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. 

Brock - October 24

So this week was pretty rushed. We had to do more interviews again, so we´ve been running back and forth between Indaiatuba and Salto. We did manage to help out our recent-convert´s brother, and he and his son were baptized on Saturday. It was a little tight, considering that the other ward had a Halloween party like ten minutes after the baptism, but the kids got to have a little fun and get some treats. Unfortunately, some of the members are now under the impression that we stay at our recent-convert´s house all the time. They´re treating her pretty poorly and us not much better. It´ll take a little bit of work to take away this bad perspective they have. 

It´s good to hear so much from you guys every week. I think of you guys often (but not too often!) and about how you´re all doing. I´m glad to hear about all of the progress that everyone is making--it´s very clear to me, even if it isn't on your side. I can´t really judge myself-- I feel the same, but I hope that I´m changing too. Each of us is born with naturally good qualities--gifts from our loving Heavenly Father--that we need to develop in our life. We are also born with weaknesses. These weakness, surprising as it may seem, are also blessings from God. Our weaknesses help us to be humble before God, to know where the true fount of strength lies. He also promises us that, through the grace of Christ, these weaknesses may become strong things for us. But most important is the difference between a weakness and a sin. Those with weaknesses may enter into the kingdom of God, as long as they are without sin. Weakness is knowing that we are susceptible to temptation. Sin is succumbing to that temptation. We must be pure in order to enter into the celestial kingdom. And, as was spoken about in General Conference, the way to be pure--and the intended way for us to be pure, not a back-up plan--is repentance. Repentance isn´t something we do, it´s something we are. We must be repentant--continually. 

I love you guys all so much. I´m praying for the best for all of you. 

Elder B. Blaylock

Parker - October 17

Wow, this week has been crazy for everyone. For me, it´s been a bit of everything. I fasted on Saturday and got some amazing responses to some of my prayers, including dealing with my companion (He´s only been a convert for two years and he´s trying really hard to learn the doctrine so he can be a good missionary, I just have to focus on that). But yeah, the language is coming pretty well. I can understand and say what I need to, and I can participate more in the actual lessons. When we´re just visitng members though, it´s a little harder because I don´t know what I am going to say and mostly I just respond to questions about my family, the States, or english. But yeah, we do a lot of walking, and it´s really hot here, I am sweating like crazy, but it doesn´t bother me as much as it did back in Maryland, maybe that´s because we´re sweating because we´re practically moving at the speed of light (That´s Elder Osorio for you), and not as much just because we´re outside. I did feel a little sad when you guys said ´´fall festival´´ because that means it´s supposed to be COLD! Sigh, anyway, it´s been great here, I am learning so much, and I´m really developing a love for the scriptures, it´s so crazy. I just can´t wait until I am able to be a senior companion, because then I´ll be totally comfortable here (I´m not that comfortable yet). We do have dates set for baptism, two were supposed to be baptized on saturday last week, but they weren´t home when we went to give them the last couple lessons they needed, and last time that we taught, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was playing in the background (obviously I wasn´t tempted to watch it-hah!) and they weren´t really paying attention. Anyway, my week´s been good, thank you all for the prayers, it means a lot to me. I want you all to know that I am praying for each and every one of you every night (that includes you missionaries from the MTC). I can´t wait to hear from you all again, for now, I´ll say that I love you all

Elder Blaylock

PS, Jacob 5:71-72? They´re pretty cool scriptures

Brock - October 17

District Leader/Trainer

So late Tuesday night (try 11:00 PM) and our zone was stuck in Sorocaba with no way of getting home. All of the other zones are part of Sorocaba and get rides from members or buses, except for one other zone outside of the city, which had their own bus to get home but only had four people going there. So, we managed to find some kind members to get the sisters home (who had forgotten to get their keys from another elder, which we also had to later resolve), and then we waited for the bishop of the other ward in Salto to arrive. He showed up around twelve, twelve-thirty, and off we went. First we went to retrieve the sisters´ keys from the elder who had them, then called the sisters and found out they had called a locksmith and were already home. Then we got on the freeway. Around one o´clock in the morning, we were pulled over by the police. Bishop´s tires were bald (ticket & fine) and he had excess passengers (other ticket & fine) in the back. So I and another elder had to stay at the police station on the side of the freeway until he dropped the other elders off and came back to get us. (Poor guy. Rough night.)

It was actually pretty fun. I don´t get bothered by that kind of stuff anymore. 

The responsibility of district leader/trainer has been a present, very constant, and very real feeling since I came back from the transfer. For my companion (Elder W. from Sorocaba), my area, my district. It´s all been very strange. But I feel ready this time. I feel like I can handle it. 

So this week one of our old investigators found out that his long-time girlfriend (eleven years in January) with whom he has had four children, has been cheating on him for three months. Basically the whole time we´ve known them. It kind of explains why things didn´t work out for them to get married, and why one of their kids (the only one above eight) wasn´t obeying his mother. So our investigator, after finding his girlfriend with her new "friend", became very distraught. She went to live with her new "friend", and our investigator proceeded to burn his house to the ground. Very, very sad. However, he is no longer breaking the law of chastity, therefore, he is now closer to being elegible to be baptized. So we´re working with him this week. 

My district is...interesting. One of the sisters in one area has problems with another sister in a different area. Another companionship stayed in a member´s house all day one day this week when it was raining because the member "wouldn´t let them leave" in the rain. And the other in the area hasn´t had power in their house all week. Speaking of houses, we had to find a new one for our area. They didn´t tell me why we´re moving. (We found a bat in the new place!) Anyway, it´s been a very interesting week. I did get my package, I loved everything. I´ve worn the green tie like four times this week. I love all you guys and love hearing from you.

Elder B. Blaylock

Parker - October 10

Oh my gosh I have so much to tell you all! First of all, travelling on a 10 hour flight wouldn´t have been that bad . . . if I coul have watched any of the thousands of movies in the screen right in front of my face! Sigh, anyway, I arrived in Salta without any trouble. And we spent the first night in a hotel, then got our new companions the next day. Elder Osorio is my trainer, he´s pretty cool, he´s pretty into exercise (turns out, P90X is a real thing, who knew?). My first area is San Pedro, and just to give you an idea of the place, I have been inside like 20 different buildings and the only ones that had a full roof were my apartment and the church. There is also SO many dogs here, like, it´s insane. Walking around everwhere isn´t a big problem, what is weird though is the meals. They kind of have breakfast (Mate) have a HUGE lunch, and don´t even have dinner. But luckily all of the members offer to feed the missionaries like every day, so we haven´t been starving. Everybody is really humble here, and willing to listen, it´s just difficult to get them to commit to things fully. But they are all so nice. It is difficult here for me though, I miss all of you so much. I have had to find things to do to help calm down in the off hours in the morning and at night.  But prayer has really helped me to stay calm as well. The language is a bit of a difficulty for me, I usually don´t know what´s going on at any given moment, mostly because of their accents down here (most of the time, they completely leave off the s at the end of a sentence ´´Nosotro somo misionero de la Iglesia de lo Santo de lo Ultima Día´´ it´s driving me insane). Church was good, not a whole lot of people there though. It´s hard to get people to Church here. For Pday today, we met up with our zone and played soccer and ate a big lunch, it was pretty fun (mostly because there´s like 7 other Americans in my zone). Anyway, that is all I can think of for now, I love you all,

Elder Blaylock

PS They don´t have toilet paper here, instead, they have another toilet-looking device that shoots water at your rear end . . . I hate bathrooms here.

Brock - October 10

So we got the transfer news on Saturday night. Elder J (surprise, surprise!) is going home, and I will be staying in the area. I will be the new district leader, and my companion will be something called a "curto praza", which is a little like what Kanyon W. did, except for the whole transfer. Basically it´s someone from São Paulo who´s serving a mini-mission. 

Elder J. went to São Paulo last night. When he came back from São Paulo the other week, he said there weren´t any packages. I´ll have to go there tonight, so hopefully it´ll be waiting for me when I get there. 

This week was a little busy, with Elder J preparing to go home, and some of our investigators seem to be running away from us. It´s sad, because one of them doesn´t have work or a place to live and we managed to find those things for him but he´s been avoiding us. We also had/still have our recent-convert´s mother to worry about. She is a less-active from about twenty years ago, and she is completely against her daughter joining the church. But everything will work out. Our recent-convert marked with me to visit eight families, one of which has twenty-two people in it. 

Hope that everyone is doing well this week. Bummed I didn´t get the package so that I could tell you about it and send pics. Love all you guys

Elder B. Blaylock

Brock - October 3

Wow, crazy week! Conference, Dad visiting Saudi Arabia again, Parker (sadly) getting sick and leaving for Argentina, Jameson starting an independent company with a lot of potential, Ella´s recitals and Jack! Just Jack. Yeah. Thanks for keeping me informed, Jack. :)

Anyway, this week was...okay...for us. One of our investigators decided to start being really difficult and asking questions like "Where does it say Joseph Smith in the Bible?" Like, seriously. Tell me where it says Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and then we´ll talk. And our other investigator (the one who doesn´t have a place to live), well, his mom died. Yup. :( So he went to a will-reading on Sunday instead of conference.

Anyway, I really liked conference this year. I watched almost all of it in English, which is always a plus for me. I noticed a lot of focus on what are to me the missionary lessons, which are in general the main focus points of Christ´s doctrine and how it is here on Earth today. Like Parker wrote, each of these "lessons" reveals important truths. The Restoration tells us "how" Christ´s full Gospel and church were anciently, and "how" they were restored. The Gospel, in addition to the other lessons about Commandments, such as Word of Wisdom, tell us "what" we need to do, the way of Christ. But to me, the most important is the "why". That "eternal plan of happiness". It tells why we are here, why we follow Christ, why we need an everlasting Gospel and divinely inspired church organization. If we lack the why, the how of the restoration and the what of baptism and the who of Joseph Smith are meaningless. This is "the mark", the plan where Jesus Christ is the focal point. There was also a lot of focus on another very important factor in the plan of salvation, one that Jesus Christ made possible for us--repentance. I like what was said, that it isn´t a "back-up plan" but the only and intended way. 

Another thing that I learned about this week from personal scripture study. In the First Epistle of John, chapter five, verse eight, he makes the following declaration:

8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

What does John mean here? His statement is clarified in Moses, chapter 6, in teachings revealed to Enoch:

 58 Therefore I give unto you a commandment, to teach these things freely unto your children, saying:

 59 That by reason of transgression cometh the fall, which fall bringeth death, and inasmuch as ye were born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit, which I have made, and so became of dust a living soul, even so ye must be born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal lifein this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory;

 60 For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified;

As we are born by water of the womb and the blood of our mothers and the spirit created by our Father in Heaven, we are born again (baptized) by water, by the Spirit, and made clean by the blood of Christ. Even more interesting to note are these same three "witnesses" in Christ. He bled for us in Gethsemane, and delivered His spirit willingly, "giving up the ghost", and, as a Roman soldier pierced Him to assure He truly was dead, water poured from His side; the presence of which is a real phenomenon that results from death of a broken heart, which occurs after great mental, emotional, or spiritual struggle. 

I know that He lives. That He offers two salvations; one, a free gift to all, the salvation from physical death. The other; salvation from spiritual death and sin, which is exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God, which can be gained only by obedience to His precepts and His gospel. I love you all. 

Elder B. Blaylock

Things I saw this week:

a monkey!

dog with a GIANT bone (?!)

I made pizza. The dough was super sticky--but it turned out pretty great.

A member from another ward works with coffins. He made a visit to Elder J's last district meeting (or "funeral" as the missionaries call it).

Missionary art -- haha

SaveSave

Parker - October 1

Well this has been an interesting week. First of all, I'd like to say that it is great to hear from all of you, and I'm really excited for the things you guys are doing.

So, I began my week on Monday by waking up and feeling 1000% terrible. I had the worst sore throat, like daggers every time I swallowed, a hacking cough, and I couldn't get out of bed because I was shaking so much. So me and my companion stayed in that day, and I mostly just drank lots of water and slept. Luckily, in my day of sickness, I received my package! Thank you guys so much for sending that, it was just what I needed at that moment. 

Tuesday, I was feeling a little better, so I hoped it was just like a 24 hour virus or something and it would all blow over. And that day went pretty ok, got to sing in choir for one last time, we sang Baptism, which is going to be one of the songs in General Conference. Also, the speaker spoke on keeping the Commandments, and the blessings that come from them, it was interesting, because I don't remember any talk that dedicated all of its time to the Commandments. It actually really helped me, because now, I can teach any of the first four lessons in really effective ways. And I realized why they were put in that specific order in Preach My Gospel. The Restoration tells them what our Church is, The Plan of Salvation tells them why they're here, and then the Doctrine of Christ and the Commandments tell them how to live while they're here. It literally is inspired, it's great. 

But anyway, back to my week. Wednesday, I was doing fine in the Morning, but after Lunch, I felt awful again, so I stayed back at my room for the last half of the day. And Thursday was similar, fine in the Morning, awful in the afternoon. So because Conference is today, we had our last Temple visit on Thursday in our personal study block, and after the Temple is when I was feeling terrible. So I went to the Health Clinic, and all they tell you to do is go to the Doctor, so they right me up and I got to go out into the real world, across the street and down the road to the BYU Urgent Care center, and they gave me some antibiotics and sent me back (They had no idea what it was either). But, I was able to stay on my feet all day yesterday, and I'm doing fine today. Now all I really have is this cough, which is manageable.  And yesterday, on Friday, we had In-Field Orientation for 8 hours, and I can sum it up in one sentence: Teaching with Members is a good idea. Sigh, anyway though, today we get to email our families any time we're not in conference, so if you guys feel like sending anything my way today, I'll get to respond to it. 

Well, that was my week, I can't wait to call you guys and get into the field on Monday.

Love,

Elder Blaylock