February 27, 2012

E. Agazzani and I have been a little better. We still need to work on a couple things. It`s like we`re both on a tight rope... With one wrong move, everything goes tumbling down... I have to be careful, patient, loving, Christlike... I can`t tell you how hard it is to really be like Christ. He was the perfect example of being...Well... PERFECT!!! No one but God could do that. It`s insane. 

Well, There was some really sad news here in the Great Mission of the Patagonia. Elder Syddall, one of my good friends from Esquel, was knifed in the neck last Sunday. He is in Roca, close to Neuquèn. A guy who always bugged the missionaries, throwing rocks at them and sometimes, rotten meat, went up to them acting like he was interested in the church. He began walking with them, they answered his questions and everything, just like a normal contact. When they were about 100 meters away from the church, the guy stopped looked at E. Syddall, then pulled out a knife from his pocket and, screaming "REPENT!" slashed him across the neck and face. He meant to kill him. He escaped and E. Syddall was carried to a members house then to the hospital where he was operated on right away. He`s alive. But he will carry a very nice memory of that encounter on his neck and face for the rest of his life. It will be a scar that goes from the middle of his neck all the way to the corner of his mouth. About 5-6 inches. Scary? A little bit. I was reminded though about a sentence in my Patriachal Blessing that says that in my mission, The Angels of the Lord will protect me. I believe that. 

I`m really excited for this transfer. It`s going to be a good one. We have the dad and big sister of Daniza and Zahida that we`re working on. They will get baptized, The dad and mom of Daniza and Zahida will be married and will complete their family... Eternally!!! Fabiana has her son Lautaro who is 10 who will hopefully get baptized this Saturday. He`s a rascal and is always running around, not making it on time for the apts, we have with him and his mom. Also his big sister has shown some interest. We met an inactive family that has three daughters that aren`t baptized. They all will enter the waters of baptism. A family that came to a baptism and wants to be baptized needs to be married, and then they can enter the waters of baptism. Mirta and Ramón and Roberto Gori and their families (All my converts, I`m SO proud of them!!!!) are sharing with families and have set up appts with us to meet them. They`re doing Missionary Work!!! So strong and faithful, they are. I love San Martìn with all my heart. It`s an incredible place. This week I`ve been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon, and I never get tired of reading. I need to work out more... Oh! That reminds me of an experience we had yesterday.. 

We had lunch yesterday with the Branch President and Flia. Calderòn. I don`t know how we got on the topic, but we started to talk about working out and stuff like that. the President, Presidente Di Stefano looks at me and says "Let`s do it.". He`s such a little guy, he`s a skinny stick of a man. He says, we`re going to do push ups. Whatever amount you do, I`ll do 5 more. I said: "Vamos, Che!!" Let`s go, Dude! We get down and start doing push ups. He was talking smack the entire time. We got to 55 and started slowing down, the both of us. I stopped for a second in the Upward dog position, and he thought I was done, I then began pumping out push ups again. We were both dying, pushing as hard as we could. In the end... He didn`t beat me. We did the same amount, about 65. Not a lot. I need to work harder. But he wasn`t finished... He then wanted to do a contest of one handed pull ups. There`s no pull up bar in a church??!! He said, Oh, yes there is. We went outside and he went to the antennae. It`s a big tower and at the top is the antennae, to get to the top is a metal ladder, but you need a step ladder to get up to it, it`s about 15 ft. above the ground. He got a ladder out and climbed up and began his one armed pull ups. He did 12. We had about 20 members, all the missionaries and the little kids watching and cheering. Then it was my turn. The missionaries, E. Campos and Arenas (Both from the U.S. ) were yelling at me, REPRESENT! REPRESENT!!! I began doing pull ups. I past 12 easily and got to 16 before asking for the ladder. I beat him fair and square!!! It was very fun. But I need to work out more... A lot more. 

Well, I just want to throw out a big thank you to everyone who continually supports me... I`m about to complete a year in the mission... And it`s gone by so fast. So incredibly fast. I have many goals and things to accomplish in this next year, and it`s so scary to already see the finish line in the distance. A year of work... Incredible. I love you all. I miss you all, but I miss the work more! Gotta go out and teach! 

Amor, 

E. Cuthbert 

January 16, 2012

Twenty years? NOOOOO!!! I´m not that old! I feel like I´m still 12, not a care in the world, running Hershey track and having a blast. But.. I can´t stop time. As much as I would like to stop time and stay young forever... I can´t. I´m turning twenty in a couple days... Blegh. I have to tell you the truth, I just want to stay your little Jordie. But, I know for right now, I can´t. Life has gone on, the years have past, and I am now an authorized servant of God. The time has flown...

So much has happened. E. Calvache left later on Monday, leaving E. Campos, Arenas and me here in San Martín to do whatever we wanted... So what did we do? We walked around to every chocolate store in San Martín and ate their samples... ;) And there´s LOTS of chocolate stores. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! If there´s one thing that age won´t change, it´s my love for delicious, scrumptious, smooth, luscious chocolate... HMMMMM. That night we began packing the other Elders´ stuff up. They were going to move to a different apartment in San Martín, so I helped clean and organize. That night we sat and spoke about our lives, and it was a pretty deep conversation. We spoke about things that I haven´t told many people, but we as Elders in the Gospel were strengthened by the testimonies of each other. At midnight, pouring with rain, we ran to the terminal to pick up E. Agazzani, my new companion. When he got there, we left the other two Elders for our own apartment, once there, we spoke for a little bit, then got to bed at 2am. Next morning... DEAD. We were so tired. Ever since then, I´ve been showing him around San Martín, we´ve been teaching, talking and loving life as missionaries. E. Agazzani is from Cordoba, Argentina. He´s got an accent that I´ve never heard before, a little hard to understand, he´s ending the mission in April, and he´s pretty shy around people he doesn´t know. But we´ll fix that.

The recent converts are doing very well. Mirta and Dana were sick, so Ramón and Claudia came to church by themselves! I was so proud of their effort. Yenifer and Karen came alone, without their mom. Her mom has been having a very hard time right now. She has a HUGE desire to be baptized, but she´s got a boyfriend, a daughter between the two of them, and she doesn´t want to separate the family again... HARD situation. They fasted with us on Saturday-Sunday to find a way to make the situation better. It´s brought a lot of tears on the part of Miriam, she doesn´t know what to do. I have been praying a lot for her and for her family. We have a lot of families now that are new. Everyone we had either got baptized, or said they don´t want to hear anything more. So when E. Agazzani got here, we are once again, almost starting from zero. We´ve found a lot of new people, had a lot of weird conversations, met a lot of dedicated catholics and evangelicals... What a week. We got into a pretty big bible bash the other day, and I had to repent for it on Sunday. I felt terrible for diverting from my cause as a missionary and only relying on scriptures from a half translated correctly Bible... Instead of using the power of the Holy Ghost and the Book of Mormon. I love the Bible, but only confusion comes from it because people interpret its sayings so differently. The Book of Mormon is NECESSARY. Without it, we are lost, in the dark. Anyway, I repented a lot for what I did, we also met a catholic yesterday that said "If you guys come to the Mass on Sunday at 10:30 this Sunday, I guarantee you I will come to you church too, but I already know you guys will never come." Hard decisions.... I don´t think we´ll be going, but it would be very interesting. He´s a hard core catholic that is SO SURE that the church that Constantine made permanent is the church of Christ. Wrong. Even by that time, the church was already in Apostasy... Ooops! I´m beginning to teach here... Sorry. Heh! I´ve been doing a lot of studying with the Apostasy and what happened... It´s a sketchy situation.

Anyway, for my birthday we´re going to Mirta and Ramóns house to have a bunch of Empanadas... I´m going to use one of the chocolate devils food cakes that you gave me and make a chocolate icecream-dulce de leche icecream cake!!!!! Hahaha! Wish me luck with that! I love this work. I love you all so much. SEND PICTURES! They make me HAPPY. Give me more HOPE. Make me work HARDER.

I love you all with all my heart. Jared, I WANT that hat. Mom, you´re la mejor mamá que hay en este mundo. Nunca te cambie. Eres mi angel. Melyn, sigues con el español. Te amo mucho. Papá. Te amo. Gracias por llevar a Jared y Simon al Show de Autos. Gracias por todo. No puedo esperar para hablar con ti.

Amor,

E. Cuthbert