Parker - October 9

Hey everybody!

So, this week has been interesting. 

Last Tuesday, we had District Meeting, and it was the first time we had the entire district there! Yeah, There are two elders in my district that live suuuuper far away, five hours in bus, so they haven`t been able to come to the district meetings. And something happened to their phone so we can´t call them and they can´t call us. We communicate by texting. 

But yeah, it was interesting, I based the entire thing on the Book of Mormon. I had each companionship prepare a lesson plan using just the Book of Mormon, without any pamphlets or using the Bible, in order to help them see that we can use the Book of Mormon in every lesson, and it can teach whatever point of doctrine that we need. it was really cool. 

It was also one of the elder´s birthday, so we had a cake that my comp made from a cake mix he got in his package from home. 

I`m sending pics of the District Meeting. 

Also, in order to help us find a few more investigators here, we did something called a Tormenta Blanca here, which means "White Storm." So two elders and two sisters came over to our area and helped us contact a whole bunch of people, so now we have a few more potential investigators to try and visit. And now, EVERY area in the district wants to do a Tormenta Blanca, so that`s gonna be fun. 

Then we tried really hard with one investigator named E, to get baptised, but it`s so weird, he and the only other real investigator we have, J, are like basically ready, totally ready, and they want to get baptized too, just for some reason, they want to put it off. Sigh, it`s rough. 

But yeah, and then my comp got to a year in the mission last week, so we burned a shirt of his. (I didn`t do that, there was no space back in Aguilares.) But yeah, it was fun. Even though he just recently he got to a year, he`s probably ending the mission with me, cuz he needs to get back and go to school. 

Other than that, the only interesting things that happened this week are that a bunch of missionaries in our zone went home a week before the transfer ended. Not because they broke a rule or anything, they just went home a week early. Cuz of the whole extensions thing. I knew like half of them, one of them, the Zone Leader, was a good friend of mine, he was also my zone leader in Tucumán. 

Anyway, I love you all!

Elder Blaylock

October 4 - Jack

First, Mom, you owe me 31 pieces of candy. I took notes on all of the general conference talks (Man I miss that tradition)

Second, How cool was it to hear President Russell M. Nelson mention the missionaries in Chile? Let me answer that, REALLY COOL.

This week went really well for me. Not only did we get to watch general conference but I also got a chance to go proselyting this week, which was incredible! I don´t know if it is just because I was a missionary this time, but general conference was awesome, I loved all of the talks that were given. I hope everyone was able to watch all of it, and if not go back and watch it! I know I want to listen to some of those talks again. It seemed like a lot of them were focused on self improvement and strengthening each other. A lot of talks were given about service, which is so important because it is much better and you will be much happier if you try to think of others before yourself. I loved that a few spoke on Christ´s moral character and how we can all strive to be more like Him. The other topic that seemed really important this conference was about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon daily. One of my favorite talks given was from Russell M. Nelson about treasuring the Book of Mormon in our lives and gaining a personal testimony of it. So many talks addressed this topic, and I even wrote about it last week in my email, which I don´t think is a coincidence, so I urge all of you to read the Book of Mormon for yourselves and truly study and pray about it. My favorite talk however was from Jeffrey R. Holland. I loved that talk so much. He spoke with such love and emotion and power. I love Matthew chapter 5, which his talk was kind of focused on and I loved all of his advice on trying to be more Christlike everyday. If you only listen to one talk from General Conference, listen to this one. He spoke at the end of the Saturday morning session. Also remember to always try to apply what was taught in General Conference to your lives! My other awesome experience this week was when we went proselyting. It was incredible! I can´t wait for the field. Everyone in my district were assigned a companion from the santiago west mission for the afternoon and as soon as we got there I totally called it. First, I called that I was going to be assigned the shortest companion, and then I called that I was going to be in a trio. Both were correct. But my companions were really cool, they were the zone leaders. The whole time we were walking around I had such a big smile on my face. I learned a lot that day about faith. Faith is incredible, it is truly the opposite of doubt. I´m probably the only missionary in my district who hasn´t really worried about learning the language because I´ve seen all 3 of my brothers learn their mission languages, and I always just had this feeling in the back of my mind that if I really need the language for something, then I´ll know what to say. I´ve only been learning spanish for 3 weeks (4 weeks now) but I was able to understand everything except one conversation while we were proselyting, which I´ll explain later. We taught a lesson to a recent convert and I was able to understand all of it and even teach and testify for part of it. It was incredible. The same principle applies to everything, all week I´ve been pretty sick but I´ve done my best not to worry or complain about it and just trust that while I´m on the Lord´s errand I´ll be taken care of. Whenever I teach, especially proselyting, I´ve never felt healthier. It´s incredible, have faith in the Lord. Near the end of our time proselyting we went to an area where there were a lot of Haitians who speak French-Creol. One of my companions was able to speak it pretty well(as well as english which was nice for me), but I was again astounded as I was able to understand their conversations, I couldn´t speak back, but I could understand what they were talking about. It was so cool. There was one Haitian who could speak a little spanish and a little english, so he really wanted to talk to me because I was clearly from the United States. I felt so stupid, for some reason I couldn´t understand what he was trying to ask me though, all I could gather was that he mentioned me being in Chile, and the verb venir, which means to come. So I assumed he was asking why I came to Chile and I began testifying of why I was serving a mission and of Heavenly Father´s love for us(my purpose for serving a mission was in my farewell talk if you´ve read that), and eventually one of my companion stops me and tells me that he was asking where I was from. I FELT SO STUPID. After thinking about it for a little bit though I realized something cool. That was the only conversation I didn´t understand all day. Before he left that guy stayed back and shook my hand continuosly telling me over and over again that it was beautiful talking to me. I think I was supposed to misunderstand that conversation and bear testimony. As all day i´d been able to understand the language with the help of the Lord, by the same power I couldn´t understand that question, but only in order to bear testimony to him. It was a powerful realization. I hope everyone is doing well at home! I´ll talk to you next week!

Elder Blaylock

October 2 - Parker

Hey Everyone! Quite the week we`ve all had. Ending it off with a nice general conference. 

So yeah, to start off, not much happened until thursday, that`s when stuff got exciting. So, we were scheduled to have president interviews that day, and we were also planning on doing comp exchanges with the elders in Cafayate, an area in my district. We had to do it then cuz they live lke four or five hours away by bus, so since they were already coming to Salta, we decided to take advantage. 

So I go with the new missionary, who`s still in his training, elder Baum. And we have quite the bus ride ahead of us. Then we get there and get to work. Since I am District leader now, I have to give the baptismal interviews for everyone in my district, and they had four candidates. So we went and visited all of them. The first was an old man named P, who was very nice and was very sincere, even if he needed a little nudge on the answers to the interview questions. The second was a woman who was also really nice, very repentant and also ready for baptism, even if she`s a little new and uncomfortable with certain church practices. The last two were two brothers under 11 years old. They were also excited to get baptised, even though one of them said "I don`t want to commit to not drinking tea, cuz sometimes we`re out of maté and we only have tea." Maté is like an herbal tea here, not against the word of wisdom. It was funny. 

So yeah, because it takes so long to get there, the other elders left and came in the middle of the night, so that wasn`t too fun. Then early morning, we went back.

Then we had general conference. It was really good. Didn`t get to see the priesthood session cuz it`s so late here, started at 9 and went till 11. But other than that, it was really good. I liked Holland`s talk, I never thought of the parable of the two debtors like that before. There were also many talks I loved, like Nelson`s, and Eyring´s, and Anderson`s at the end were probably among my favorites. Also the one by Callister, who talked about the book of mormon. 

And yeah, that was basically my week. Today for pday all we did was play a little bit of soccer in the morning and then we went to go eat chinese food. It was like legit chinese food, it was pretty good. 

Anyway, that`s pretty much all so far. The work here is tough, we`re probably gonna have a Tormenta Blanca here this week to help us find new people to teach, cuz it`s hard. 

Love you all,

Elder Blaylock

Jack - September 27

Hey everyone, quick week for me this week. Not a lot happened other than the same old schedule everyday, so the week kinda flew by. We had an earthquake drill last week, and then about half an hour later there was an actual earthquake, at least some people think there was, I couldn´t feel anything so maybe it was just really small, I know Chile gets them a lot. Yesterday morning all of the previous groups of missionaries left the MTC for their missions. Both the previous group of north americans, there for 6 weeks (like me) and all of the latinos, there for 3 weeks. It was weird to say goodbye to them because we´d only known them for 3 weeks, but we´d grown pretty close, especially with our roommates. This week went a lot better with my companion, I don´t know what changed but we haven´t had any arguments and we´ve been able to practice teaching with much better unison and accord. Something I forgot to write about last week was something else that was said in the devotional we watched from Elder Bednar. He suggested that we should all read the Book of Mormon with a specific question in our mind that we want answered. Then as we read, mark all of the scriptures and passages that stand out and when you finish reading, do a little review and write a summary of what you learned. He said that by the time we´re his age (he was speaking to a bunch of missionaries in the original devotional) we should have bookshelves full of different copies of the Book of Mormon categorizing our growth in spirit and knowledge. What a cool idea. So this week I´ve been trying it out and it is incredible. I just started from where i was in my current reading, I didn´t bother starting over again. And I just started with one question in mind, but as I´ve been reading more questions and passages of scripture hace stood out to me. It has been the best experience I´ve ever had reading the Book of Mormon ever. Each time I read I say a prayer first to help me focuson my study and on my questions and it is amazing, I´m able to understand and learn so much more. I highly encourage everyone to try it. For your first time maybe focus on trying to find out if the Book of Mormon is true, even if you already have a testimony of it, and mark whenever someone bears testimony or anything else that stands out to you. It is truly an incredible experience. I hope everyone is doing well and I can´t wait to talk again next week.

Elder Blaylock

Parker - September 25

Well Hello everyone!!!

So, This week has been rather interesting. Let`s start from the beginning. 

So Tuesday, we didn`t actually get much done, cuz I had to have an interview with the president in the afternoon that took up a lot of time.

Friday, we went to a Zone Conference, and it was pretty good. Oh yeah, I don`t know how it is in other missions, but here, when someone is ending, in their last zone conference, they give their "Faithful Testimony" and two people gave them this time. One was a sister who was in my first district a year ago, and the other was my zone leader in Tucuman, we did comp exchanges so many times, we`re basically companions. But yeah, it was weird to see, that these people are ending the mission, and that really there isn`t a whole lot of time left for me. 

My comp is saying that when he leaves, I`m gonna train. And yeah, it`s actually very likely. the only question is whether my current comp stays here for one or two transfers. But yeah, basically when I leave this area, I`m gonna have like 6-8 months left, which is insane. 

Also, after the conference, we went with some elders in my district to their area to do exchanges. They had two baptisms last week, and I had to give the baptismal interviews, it was crazy. Afterwards, they had an activity, and invited us to stay. Basically every organization had to prepare some desserts, and the missionaries were gonna be judges, so that was a fun night. One of the elders in that companionship made dirt and worms, you know, with the choclate pudding, oreos, and gummy worms? It was weird. 

And then yesterday was my comp`s birthday, and we had TWO barbecues. One for lunch and one for dinner. It was AWESOME.

And today, we went hiking up this hill/mountain here. It was pretty cool, pictures are included. And then we went and ate MCDonalds in the city. Then we came back to write, but the chapel here has like trashy internet, so we had to come and use an internet cafe. 

But yeah, other than that, everything`s going great here, love you all

Elder Blaylock

Jack - September 20

This week FLEW by, after that first week time has been flying so fast. A lot happened this week but at the same time it´s hard to remember all of it. Last wednesday after emailing we did a session at the santiago temple (which is right next to the MTC) and it was awesome, we get to do it every pday. I love the reverent peace of the temple, it´s the best place to pray to God with any questions or concerns you have. A bit later last week my companion and I had a big argument, so I´m still having trouble with this companionship, some days are better than others. Monday and Tuesday were actually national holidays so it was really cool and lucky that I was in the MTC because we celebrated all of Monday. We ate a ton of good food, learned a lot about some of the dancing they do in Chile (with ponchos and hats and boots with spurs it was sweet) we also played some field games in teams for most of the day, for some reason i was a team leader for my team so they´d explain the rules of each game to the team leaders but both the team leaders for my team were gringos haha and they were explaining in spanish. That night we had a devotional with the MTC president, he taught us more about the holiday and the history of Chile. Monday was their independence day. Tuesday was a holiday celebrating all their branches of their military so we got to leave class to go watch some parades, I didn´t get any pictures though unfortunately. This sunday we had some really good devotionals. We watched a talk from Elder Bednar about the Character of Christ and trying to be more like Him. One of the best ways to do that is to always think about others before yourself. Something he shared that I really liked were his thoughts on faith and the story of the brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon. The brother of Jared presents his plan to light the boats to God, which was to have God touch the stones so that they could be illuminated. In the verse where it talks about the brother of Jared seeing the finger of God, Elder Bednar points out and speculates about the fact that there´s a period between the sentence where God lights the stones and the brother of Jared sees the finger of God. So Elder Bednar pointed out that maybe God started lighting the stones and the first few all the brother of Jared saw were the stones lighting up, but he had to believe that God was touching them before he would be able to see God´s finger, because faith is a hope for things which are not seen which are true. Ether 3:6 ¨And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these words, behold, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord...¨ This reminded me of another scripture about faith that says ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. So if you desire something of the Lord, go to Him with a plan and faith that you will receive just like the brother of Jared. This was really important to me because it is exactly what it felt like after my argument with my companion, before I was comforted and assured by the Lord that I was doing what was right I had to prove that I would stand by what was right. I hope you are all doing great! I love it here and I can´t wait to be able to tell you more. Until next week.

Elder Blaylock

Parker - September 18

Well, how´re you all doin? This week has been long and interesting, so I´ll start from the top.

So, Tuesday. My first District Meeting as District Leader. I think it went well. I focused on our purpose as a missionary. I don´t know how many of you know this, but our key indicators changed and now we only report baptisms, people with baptismal dates, people who went to church, and new investigators. So I focused on how from the first visit, we need to be bold and start talking about baptism and going to church, because that´s what the key indicators tell us we need to be focusing on. We also did exchanges with the ZL´s that day, and I got to be with a good friend, Elder A, he was my ZL in Tucuman at the beginning of the year, we´ve done exchanges so many times we´re basically companions. So that was pretty fun. The only interesting thing about that day was that we had to change out their gas tank, carry the empty one like five blocks away and then grab a new one and carry it all the way back. And then we had to figure out how to open it up without any tools. In the end I managed to use an old rusted bike chain to crack it open. 

Wednesday. We got done with exchanges early morning, and went back to work. Really rough day, one of those days where all the appointments fall through and nobody wants to accept us. But it´s fine. These days happen sometimes. 

Thursday was very interesting. So ok. Here in Salta, there is a very big Catholic holiday called Semana de Milagros, or Week of Miracles. Where years and years ago, there was this huge earthquake and people were praying to these saint and virgin statues and that part of the city wasn´t destroyed, so now there´s an annual pilgrammage where people walk for thousands of miles to the catholic cathedral in salta. So, this is where we come in. We were told that we could go to a service project thursday morning, something to do with food. Ok. We get there.....oh my goodness, this is a huge event here. What we were basically doing was acting as a rest stop for all these pilgrims. There was a whole bunch of people making sandwiches and handing them out with water, and there was also a station for people to get medical attention for their feet, where there were people washing feet with this water mixed with a weird brown substance. We had to refill the water bins when they were used and then dumped. We also saw lots of guys our age who were becoming catholic priests, wearing like wizards robes or something. All in all, rather fascinating. 

And then Friday was the special conference with Elder Mark A. Bragg, a seventy who´s in the area presidency, doing a mission tour. It was very good, he´s very cool and taught some great things in the conference. At first there was a meeting for leaders in the mission, and I´m district leader so I went to that. It was really good, learned a bunch about being a leader. And then, before the second meeting, everyone got to get up and go shake his hand. And when I get there, he actually stops me and says "Elder Blaylock! I need to get a picture with you" what? how does he recognize me and what´s this about a picture? "I was with your brother in Chile last week in the MTC" So yeah, got to meet a seventy. And he even spoke in Conference in last April. About light if I´m not mistaken. Gave me some words of comfort, showed me a pic of him with Jack. Telling me about how happy Jack looks. It was really good. 

And Saturday, we went early in the morning with a member very far away to teach some friends of hers. They are a good family, they just live very far away. It´s very beautiful too. I´ll send the pics later when I can get my camera.

Sunday. Very special. I´ve been very focused on partaking of the Sacrament lately. It was very special yesterday when I took the Sacrament. Also did a lot of introspection, found out a lot of things about myself. Made lots of goals to be better. 

So yeah. It was a very long and interesting week. I love all of you. I´m praying for each and every one of you. By name. That´s something that Elder Bragg emphasized in the conference. 

Love,

Elder Blaylock