Parker - January 30

Hey Everyone! It sounds like you guys have had a pretty cool week. My week hasn`t been too exciting, just a couple things. We had a worldwide missionary transmission on wednesday, it was really good, I took lots of notes. And then, at the end, they talked about all of the changes, and yeah, we have already implemented these changes into our mission, I don`t know why, maybe my mission president got the memo a bit earlier. The only difference between the schedule shown in the transmission and the one we use is that we wake up at 7:00, not 7:30, but its alright, we can go to bed eariler now if we want. Also, we used to be four elders in the apartment, me, my companion, who is the district leader, and the other two elders, who are the zone leaders, but now they moved to an apartment that is better situated for their area, as it is pretty huge. We have been working hard, trying to reactivate members and find new people to teach as well, we found like three new investigators, and its pretty cool. M. and her two daughters, who listen very attentively and love the Book of Mormon, we have been trying to teach them the plan of salvation because two of her other children died in a fire last year, but its hard to find them at their house. We also have F. and M., who just moved from Buenos Aires and have a young son. We found them due to the new schedule actually, we were a ways from the apartment, and it was like 9:30, so we technically should have been going back there as soon as we could have, but I see this guy selling something on the street called Choripan (Basically like a sausage sandwich), and my companion loves Choripan, so we stop, because we can be a little late to the apartment if we have to, and while the food is cooking, F., the guy, starts asking us some questions and it just turned into a great contact, and we visited them again, and they are really cool. Also this week, on Tuesday, I went on splits with Elder A., the zone leader, and he showed me a part of our area that was recently added and used to be a part of his old area, and we found an old investigator of his that is super interested and wants to progress. There have been more than a few times this week where I have just said to myself ``I love this gospel`` because seeing the change that the atonement brings into people`s lives is just so beautiful to see, and being guided by the spirit to the Lord`s chosen is just something really wonderful to see. I love all of you, and I wish you all a stronger testimony of these truths every day.

Love,

Elder Blaylock

PS I learned how to make empanadas, so watch out family ;)

Brock - January 30

Wow! What a crazy week. 

So, to start off, I got the Christmas card! I loved your guys´ letters. Thank you guys so much. It really brightened my week. This week was nothing but knocking doors. One of our only investigators sent us fifteen messages (no joke) on Tuesday telling us how he has been studying with the Jehovah´s Witnesses for two and a half years, and he didn´t feel it was right to just stop. So that was sad, because he prayed about the Book of Mormon and said that the answer he got was "incredible". He had a lot of potential. I hope someday he is able to make it. Anyway, so we went knocking doors all week. Rough, rough , rough. We couldn´t find any focus area, hardly any new investigators, and hardly any lessons. On Saturday, the district leader called us to remind us about a planned fast. And Saturday was HOT. We died. We lost all of the water in our bodies in about an hour. We struggled for the rest of the day. Sunday morning (still dying), we showed up to church late because we tried to bring some people to church that didn´t end up coming. As soon as we got there, however, this lady in the branch walked up with this young woman who was the granddaughter of a recent convert and said "Elders, she´s decided to be baptized next Sunday. When can you go by her house?" Not a minute later, and young man walked in, looking a little lost. When we talked with him, he said he "used to be a Mormon." What we learned after church, however, is that that meant "he went as a youth but his mother never let him be baptized and now he´s over eighteen". We really saw what fasting (fasting with a fair amount of suffering) can do. We looked at each other after church and said "We are fasting every week!"

We did have that worldwide missionary conference on Wednesday, and I think the new schedule and the key indicators are really inspired. What I didn´t like that much was push from the mission president to kind of deny that factor of "more time to rest" that Dad mentioned in his letter to me. The mission president has always been lik The rest of the multizone we had was also good. I learned something very, very, very, VERY interesting at the multizone. I´m friends with this other Elder (he´s so trunky. He came up to me at lunch and asked "So what are you doing after?" to which I responded "Well, I´ll go back to my area, probably try and find some new investigators," and he said "No I meant after the mission." Anyway) and so I was talking to him and I said to him that I would be going home on August 1st. This Elder was assistant last transfer so he always had access to the system about departures and stuff. 

And he said that wasn´t true.

He said my real date is.........

JULY 25TH!

I know, it´s just a week earlier, but still! You guys are all going to see my face in person a week earlier! It is more likely that Jack and I will be able to hang out before he goes! (And a week less to teach and baptize. Got to work faster now.)

Other interesting tidbits. So, at one of the lunches this week, we were at this old couples´ house and we asked them how long they had been members. They told us that the missionary that had baptized them was in fact ORSON SCOTT CARD, author of Ender´s Game! (and I just confirmed right now that he did in fact serve in Brazil and they probably aren´t making it up.) I thought that was pretty crazy. 

So one of the things I´ve noticed for a while is how important the message of the Plan of Salvation is to the apostles and the first presidency. When I got here in the mission, this was the "overlooked" lesson, the "difficult to understand" message. But a lot of talks over the three (3!) General Conferences from when I´ve been here, the missionary transmission, and something from the scriptures has really shown me how vital this is to the missionary work. Listen to this, from Alma 22.

 12 And it came to pass that when Aaron saw that the king would believe his words, he began from the creation of Adam, reading the scriptures unto the king—how God created man after his own image, and that God gave him commandments, and that because of transgression, man had fallen.

 13 And Aaron did expound unto him the scriptures from the creation of Adam, laying the fall of man before him, and their carnal state and also the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world, through Christ, for all whosoever would believe on his name.

 14 And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory; and Aaron did expound all these things unto the king.

 15 And it came to pass that after Aaron had expounded these things unto him, the king said: What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God, having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day? Behold, said he, I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy.

 16 But Aaron said unto him: If thou desirest this thing, if thou wilt bow down before God, yea, if thou wilt repent of all thy sins, and will bow down before God, and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest.

 17 And it came to pass that when Aaron had said these words, the king did bow down before the Lord, upon his knees; yea, even he did prostrate himself upon the earth, and cried mightily, saying:

 18 O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day.(...)

What did Aaron teach Lamoni here? This is the plan of salvation! This is the "why" of everything! This is the reason! It is to vital. To have a testimony of the plan of salvation is to have a testimony of Christ´ and Heavenly Father´s abounding love for us. Search this things so that they be made know unto you. I love you all. Have a great week.

Elder B. Blaylock

Parker - January 23

Hey Everyone! Sorry about the weird writing schedule for me these past two weeks, last week, the internet cafe we usually go to was closed and its closed again today, and the other internet cafe has an odd schedule, it closes at 1 and reopens at 6 for some reason, I´m guessing the midday nap everyone takes here. But anyway, this week was a bit better than last week, hahaha! So yeah, not much happened, we´re just trying to work hard, but it´s difficult here, because you could find someone who´s basically a golden investigator, who progresses fast, loves learning about the gospel, and wants to be baptized, BUT they just can´t get to freaking church. Seriously, it´s so bad here, we only have half full trays for the sacrament, and only two trays for the bread and two for the water, and we still end up having leftover. Sigh. But anyway, we also had a zone conference with the president on thursday. It went pretty good, we had a good lunch at a restaurant, which was bizarre, and then we waited at the stake center for literally five hours as he had to do interviews then, and we went third to last. We got one hour of work in that day, it was so weird. Oh and by the way, for like a couple weeks now, we´ve had a new mission schedule, I think they changed it all over the world, but anyway, they cut down on study time and moved around daily planning so we basically don´t need to do anything when we get back to the apartment at 9:30, so we actually have time to have dinner and can even go to bed early if we want, and we are working more time during the day. It was a weird change, and a bit strange getting used to, but I think I like it. Anyway, that´s really all I have this week. Like I said, it was rather boring. Anyway, I just want to let all of you know that I am doing great in the mission and I love you all!

Love

Elder Blaylock

PS I literally had a flashback to Scooby Doo on Zombie Island when we went into this new investigators´house and it was just FULL of cats 

Brock - January 23

So this week was another slow one. It´s just a matter of time, I think. I´m creatively exhausted. Right now we´re just knocking, knocking, knocking. Another week where no one went to church. But they had eighty again this week. Some friends of the senior missionaries (that also served here liked nine years ago!) visited the branch on Saturday and Sunday. They were pretty nice, and still speak Portuguese pretty well. 

We have another multizone conference this week (one of the changes to the mission--we´ll have one every transfer). It´ll be on Thursday, so I´ll be sure to tell you guys about that next week.

We saw the weirdest thing this week--one day was a guy riding a cow and the next day was a guy riding a bull--through town. It was weird. Didn´t have my camera with me though. 

Hope that everything is going well with you guys this week. Love you all.

Elder Blaylock

Parker - January 16

Hey Everyone! 

Guess what? I got robbed! But nothing was stolen. So we´re heading to an investigator´s house, and right outside, some guy grabs my bag from behind and drags me through dirt and ash on the ground, shouting ´´dame la bolsa! dame la bolsa!´´ And, well, it´s just got scriptures in it, so I let it go, as he was also threatening to pull out a gun (my clothes were ruined by the way), but he doesn´t even make it to the corner when a father of a less active member that we´ve never seen before chases him down on a motorcycle and makes him give back the bag. So I didn´t lose anything, just got a little shock and ruined clothes. But yeah. that´s about the only interesting thing that happened this week. Oh and I found out my golashes work, it´s been raining a lot here.

I was walking in them last night, and accidentally stepped into a puddle which turned out to be a sewer hole cover that was on the verge of breaking, so I fell a little bit in a sewer. Not. Fun. But yeah, other than all that stuff, not much happened this week. I love you all and hope you´re doing great!

Love,

Elder Blaylock

Brock - January 16

So this week has been pretty busy, what with interviews and all. We had them on Wednesday. They went fine. 

We´ve been scrambling around to find new ways to work, because all my old tricks aren´t doing much. Knocking doors, visiting members and less-actives, everything. Tried going to the english schools like I did in Salto, but they´re all closed for the "summer vacation". We´ll see how it goes. It also seems like all of our investigators are moving away. 

The branch had a lot more people here on Sunday, about 80, which is good. It was also Elder J's birthday yesterday, so Elder and Sister B (the senior missionaries) made us pancakes today. So that was fun. 

Not a whole lot to talk about this week. Lots of walking. Love you guys

Elder Blaylock

Parker - January 9

Hey Everyone, 

Not much happened this week sounds like, so I`ll just go ahead and describe Tucuman for you guys and my situation as far as ``la obra misional`` is. I`m not sure if I said it before, but this place reminds me of a strange mixture of Arizona and Maryland, I don`t know why, just sometimes I get a certain feel that feels like either place. I`m sorry I  am not doing so well with the pictures this time, but there are some serious thief problems here. Especially in our area, there are a few parts of our area that are pretty dangerous and we rarely work there. We also have a basically closed down area that is technically attatched to our area. Elder L took me there to see why its basically closed down. It`s because literally everyone there is closed off in their homes. We can`t contact in the street because nobody listens to us, we can`t get into houses to teach, and the houses we can go into, we can`t get references to other houses or go back to that house for a while because they`re ``busy.`` It is a very difficult area, so we don`t work there most of the time. Concerning the ward, well, unfortunately it is stuck in a bad cycle. It`s frustrating. It is also hard to get people to go to church, there is a family that lives literally right in front of the church, and when we ask them, they say that they just can`t make it to church. Concerning some of the people we work with a lot, we have J, who wants to quit drugs and come to church, but when we  came to pick him up on sunday, the person who answered the door lied and said he wasn`t home when he was, and never mentioned us to him when he went back inside. And then we have a great investigator who we were able to bring to church, her name is A, and she was a Literature teacher, so she loves the Book of Mormon, she says it just makes so much sense and that it was clearly written perfectly, the only problem is that She has two boys in her home that are very rowdy and make things very hard. And we also have a very very nice lady named I, who is practically a member of the Church, except she can´t get baptized because she´s living with someone she is not married to. So she either has to marry him or get separated from him, the only problem is that she is not legally divorced from her real husband, and she can`t to much to separate from the man she`s living with. Elder L and I are trying to do our best to liven up the ward to help us a little with some of these less actives. Because there`s so many, and we can`t do them all. But anyways, thats all I have this week, hope you all are doing great!

Love,

Elder Blaylock

PS We went to a Walmart to shop today, and I found a real snickers bar, I was so happy. There are so few things here that taste the same as the United States. Its so hard, I miss food. 

Brock - January 9

So Tatuí is a nice city, pretty reasonably sized with quite a few inhabitants. It´s known as "the capital of music", so that´s cool. The people are little...different...and their accents are...interesting...so yeah. But nice place. Elder J is in fact taller than me, he´s about Jameson´s height. We also have the senior missionaries here, and they are hilarious. They are Elder and Sister B, and, as Elder J accurately put it, "Elder B is just like Mr. Frederickson, from Up". They´re like seventy years old, and they´re from Idaho.

By the way, I did get my packages! They were great. Got the candy (two pounds of Sour Patch and two bags of PBM&Ms!) and the garments and clothes are a helpful relief. So great to get packages. 

Dad asked if I think my shoes will last another 7 months. Honestly, I´m not sure. Both pairs are coming apart at the seams. I´ll see what I can do to repair them, but I might need to just buy some shoes here. And my suit is getting real ripped-up. Dad also sent some letters? secret messages? rorschach images? (hahaha) from the primary. Who are these children? I don´t recognize the names. 

Anyway, that´s been my life since last time. Hope all of you are doing well. Love you guys.

Parker - January 2

Hey Everyone! sounds like you`ve all had a good time! Especially Jack`s adventures flying solo, and livin it up in Idaho with Jameson and Arianne. Also, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I`m excited because now I am able to say that next year I`ll finish my mission. And the reason why that is significant is because it shows me how fast time flies. Just a week ago, I was saying ``yeah, in two years I``l finish,`` but already the end is just next year. Whereas before, it felt like I had barely started, now I am saying where did all the time go? Anyway, about my new transfer, my companion is a Gringo from Utah by the name of Elder L, and you know, we were getting along fairly well until......we found out that we were both fans of Brandon Sanderson, and now we`re like best friends. He`s pretty cool, he`s a hard worker, which I am grateful for, and he also allows time for us to have a conversation about the Way of Kings or Mistborn, so yeah, I`m not having any companion troubles for now, which I am extremely grateful for. Now to describe Tucuman, well, imagine Arizona, just with about 15% more greenery and about the humidity of Maryland. So yeah, it gets pretty unbearably hot here. But anyway. Oh yeah, new years eve. We spent it with a member, and they made some pretty good food, and then, because we have three gringos in the apartment (we share an apartment with the zone leaders) we played Scum with some Uno cards until midnight, then we watched some of the fireworks, then tried to get some sleep, but people literally partied all night long as loud as was possible. And then we had Church at normal time in the morning. And Church was interesting. One weird thing here is the street names here are very poorly chosen in my opinion. First of all, they use the same list of street names for every city, so I was hearing familiar street names by the time I got here, and second of all, the names they use are the names of provinces and countries. So when my companion told me that the family we were gonna spend new years eve wtih were in Mexico, I assumed that they were Mexican, but nope, the street name is called Mexico. And then I hear stuff like ``you gotta go down Salta, then head through Jujuy, and park in Tucuman,`` I get really confused at first. But anyway, that is really it for this week, we are working hard and making a little progress, so I am going to keep trying to do my best.

Love,

Elder Blaylock

Brock - January 2

I have officially been transferred to Tatooine. Well, actually, the real name is Tatui. But I couldn´t help it. It´s a branch, the district there is looking to become a stake but it depends on this branch because the others have managed decent frequency. My companion is Elder J. This will be his third transfer in the mission. I heard that he is taller than me. So that´ll be fun.

The elder that will be coming to finish Elder M´s training is the "filho" (mission son) of Elder W and Elder P, the zone leaders from this transfer. 

Pretty glad to be getting out of here. I´ve been here for six months, and while I don´t think that this area is bad per se, it´s just a lot of time in one place. So it´s good to have a change of scenery. I´ll be going further interior (countryside) and, hopefully, it will less hot there. The area I´m going to is also the only area in the mission with couple missionaries. I´m not sure that´s how you say it in English, but whatever. 

So this week I was reading in Moses and found some really cool parts when God is talking to Enoch. In chapter 7, 29-33, we read the following:

 29 And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?

 30 And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever;

 31 And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity; and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep?

 32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;

 33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood;

So here we read that God wept to see His children in such a state, that He had said and commanded that we love each other and choose Him. And it takes Enoch a little longer to have the same reaction, but it is described as thus:

 41 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook.

It´s interesting, the descriptors here, that his "heart swelled wide as eternity". I found that very vivid. When Enoch understood, when he knew, and saw their misery, his heart swelled wide as eternity. His comprehension might be a bit more expansive than ours, but the key to this all is understanding. Or, in other words, when we put things into perspective, we understand our relationship with God, with the Savior, our families, with humanity. Just thought that was interesting. 

Love you guys, have a good week

Elder B. Blaylock

Parker - December 26

Hi Everyone! Surprise! It was me who got transferred, now I`m in Tucuman. It was a six hour bus drive, where we had many stops of police looking for drugs. We accidentally watched Paul Blart Mall Cop 2, Run All Night, and Delivery Man, because the bus turned on the tv, and we were right up front and couldn`t turn it off or try to turn down the audio. I`m not going to leave an opinion on any of them, just letting you all know what happened.  My new companion is from Utah, Elder L, he seems cool, haven`t  been with him too long, he says we`re going to have a lot of work to do, which I`m not worried about because when we`re working, time goes fast, w hen we`re being lazy, everything is slow.  The only thing is that now we have to write in an internet cafe, which is used everyday by kids under 13 playing video games all day long, so these keyboards and mouses are pretty battered and abused. But, So far I`ve been able to write ok.   Christmas was AWESOME, I loved seeing all of your faces and hearing your voices, and I`m glad that everyone is enjoying their Christmases, despite the distance. Well, I don`t have much to say, just that I am looking forward to this transfer, and that I can`t wait until the Christmas after next ;) I love you all so much, keep living the gospel and having good lives.

Love,

Elder Blaylock