year´s here; wait until midnight with a party, watch fireworks, eat. They don´t have any of that same feeling we have with a whole season. My companion is very...logic...based and therefore doesn´t get too much into seasonal activities as much as the rest of us. 

Other than all that, I´m doing good. The ward Christmas party was last Saturday, we went because it was our lunch. This week we´ll have the mission party. By the way, my zone leader Elder W. told me that in his friend´s mission (in Europe) their assistants texted them the LIST of approved MOVIES that they can watch until 12:30!!! And STAR WARS 7 IS ON THAT LIST!! What the heck is this?! Why doesn´t this happen to me? Our Christmas party will involve basically another multizone conference, some musical performances, and food. Nothing more. 

s o  s a d. 

Anyway, I love you guys. Can´t wait to talk on Christmas. 

Parker - December 12

Wow, what a week, and this next one is going to be even busier. First of all, at the leadership meeting on tuesday, when we were setting a goal for baptisms for december, and people were putting in what they thought, my companion said 10 (the number we know we can get). One person tried for 13, but he didn´t get much support, and mostly everyone was just saying 11. And the Zone Leader who was conducting the meeting turned to me last and asked what I thought, and I panicked and didn´t know what to do, so I shot for the middle and said 12. And guess what happened? Nearly everyone changed their answer to 12...What just happened? Did my habit of shooting for the middle compromise just influence hardened missionaries? Just wow, oh my gosh. Anyway, moving on, Friday was a strange day, we started off with the Mini Missionary in the other area deciding he wanted to go home, and when we talked with the Mission President, he asked if it could wait until Monday. And then, that night, we had a Talent Show at the Church, and we were doing a representation of Nephi and his brothers going to get the brass plates, I was Nephi because I was the youngest and tallest (just like Nephi). It was fun, but super strange. Also, we didn´t think about how we were going to get Laban off the stage when he was ´´dead´´ and couldn´t move, so I just grabbed his legs and dragged him off stage, everybody laughed, they thought it was so great. And then, at the end of the day, the Mini told us that he had changed his mind and he´s going to stay for the rest of the transfer. What a weird day. And also on Saturday, we had Training with the Zone, and it fell on me to give a testimony about what we were supposed to study in Preach My Gospel this week. (They´re supposed to be a surprise, but I knew it was coming, so I made sure to prepare), And everyone liked it, so that´s cool. Also, during the practices, it just so happened to work out that the three newest missionaries got put in a group together (But Elder S. and Hermana P. are cool, so it was fine), and we had to teach basically Tony Stark way before he became Iron Man, so he was pretty snotty, but we managed to get him to accept a baptismal date (It was a practice, but still). And today we did some service and I am totally burnt out. And this week, we have meetings, Choir practice, I have Trámites on Thursday (still don´t know what that is, but at least I´ll see some of my MTC friends, it´s going to be everyone from my group). And we have a Christmas Conference AND a multi-sone conference to do. AND we´re going to have a Baptism this saturday (The father of the two kids we baptized a couple weeks ago, and a little girl who wasn´t baptized when she was 8, despite being born in the Church.) and afterwards, one of the recent converts that we visit a lot, and is also now the President of the Young Men´s, is putting on an activity, showing a video of the stories in the Book of Mormon. Sigh, we've got lots to do, but I am excited to get it all done. I want you all to know that nothing is impossible and that the Lord makes up the difference so long as we put in our all. There´s a saying I heard at the MTC, I´m not sure who said it, but I really like it. All God asks us to do is try, but we really have to try. what this means is that when we feel tired and want to stop, we need to ask ourselves ´´have I really tried?´´ If so, then we can slow down, relax, and let the Lord take care of things, If not, then we must get back up and keep trying. I want you all to remember what Peter said to Christ when Christ asked him and the apostles if they would leave too, ´´To whom would we go? ye have the words of eternal life.´´ leaving and giving up would solve some problems, yes, but it would also create more problems, and now we don´t have the Almighty promise that our Father in Heaven will help us with our problems. I want you all to know that I love you, and I pray for you all to have a stronger testimony every day, and that testimony only comes from the sunday school answers, pray, read the scriptures, and go to church (Here they call it OLA, Orar, Leer, Asistir). 

Love,

Elder Blaylock

Ward talent show:

Brock - December 12

So this week we worked until we were exhausted every day, and we managed to bring four people to church. So that´s great. We´ll try to get the rest of the family to church next week. 

On Sunday we had a Brazil-wide transmission. There was the (I think) second counselor in the general primary presidency, who spoke very good portuguese, the area Brasil President, and an Argentian Seventy who also spoke portuguese, and Elder Holland, who tried (t...r...i...e...d...t r i e d ) to speak portuguese. It was...not good. So after about two minutes he stopped and the translator took over. I was kind of bummed because it was just a transmission. Two apostles have visited Brazil at other times this year, one of them in the neighboring city! and I still haven´t gotten a chance to meet them personally. This reminds me of the time at BYUi when Elder Holland went there, but so many people went to the devotional that I couldn´t even see him from the audience. I had to watch the screen, and it was like just watching General Conference. Oh, well. Someday my chance will come. Still sad though. 

This week has also been kind of weird because 1: I found out that one of my former American companions who is already at home tried to make bolinha de chuva, which is like funnel cake in ball form, and the oil caught fire and exploded. Luckily his stepdad is a firefighter, but it looks like maybe my comp punctured his lung somewhere. It´s not fatal at this stage though. And 2: One of my other companions who also already finished his mission moved to Salto, to the other ward. So after the transmission ended I stood up and turned around and found him waiting behind me. So that was also surprising. 

Don´t have a lot more than that for this week. Started getting hotter, and has been raining here. Got a hair cut (silent tears). My companion got a bad hair cut. Worse than his previous hair cut.

Love you guys. Have a good week.

Haircut day:

Parker - December 5

Hey Everyone!

Sounds like you´ve all had a busy week, I have too. First of all, on Thursday we did splits again and I was with the Mini, and I was basically a Trainer for a day. It was weird, but I think I did alright. We also found a new investigator, so points to the newbies! (Of course the other guys found 4 new investigators, so...). Also, Guess what? I found out what a plague of flies looks like: Argentina. Seriously, there´s so many flies here, it´s awful. Oh and guess what happened on Saturday? So we went to Jujuy to start to practice our Christmas Missionary Choir, and guess what? I am now the Conductor, because I´m the only one who knows how. And let me tell you, my arm hurt so much afterward! And what doesn´t help is that our big song, O Holy Night, is in 6/8 time, so it´s like I have to basically make sure I get the downbeats right. Sigh, hopefully I´ll be ok. Also, we had one of our members who always comes along with us leave this morning for his own mission, and we had a farewell for him last night. And let me tell you, it´s a lot more fun to send our a new missionary than to receive a return missionary while you´re out in the field. (Oh, and during the thing, I managed to switch cups with O. and got him to drink soda, he´s a fanatic about not drinking soda, hahahahaha!!). And yeah, this week is going to be busy too, we have a ton of meetings and also another choir practice on pretty much every single day of the week. Concerning transfers, Elder O. is kinda freaking out a little bit, because one of us is going to go, and one of us is going to stay, he doesn´t want me to go and be left here in San Pedro (He´s been here for like 5 months already), But he doesn´t want to leave because he´s afraid he´s gonna be a Zone Leader, because a lot of missionaries are going home this transfer, and not a lot are coming into the mission field, which is why we have so many mini missionaries, because we´re basically understaffed. What he thinks is going to happen is I´m going to go work in the Offices as Secretary or Financer (because apparently I have a ´´look´´) and he´s gonna stay here with a Mini. But we still don´t know yet, basically we´ll know for sure a few hours after the Christmas Skype call. And to end this letter, I´ll share what I´ve learned this week. It´s about the Spirit telling Nephi to kill Laban, which is something a lot of people have a little trouble with. What it is is the Lord testing Nephi´s faith, kind of like Abraham. Something I´ve learned on the mission is that as soon as you say ´´Ok, I´m alright with what I have to do, I just need to keep doing what I´m doing´´ The Lord gives you another challenge. And this is what happened to Nephi: He said ´´I will go and do the things the Lord commands´´ he thought it just meant obeying the 10 commandments, so the Lord tested him, telling him to kill Laban. And Nephi, who said that we would do whatever the Lord commands pauses and says ´´oo, I don´t know if I can do that´´ this is a stumbling block for people, because when people are faced with new revelation, they say ´´hey, I´ve been doing what you asked me, why are you asking me to do this now?´´ But as we are obedient, the Lord blesses us in ways we cannot even comprehend, because Nephi killed Laban, we have the Book of Mormon, Nephi didn´t see that coming, but he obeyed anyway. 

I want to tell you all that I love you and that we can all do what the Lord asks of us, even if it´s something we never thought we´d do

Love,

Elder Blaylock

Brock - December 5

Man, what an exhausting week. We walked everywhere. We´ve been trying to find a new focus area this week, and evaluate the potential of some non-members that are relatives of members. But, after a long week, we didn´t end up having anyone at church, which is never fun. This week we´ll be back to the pavement, knocking doors and making contact with everyone again. 

Elder M. seems to be doing well. At least, I hope so. He´s pretty upbeat and always ready to get going again. I´m getting tired but I´ll keep going, too. 

Everyone here at our house is excited for Christmas, so this year has potential to be better than last year. We´ve got three strands of Christmas lights, a small tree with a few ornaments, and one of the zone leaders wants to buy brown paper and make a fake "fireplace", which would be cool. We´ve also got a packed schedule for events this month. We have a stake choir event in Itú, where the stake choir will sing Christmas carols in the square while we have a missionary table set up. We also have a Brazil-specific devotional this Sunday, the ward Christmas party (which we have to go to, because that´s where lunch will be), and the mission Christmas party. Not to mention the transfers on the third of January. in 2017. 

2017.

2017.

2017.

2017.

It´s already almost 2017! What the heck?! Where did all of this time go? How long have I been here? I feel like I´ve been here my whole life. Parker, the mission goes so fast. You´ll probably only see that at Christmas 2017, though. Even with all of the hard times that I have gone through in the mission, I´d never give up this opportunity to serve that I have been given. This time of my life, up until now, has been an incredible experience, and I only hope it can get better from here on out. I love you guys. 

Elder Blaylock

Cool bird of prey that was dive bombing a dachshund.

Our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. 

Brock - November 29

Sorry that I´m a day late today. It´s a long story. 

So last week, I received my "son", Elder Michelsen! He is eighteen, from San José, California, and he´s kinda Dwight Schrute-ish, but he´s funny. He certainly speaks a lot more Portuguese than I did when I got here, even if he did pronounce "arroz" a-huuuz, which sounded pretty funny. 

We also moved houses last week, which took all day, but now we have a new house. It´s a lot better than the old one, just has a few kinks the rental place has to work out, like broken outlets and stuff. 

We knocked at SO MANY doors this week. So many. It was also very hot. 

This week, we had to go to São Paulo again on Sunday (hence the money withdrawal) because my comp had to get his documents. It´s called a protocolo or RNE, which stands for words meaning things but anyway, we also had our Multi-Zone Conference today, which meant we couldn´t return to our area on Monday night. We slept in Sorocaba on Monday night in the area of Elder Lima, one of my former companions. That was pretty cool. But the MyLDSMail site was apparently down, so we didn´t have a chance to use the computer yesterday (hence the late email). 

Today we had our Multi-Zone, and wow. It was just so good. The love that President Farnes has for us is palpable. We learned so many great things today. One of the main things we learned about today was the "victim" mentality. I din´t bring my notes to the LAN House, so I´ll tell you guys more about it next week, but it was so good. Also, this happened.

​That´s right. We were in the meeting, and President was like, "Do you guys like Star Wars?" And everyone was like, whaaaaaaaaat and then he turned on the famous "Do or do not" scene from Empire. 

​It had to do with the "victim" training, where we blame circumstances instead of ourselves for failure. It was really cool though. We have the best mission president in the whole world (no offense, Parker).

So that´s all I really have right now. I love you guys, sorry we missed each other the other day. When I logged into today, the email at the top of my inbox from dad smiply read "We missed you today, we are so sad."

Broke my heart. Love you guys. 

Elder Blaylock

Parker - November 28

Hey Everyone! 

Sounds like you´ve had some fun this week at the beach! You guys are so lucky, and decorating the tree? Oh man, that´s the best! Though I am sorry that you guys have a busy December, I do too, but I´ll get to that later. This week was interesting. On Monday we did splits, and what I was gonna do was just go with the ward mission leader to a family home evening we had planned, but when we showed up, they said that they couldn´t do it that night and we´re gonna have to reschedule. So I decided to visit our recent converts and continue our review of the lessons. It was on the Gospel of Christ, which is pretty simple, but the mother was also there, and she stayed and listened to the lesson. I even almost got her to say the final prayer. It was great. And then, we left that night from San Pedro to where the Zone Leaders are and we stayed the night there, because Elder O and the other senior companion in our district needed to do ´´Trámites´´ (and the answer to what that is is always ´´good question, we don´t know, but we have to do it.´´) And then the next day we had to go back to that area to have a leadership meeting. Also, every day this week, we stopped by the O. family. Wow! Were they super ready to be baptized! Every day we would find them at their table studying the pamphlets we left them and the scriptures associated with them. The father wasn´t baptized this week just because he doesn´t have clothes to attend church, but we managed to get him some so he could attend the baptism and start to get his church attendance. And after the baptism, he stood up and began to testify. Wow. Just wow. Also, after the baptism, I started to think about the Holy Ghost, and how oftentimes we forget that He´s an actual Personage. I also thought about the unity of the Godhead and yet how They are all distinct Personalities. This can be explained through the prophets, they all do the same thing: prophesy of Christ, but they all did it in their own unique ways, if they didn´t, then all the books of the Bible would just be on repeat. And if Their servants can have that kind of unity while being distinct, why not The Godhead themselves? They all do the same thing: Bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, but they all do it in different ways: God is the Organizer, He laid out the plan, Jesus Christ is the Example, He laid out the path for us, and the Holy Ghost is the Guide, who helps us get through the path. Thus, They all work in unison to complete Their great work, but they are still distinct and separate.

I know that this is the work of the Lord, and I know that we can all achieve exaltation and live with our Heavenly Father again, and we do so through Jesus Christ and His doctrine, and the Holy Ghost is here to help us though life´s trials. Eso es lo que quiero compartir en el nombre de Jesucristo, Amén.

Yo amo a todo de ustedes, yo oro para ustedes cada noche,

Elder Blaylock

PS The O. kids call me Baile Loco, because its easier for them to say and remember than my last name. :)

PPS I´m also gonna have a busy December, we have Ilumina el Mundo, Interviews with the Mission President, Splits with the other missionaries, and something called White Storm

Parker - November 21

Hey Everyone! 

This week was interesting. We had to move everything from our old residence to the new one, and it took an entire day. But now we´re pretty much settled in, we just need to get someone to come in and fix the water and replace the oven, because the current oven doesn´t work, and we don´t have hot water. Also, we got a surprise on Thursday, apparently, in spite of what all of us were told, the two new elders did not inherit the two vacant areas, they inherited one, and the other was added to ours, so now we have to do splits every monday, wednesday, and friday so my companion can get to know the new area, and I have to basically work on my own (I´m with a member, but still). But everything´s fine, I´ve realized the secret to missionary work: It´s listen, if we´re listening, to the Spirit, to the people, then everything will be taken care of by the Lord, we´ll know what to do, where to go, what to say, everything. It truly is a miracle. Other than that, not much has happened with me this week, I hope you´re all having fun at the BEACH oh my gosh I miss it so much. 

I love you all

Elder Blaylock

Brock - November 21

So I´ll be staying here for this transfer as well. I´ll be training a new missionary this transfer. It´ll be interesting staying here, because once I leave it will have been six months here--and it will be a new year. 

Not really sure what to write about this week. I haven´t got much time. I´ve got to go to Sorocaba again for the trainer meeting. 

I feel like my face is getting all worn out? Like, sun and wind burn (yes I´m using sunscreen), stress lines. It´s turning weird colors. My shoes (the ones you guys sent me in February, that I had the soles redone) are starting to open at the sides. That means that they are close to done. I´ll have to use my other shoes now. 

Hope you guys are having fun at the beach. Grandma and Grandpa are living there now? That´s the good life. Also hope everyone´s doing well. Love you guys. We´ll talk more next week

Parker - November 14

Well, I don´t have much this week, just my Baptism on saturday, my first ever Baptism. It was great, but a little stressful because we found out that one of the candidates did something that might have disqualified him from Baptism a few days before, so me and Elder O spent a lot of time calling Zone Leaders for advice, and then eventually the Mission President, as well as talking with the parents and Bishop. But eventually we worked it out and I was able to Baptize him. And yeah, we got news for Transfers. I´m staying here with Elder O because I´m still in training, but all of the other four missionaries (who were Sister Missionaries) left, and we´re getting two completely new missionaries and the two areas are gonna be combined and "whitewashed" which means basically starting from scratch. And we have to switch apartments, so us 4 elders are in one apartment. So yeah, still gonna have to do some moving around. But everything´s gonna work out. We also had a torrential rainstorm on Thursday. It was so crazy!  We went to an appointment and I felt some drops and looked up and there was one cloud in the sky and I was confused, but by the time we left the appointment, the streets were basically rivers. It was both awesome and insane at the same time. But I held up pretty well. I want to say to you all that I am super grateful for your support and everything. I love you all,

Elder Blaylock

PS I found out what made me sick last week. There´s this type of bread here called Bollo, basically imagine a pancake that tastes like bread. It´s really delicious, and it´s also served with meat. When I tried it, it wasn´t bad, but it really did a number on me, wow.

Brock - November 14

So this week was pretty slow. It was mostly switching between struggling to work in the hot sun and struggling to work in the rain. I had asked earlier in the transfer to stay in the area, but I´m feeling that I´m probably going to leave anyway. 

So today I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about dilligence in little things. A couple of years ago, Mom shared a lesson with us about habits, and why they are so important. She said that the little things we do every day make up our personal character. The scriptures also uphold this statement; in five or more places, the Lord says: Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. I don´t understand how I am constantly surprised to find Mom and Dad (and ultimately, God) correct. Don´t take it the wrong way. I always knew that they were right. But I couldn´t know for myself until I had "proven the word". The difference that obedience in little things brings over time is astounding. Waking up at 6:29 to pray, exercising for half an hour, following the schedule completely. Studying (not just reading) the scriptures, particularly when it is early. What we constantly do, the small choices that we constantly make, are just as important, if not more so, than the big milestones. Just as God needs us to be willing to die in testimony, he needs us to live in testimony. I love you guys. Hope you have a good week.

Elder B. Blaylock

Parker - November 7

Hey Everyone! Man has this been a WEEK. First of all, I have a horror story for you all. I know last week was halloween, but I´m still gonna share it. Wednesday Morning (and by morning, I mean like 2:30) While still half asleep, I feel some kind of object in my hand. I´m half asleep, so I don´t really think about it, I try to grab it and put it out of my bed, but it keeps slipping out of my grasp. Eventually I catch it on my arm.....only it squishes.....I fully wake up now, and throw it out of my bed, and yup THERE WAS A FREAKING COCKROACH IN MY BED!!!!!!!! And a pretty big one too. Sigh.  And on Friday, we head to Jujuy for a Zone Conference, and when we get up to go, I am feeling just awful. At first I thought it was just because I was tired, but then, about halfway through the conference, I realized that nope, I was sick, and I was about to vomit. I tried to run, but i lost it...three times until I hit the bathroom. I puked about two more times after this later at the zone conference and then again the next day, so I didn´t work at all on Friday or Saturday, just sat in my bed. But it wasn´t a picnic either. On Friday, I was super hot and had my chilling towel on my head the entire time.  But other than that, I´m doing alright. During companionship inventory, we worked through some things and now we´re working much better together. On Sunday, one of our super shy investigators (that´s going to get baptized this Saturday!) volunteered to give the last prayer in principles of the gospel class. It was so cool. But yeah, it´s awesome, we´re going to have a baptism this saturday, M. and J., two siblings who live basically in between two houses with a fence and a roof, and a dirt floor, and then D., who lives on that hill in a two-room shack, and who asks us questions like ´´God is Jehovah right?´´ and then the next would be the O. family, who live in a one room house surrounded by a fence, but came to Church the first sunday after we met them. It´s pretty cool to see the fruits of our labors. Elder O. says that this area hasn´t had a baptism in a while. Also, just some other things this week, I found out how they get less actives to church here: they have a special activity every Friday. It´s crazy. And I also found out that the scripture ´´feast on the word of Christ´´ (2 Nephi, 33:3) doesn´t translate well, instead it says ´´delight in the word of Christ´´ and in the footnotes it says something to the effect of ´´more like enjoy the word of Christ like you would a banquet or a feast´´ it was pretty funny when I found out. Anyway that´s all I have for you guys this week. I hope you´re all doing great! I love all of you!

Elder Blaylock

Brock - November 7

So this week has been rather interesting. I got my new companion on Monday. His name is Elder A. He´s eighteen, and he´s putting in his own mission call as soon as this transfer ends. We´ve also been accompanying with some investigators this week, and there were baptized this Sunday! We also had stake conference this weekend, so the whole zone was there, and we ended up having ten people all together get baptized. President and Sister Farnes were also there. 

So on Saturday we were at the bus terminal waiting for a division with the zone leaders to do the baptismal interviews. When we first got there, we met with this guy who had been living with one of our recent-converts until about a week ago. He´s cool, he´s just one of those "young" people that doesn´t go that much for religion. Then, this guy came over and started trying to sell us some hammocks. Now, I´ve always heard that hammocks here in São Paulo are really expensive, but I´ve wanted one for a while. So he comes at me this offer for 95 reais. I kept telling him that we didn´t really have any money. So he began lowering. First seventy, then seventy for two, then forty for two, then thirty. At this point I was hooked. I offered him twenty for one. He gave me both for the twenty. As I began pulling out the money, however, a cop showed up with a submachine gun and started shouting at us, asking what we were doing, where we were going. Then I noticed he was shouting in English. Turns out, he had stopped Elder W., the other American here, earlier this week to speak English (pulled a similar stunt as well), and met them on the way to the division again. And gave them a ride. And let them hold the guns. So anyway, it was pretty interesting. 

Glad to have heard from everyone this week. Sorry about Parker getting sick. Happens to everyone at some point, though. Hope you get better. Love you guys, have a great week.

Parker - October 31

Hey Everyone! 

It´s so great to hear from you, my family really is Incredible ;) But Anyways, I don´t have a lot this week, I did find out that we have a whole other area we are responsible for that we take a taxi to every Tuesday. So that was weird, but, while we were looking for a house, we stumbled on a family of inactives and a new investigator, and they were pretty cool, their only problem is getting time to go to church on sundays because of work and studying. Also, that Tuesday the ward had a homecoming for a return missionary. Already the time seems to fly by fast, I already have two months and a couple weeks under my belt. On wednesday, we went to Jujuy (the center of our zone) and had a conference with another zone and the mission president, and I saw Elder R. from my room at the MTC, so that was fun. I´ve learned something though. Gringo spanish? is about 1000 times easier to understand than native spanish. Hahaha, despite my struggles, I can understand most of what people are saying, and I can hold my own pretty well in a conversation. And when we came back from the conference, we went to one of our new investigators and had a great lesson. We taught the Restoration, and as usual, Elder O. ends by saying ´´Tiene algunas preguntas? Algunas dudas?´´ And she started asking a bunch of questions and I surprised myself by bringing out my scriptures and providing her answers to all of her questions stretching from the Book of Mormon to the Bible. It was awesome, and when she asked about her dead grandmother and friends, she started crying, and Elder O. pulled out the Plan of Salvation Packet, and gave it to her to read and we promised that she can find peace in this life and in the next. And she felt better. She is pretty cool, she lives in a two room house on the side of a hill that we have to climb every time we go there, but she is reading the Book of Mormon and we were able to take her to Stake Conference on Sunday, and she had a good experience there. It was really cool. On Thursday, I was suprised by my first exchange, apparently the Zone leaders come around to check on the area once in a while to see how its doing, and since I didn´t know the area, I had to go with the other ZL to his district and work with him. He was pretty cool, and it wasn´t that bad, almost like a regular day, except we had to end the day by going to the chapel and doing some baptismal interviews (because he´s the ZL). But I made it back to San Pedro on friday alright. That´s pretty much all that happened this week, I love all of you guys and I pray for you every night, I am so grateful for this opportunity to learn more of the Savior by working in His name, I wish you all could be here to see me grow and learn.

Love,

Elder Blaylock

PS While pretty much every house has dogs, this week, I saw a parrot. It was weird, especially when it started laughing at me because I didn´t understand a question the family asked.

Brock - October 31

So this week I have some sad news. My companion, Elder W, went home last week. We were at home, because our lunch was delivered that day, and I came back from the bathroom, and he was sitting on his bed. He told me he wanted to go home. So on Wednesday we had interviews with President Farnes, and he packed his bags and went home. I´ve been in trio since then. I´ll get a new companion 

Elder W went home because he simply didn´t want to stay with the ward. The ward, as I remarked a while back, was treating our recent-convert pretty poorly for helping the missionaries, and he just couldn´t understand that. I think it didn´t help as well that he helped the sister missionaries out in his home ward, so he might have seen himself in the whole thing. I am not entirely sure. 

Thankfully, even though I hardly managed to work in my area this week I did manage to bring people to church, and with luck I´ll be able to help them out more this week. I met with the bishop of Salto this week. He´s dedicated to turning the ward around, but he´s going to need help. I asked President Farnes to stay here this next transfer as well, especially considering that if I don´t, the area would have two missionaries new to the area arriving here. 

Like I said, I´ve been in trio since Wednesday. I learned why trio companionships are rare--they don´t work. Three young men dressed similarly scare people, the work is slower, and it was simply difficult. Thankfully, the other elders were cool, so it wasn´t annoying to be with them--just annoying to not be able to work in my area. 

On Sunday I had to give a twenty minute talk and teach the Gospel Principles class, so that was fun. Luckily I had a talk saved up from a while back when they asked me to talk but a Seventy visited and talked instead. Apparently I was "very red" while I was giving the talk, which is not reassuring, but whatever. 

I´m so jealous of you guys and your Halloween costumes! They turned out perfect. Love you guys, love hearing from you every week. 

Elder B. Blaylock

Parker - October 24

Wow this week has been pretty cool for you guys, sounds like Kai´s farewell was pretty cool. For me, not a whole lot happened this week, so I´m just gonna tell you guys about some of my regular stuff. First of all? I am super sick of dogs barking. Night and day, they never stop. And they all have no concept of personal space, I literally shoo a dog away and it comes right back trying to sniff and lick my pants or shoes. Oh and we don´t knock on doors, every single house here has a wide gated fence around it. Literally every building. So we just stand at the gates and clap really loud. One of our investigators is this man, woman, and child. The child is the woman's, but not the man´s and they´re not married. They´re really receptive to the gospel though, and they love it when we visit, but they´re scared about getting married. The man, is like five or so years younger. But they said that they´ll talk to their parents and see what they say. 
So, I don´t actually proselyte all day. A lot of days, we only proselyte from 6-9:30, because we have 3 hours of study time (actually 4 because he´s training me), usually 2 hours for lunch, (they have huge lunches here) and the rest of the time is taken up by something that Elder O. has to do because he´s the district leader. But we make the best of it. We had a rainy day, and it was fantastic, because it didn´t rain much, but at least it wasn´t super hot. And I finally discovered what to say when someone says ´´I´m catholic´´ or something like that. You say ´´You believe in Christ, right? well, God loves everyone, it doesn´t matter the religion, our purpose is to increase people´s faith in Christ and to build their relationship with Him.´´ it´s pretty cool. We also had service, painting the sister missionaries´ apartment, and I hate painting, but it was good to give service. It´s strange, most nights, we just stand at doorways talking to people for like half an hour, and I´m not bothered at all. I gave away one of my ties to a member who didn´t have any. The orange and blue one, it was a little hard, but he needed it more than I did, and he came to church this sunday, so that´s great. We had empanadas at his house yesterday. Speaking of which, if you´re wondering what they taste like down here, try to imagine the halfway point between a hot pocket and a pizza roll, just stuffed with taco meat. They´re good, but weird. I also had pizza for the first time down here. And when I say pizza I mean a pancake like slab of bread with slabs of melted cheese and meat on it. It did not taste like pizza. But it wasn´t that bad. Well, that´s really all I have for you guys this week. I love you all, and my testimony is growing every day. It´s really great to study more about Christ and learn more about Him. It makes taking the Sacrament even more special. 

Love

Elder Blaylock

PS I am also tired of hitting my head on things. The ground is uneven and covered with garbage and dog crap, so I´m always looking down until I smack my head on a low tree branch or a doorway.