December Wow!

Hey, i´m way glad to hear you´re off caffeine! I bet it feels good to not have that hanging over your head now.

So brother stoddard finally got released? he´s been there forever it seems like, and for good reason Kaleb is sad. Brother stoddard is so awesome but i´m sure brother lindsay will be good too. is the whole ward getting changed up with the new bishopric or are the callings about the same?

Yeah it´s weird that Kaleb is graduating this year. What´s weirder is that the year is almost half over. It wasn´t that long ago that you were waiting to start the school year. It´s weird how fast the time is going. I bet Kyle felt that a lot in the mtc--at least I did. That´s cool he´ll be in Japan next monday...or is he in japan now? i don´t know when he sent that last email so maybe he´s in japan as I speak. that would be cool.

I´m still waiting for the christmas packages since they didn´t arrive today but maybe the president is bringing the bolsa with him tomorrow to the zone conference.

Today, we did an activity with the zone where we went to a hill called Campenario and we took pictures and stuff up top. It was an amazing view and i got some sweet pictures of a hawk up there but i´ll have to send them next week since the cyber i´m in doesn´t have very good computers.

Lucas is doing good. We´ve had some rough week the last couple weeks since it seems like all of our investigators are dropping off, telling us they don´t want us to come back. Including, three fechas we had don´t want us to come back and they are so cold to us they won´t answer our questions as to why they changed so quickly and stuff. I think someone talked to tell and convinced them to change their minds or told them some lies about the church, but what can you do? We´ve been trying to find some new investigators to teach and we´ve been having some good success.

Well, Christmas is coming up fast and then we´ll be talking over the phone. thanks for everything and I love ya.

hayden.

Thanksgiving!!

It seems like none of us had a traditional thanksgiving dinner since we made burritos and mexican food haha. Elder Barcenas, my district leader, is from the US but his parents are latin so he was able to make the tortillas from scratch and the salsa was really really spicy which i´m not used to. I was sweating so much but it was so good! i miss spicy food haha.

We had the baptism of vanesa yesterday and it was excellent. We had a miracle with filling up the baptismal font too. The whole weekend, there was no water in the church, and it´s kind of hard to have a baptism without water so we were there before the baptism trying to figure out what we could do to get water there when my comp said that he was going to try one more time to see if somehow there was water. I was so confident that there wasn´t any water that i was standing in the font as he turned the knob. A little trickle of water started out which was all i expected then suddenly, water began to blast into the font like it never has before. Needless to say, i was humbled haha and the font filled us way faster than usual and everything was ready for the baptism. it was incredible. I think i´ll call my comp Moses from now on since it´s like he smote the rock and water came out, only in this case, he smote the...i don´t know, the brick? and water came out haha. I got to baptize vanesa and the water was really cold but it was awesome.

So about my face, there is still some swelling but it´s going away i think. The swelling in my cheek is mostly gone but now i noticed swelling back in my jaw so i´m giong back in to medical on wednesday to see if the gland is still infected. Also, the rash that i thought i was getting fromt the other antibiotics, was actually being caused by the ibuprofen which has never happened before. Is it possible to suddenly have an allergy to ibuprofen? it´s weird because the rash only appears on the left side of my face where the swelling was so hopefully when all the swellilng goes away, i´ll be able to take ibuprofen again without any problems. but until then, could you send me some tylenol, since that´s what i have to take now if i have a headache? also if you can manage, could you send me some claritin non drowsy? my allergies are pretty bad now that it´s getting warmer. If you can´t send them, i´ll just try to get something here from the pharmacies to work it out.

I´m going to try to put some pictures on now of the baptism so i´m going to end. I hpe you had a great thanksgiving and now we´re making our way to christmas! yeah, i´ll still be in bariloche for christmas. transfers are the 27 of december so i´ll just make it. just it´s not sure i´m leaving this next transfer either. love you!

elder newey

Our Investigators

Hayden before he left Comodoro Rivadavio

Hayden with Elder Justice who is also from Utah

To answer your question, yes, I have a microwave in the pension. Speaking of the microwave, my comp tried to cook a whole raw egg in the microwave haha. Of course, it exploded all over the place. It was so hilarious, I was laughing for days about it. But yeah, we have one so feel free to send the stuff. What is everything you have for my package(s) now? Could you send me a list of the things in them next week?

My investigators are doing good though. We just put four baptismal dates (we call them fechas) so we´re coming off a really good week. We´re excited to be having some good success out here. We have one investigator who just lost her 18 year old daughter to cancer to she is really angry with God now, but maybe it can turn into a blessing if we can get her into the church because of it.

I just sent off a bunch of letters today. one to you, with a letter to Brady in it, one to kyle, and a few others to other missionaries. If you don´t feel good about having brady email me, then he probably shouldn´t. Think about it but don´t ignore the feelings you get. Sometimes I want to hear from friends so much that it overpowers my better judgement. Let me know what you think.

ryan is getting his call this week right? Oh i´m so excited. I´ll be looking forward to next monday with a lot of anxiety. Kessa told me also that you took pictures of Adam as a ghost so I´d love to see them haha.

I can´t believe fax is 40 already haha. He doesn´t seem like he should be 40. It´s weird how fast the time is going by. I just completed 7 months yesterday. crazy. Before I know it, I´ll have a year out here haha.

Hey, another elder from Utah who is here with me just told me that two chapels got burned to the ground this week. What´s that about? Are we seeing more signs of the times?

But anyway, I´m basically out of time. Thanks for everything, and for the great email. How is kyle doing in the mtc? I´m going to get off now so I can send some pictures. Love you!

hayden

Another Week in Bariloche

I´m going to be looking at cameras today but we also have a zone activity so it probably won´t be until the end of pday. That´s crazy how much people are changing. Luke in the MTC, amanda pregnant...insane. I really liked Kyle´s email, and yeah, it´s all true. You don´t need to be able to speak well to transmit the spirit. I´ve been working really hard at trying to teach to a person and not at a person which basically means you teach by the spirit and not some memorized sentences about gospel truth. It´s been really good and we had an awesome experience with Lucas, who is 16.

He, first off, is completing with all of his compromises (i don´t remember the word in english haha. It´s compromisos in spanish haha). He read the restoration pamphlet and prayed and read 3 Nephi 11, but said he didn´t feel any confirming witness. I was like, crap what do I say? Then I heard myself saying, and did you pray after you read 3 ne 11? and he said he had not, at which point I asked him if we could pray right then and there, kneeling down and if he could offer the prayer and ask the specific question, "is the Book of Mormon true?" He did so and just to see an investigator pray on their own and really pour out their hearts to God is the most beautiful thing in the world. Then after he ended the prayer, we just stayed there for a little, kneeling on the ground. Then I asked "so what do you feel?" and he said, "I feel like a... a really strong... heat...inside me." So then we went to Doctrine and Covenants where it explains this feeling and he was way excited that he had received such a strong witness. Then we put a baptismal fecha and set up going to church with him that sunday. It was so incredible. I find myself thinking about him and how I can help him progress more, but in reality, he´s doing all the work himself haha.

We had a much better week, number wise. I feel like we worked a lot harder and you can see the results of it. This week was really warm and then turned really cold. I was bummed because I was tanning up so well. I´m going to be so dark by the end of the summer!

Oh my gosh! I realized I never thanked Adam for his card he sent me! It was so excellent! I really liked the pictures of the tigers.

So yeah, that was the week. Today, we were going to go paintballing as a zone but we have to put it off until the next zone activity because it takes too much time to go there and back but I was so excited for it. Now I think we´ll just be playing basketball so I´m still excited.

That´s it for the week! I hope everything is good there! love you

elder newey

Bariloche I'm Here!

Wow I have a ton to tell you.

I´ll start with Bariloche. I got here tuesday morning and waited in the terminal for about an hour with the zone leaders until my companion decided to show up. He has what he calls gastritis which is something like acid reflux or something but basically he has to eat a full meal every three hours which kind of kills the missionary work as you can imagine.

I got a sweet welcome from the dogs in the area when I first arrived. I was waiting for my companion to unlock the pension door when I turned around and a dog was peeing on my suitcase...it got a swift kick in the butt for it´s bravery though so I felt kind of better haha. Then we went to the supermarket here called chango mas which is partly owned by walmart so when I entered it for the first time, I instantely felt like I was back in Utah, looking at "great value" brand stuff for the first time in 6 months. It was kind of surreal.

Then I found out that Elder Whitaker is training again so, in mission terms, I have a brother! I need to see his picture but in your email to his mom, could you pass a message to him? Tell him he can´t start a geneology book now and give it to his new son. I claim the birthright!

So the members here are pretty awesome. We don´t have quite as big a ward as we did in Palazzo but they´re all really good. The bishop is way young, like in his late twenties so he´s really fun to work with. We have some good investigators but not much, and I want to work so much more than we can right now but I´m trying to stay patient. We found a 16 year old kid named Lucas who is way awesome. When he eventually, gets baptized like I think he will, it will be my first baptism basically started and ended by me. Elder Molina doesn´t help me teach very much so I´m thinking I´ll learn a lot this transfer just because I´ll have to teach a lot more than I´m used to. I also found a person named Aurora (I thought kessa would like that haha).

So yeah the week was good until yesterday. It started off bad when Lucas couldn´t come to church and then just got worse and worse. All of our appointments fell through so we started to do some contacts in the huge apartment buildings here. I thought things were looking up when we got into the house of an old guy with a huge long beard. I changed my mind though when he opened our pamphlet of the restoration to the picture of Isaiah and said "that´s me. I´m a prophet" Then he started shaking like he was receiving a revelation and then started shouting off jibberish like he was speaking in tongues. It would have been really funny aside from the fact that I instantely felt, literally, an evil spirit in the room. I wanted to leave so bad, but my comp decided he had to go to the bathroom and left me along with this lunatic and demon spirit. So I was praying like mad that my faith wouldn´t leave me and I would become afraid because then it would be all over. So I started explaining to him how Joseph Smith had priesthood keys given to him and this man, who already knew a ton of our church doctrine, said, "yes, I too received priesthood keys like Joseph Smith through the baptism of fire" Then he started telling me how he used to heal people and raised his hand like he was going to try to "heal" me. In my mind, I was like, "I swear old man, if you try to curse me with the evil spirit that is possessing you, I´ll use my real priesthood and show you what´s up" haha that´s not how the priesthood should be used but I was freaking out, and all I wanted to leave. It was a strange feeling. Literal darkness was trying to press in on my mind and I had to exhert physical energy to fight it back. I really can´t describe how horrible it was and when my companion finally returned, I was standing, ready to leave, but he sat down and started listening to this guy again. The "prophet" turned to me and asked me why I wanted to leave when my companion wanted to hear more. Then he said how some day the prophet and the apostles in the church will receive the revelation that he is living down in Bariloche and they will come looking for him because he is supposed to be the one who prepares the way for the second coming of Christ. I was like "let´s go, elder molina. Lets go!" and finally he got up and we were about to leave when the guy started to speak in tongues again and was shouting "gloria gloria gloria gloria" over and over again. when we finally got out, I was exhausted mentally and spiritually and then I almost punched my comp when he said, "that was a good lesson. He is a very sincere man." I was like, "A sincere man!?! There was a literal demon spirit in that room!!! I refuse to go back there!" So I finally convinced him that we are never going back there but I´m pretty sure we will go back when we do divisions with the other elders in our district. So that´s my story with that. I never thought I would be experiencing something like that when I was being transferred here. Then the day got even worse when I took my camera out of its "hard shell protective case" and saw that the back screen was completely smashed. Then, being all preoccupied with how in the world did my camera get broken, a punk kid decided to throw a rock at me and it hit me in the back of the neck. Haha it was a terrible terrible day. So now I have to look into getting a new camera which I don´t want to do because it will use a lot of extra money. I´m hoping next week isn´t a continuation of what happened Sunday. I´m already getting tired of my companion because of what happened with the old man and because we use so much extra time eating that our numbers are horrible. Well, on a better note, we´re going to play basketball probably today with the district so that should be fun, and on saturday night, we played futbol with some kids in a neighborhood and I played really well and it´s kind of cool to have the respect of the kids instead of the opposite like in comodoro.

Well I think that is it for the week, I have a little more time so write me back! Love you

elder newey

Transferring!!!

Conference really was great. I wrote a little something for you and dad in dad´s email so I won´t copy it here. But yeah, drink mix of counrty time STRAWBERRY lemondade would be great if they have that. I´m not a huge fan of the lemonade straight.

The news about the transfer..........................Yes! I´m getting transfered! to........................BARILOCHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I leave tonight at 9 30 here so 6 30 your time. I´m so excited but I´ve heard some bad things about my next comp so I´m trying to enter it with a positive attitude.

I got your packages last week. Thank you so much for the pictures they were the best part aside from the letters and they only made me a little trunky haha. It´s a shame that I´ve finally worked things out with my comp and now I´m leaving. I´ll have to remember that for my next comp so I can make the most of it while we´re together.

I learned a ton from conference. It seemed to me that everyone either talked about following the prophet or using your agency to make good choices so maybe a big thing is coming up, I don´t know.

I am running out of time though so I´ll finish up. I love you all, thank you so much for everything.
love elder newey

6 months in Argentina!

first off to Kaleb, I completely understand that you have no time because of college writing, but are you learning a ton? It should prepare you so well for the act. Love it though, that the chargers lost to the Seahawks, they seem to be having a rough year Ha!

Hey thanks for kyle´s letter, man does it bring back good memories. It sounds like he´s going to love his companions which really is the only way you can love the mtc so he´s got some good times ahead of him. Could you try to put a little of his letters in your email each week? I really enjoyed reading it and hearing some news about him. Hey, dad told me that ryan is starting his papers, do you know when he is going to send them in? I can´t wait to hear where he´s going.

Mom, thanks for the addresses, I´m going to start writing a letter to sean today, but wow I have a lot to tell him. Things are going better with my companion and I´ll find out this next Saturday night if I´m going or not. We have general conference this weekend which I´m really really excited for. Oh, before I forget, I forgot last week to comment on the fact that kaleb is getting taller. Did I call it or not? I was just almost dead on when I said he would grow at the end of his junior year. I´m going to have to practice hard to be able to beat him in basketball when I get back. Hey how did billy´s wedding go, or is it not for a while? you said you weren´t probably able to go but i´m sure you´ll hear all about it from other people in the family. How is reece´s leg? you said she hurt it again, did it turn out to be a bad injury or just minor?

So my story for the week. With elder whitaker, we tried to teach a 17 year old girl named Nilce who has had a really hard life. she lives all along in this huge house that is her mom´s but her mom is working in El Bolson, a city about 10 hours from here so she never sees her. She has horrible friends and smokes marijuana (which is legal here) almost every other day and definitely every weekend and we wanted to help her so bad. The problem was always that she was really hard to find home and we needed a member to come with us because she is always home alone. So if we pass, there has to be another adult male with us or we´re breaking mission rules. So with elder whitaker, I never taught her, I always just saw her at the grocery store where she works, but about a week ago, elder rengifo and I finally caught her home. she was of course alone so we just left her a plan of salvation pamphlet and said we´d come back with a member next week. We gave her our cell phone number so if she needed anything she could send us a text message and we´d call her when we could. So this weekend, we got two messages from her. They were, "hey I need your help. My friends want me to go to a baliche (or night club) with them but I don´t want to smoke anymore." and the second was "hey I just finished reading the pamphlet and it gave me a lot of grief and I feel really bad right now." Obviously that was not the intention of the pamphlet so we called her as soon as we could to talk to her which was Friday night. And in the call, she opened up incredibly. At first she started talking about the pamphlet and how bad she felt, and then she told us how alone she feels in that huge house without any family there, and then she said "I just really miss my mom." and she started to cry. All this was over the phone and elder rengifo and I were looking at each other wondering what to do and what to say. So we started teaching her the plan of salvation and how it is meant to give us hope in our lives and she started bombarding us with questions like "why do some people starve while others eat huge banquets, and she told us a story of how she bought a sandwich for a kid who was begging for food and this kid gave her a kiss when she gave him the sandwhich," just a bunch of feelings that were deep down inside her finally coming out. She said, "So does God exist? Does he really exist?" She told us how she had done everything she had done only because she had never known that he really existed and how she now felt terrible. We tried to explain that she was now feeling the godly sorrow necessary for repentance and by the end of the call, both elder rengifo and I were almost in tears as well. I´m sure if I had been there in person I would have been crying as well, but really, this is why I´m out here. These are the experiences that really make the mission and it´s weird that I could feel so much to someone I´ve really only talked to through the phone and who I really don´t know, but I guess that´s the nature of the mission. We´re planning on going over to her house on tuesday to teach her some more and I think she will be really open to us so now that transfers are finally coming, I don´t really want to leave. I´ll go where I have to though and just hope that she does what she needs to to be baptized.

Well that´s it for the week. I´m way excited for general conference and the fact that we´ll be listening to the same exact message even though we´re thousands of miles apart. Thanks for everything, really, I´ll check the bolsa to see if my packages got here today. Love you!
elder newey

A Week of Enduring

Hey first off, in your email to elder whitaker´s mom, tell her to tell him that he has no idea how many seeds he sowed while he was here. We just found someone out in Restinga who he and elder carlos taught the second lesson to and when we knocked his house, he come out with the plan of salvation pamphlet in his hand. To make a long story short, he has a baptismal date now so we´re really excited for that. The cool thing was that we didn´t even set the date, he did. At the end of the second teaching visit, we asked him if he had any questions and he said, "yeah. I would like to be baptized" Ha! music to a missionary´s ears. Oh and tell him I finally confirmed someone and that it wasn´t so bad but I´m still glad I didn´t do it with Patricia haha.

Anyway, I loved hearing about kyle´s farewell. I´m also excited to get ryan´s letter. Speaking of letters, I´m sending kyle´s letter today but it´s addressed to his home so tell sister clements to be looking for it to send it on to him in the mtc. To answer one of your questions, one thing that everyone could send me is pictures of their family. That is, pictures of them on vacations, playing sports, everything. Also, I thought I would be more specific of the pictures I want from you. Pictures of moab (especially the pictures of us jumping off the huge rock), other vacations, pictures of football, pictures of snowboarding, snow, stuff like that. People here like to see what it is like in Utah.

Hey is there any way that you could ask Nick if he got my letter I sent to him? also, did you get sean halbleib´s address for me?

So it´s still not sure if I´m leaving or not. sometimes i really really want to leave and then other times I really really want to stay. We´re starting week 5 of the transfer now and we´ll find out if i´m going saturday of week 6. It´s is way weird that I´ve been out for almost 6 months, it´s just flown by.

Hey next week, could you send me a list of everything that is going to be in the next package and also everything you sent in the last package. You sent that last one like three weeks ago right? I´m keeping my eye open for it.

Well, we´re just working hard. The wind has been absolutely crazy here lately. I think when it begins to transition from one season to the next, the wind picks up a ton. On sunday, there was quite honestly the most powerful wind I´ve ever felt.

I don´t have a ton of stories for the week, but we´re working hard and I´m having a good time. Sometimes my comp still bugs me but we´re getting along all right. Thanks for everything, i´ll write more next week. love you

elder newey

Yeah I´m wishing for warmth still. It´s getting a lot hotter but the problem is one day it will be roasting hot and the next will be bitterly cold so you never know when you´re getting ready in the morning what kind of day it will be, so sometimes I just guess and dress for warmth when it turns out to be really cold or the other way around haha. It´s not for sure that I leave this transfer but I´m pretty sure I´m going. That´s the pattern at least and I think I´ll follow it. I will be happy for a change. Tell me all about Kyle´s farewell this next week and I really liked Brady´s facebook status.

Anyway now for the family email. I´m attaching some pictures of the baptism we had on Saturday and also some other pictures I have taken. One is of something I made to hold all of the coins I have because as a missionary you save every bit of money you have haha but I sewed a broncos symbol on it that I´m kind of proud of. I think it looks pretty good at least.

So we baptized David and Alicia Peña this saturday, elder rengifo baptized David and I baptized Alicia. Then I also had to confirm Alicia in Sacrament meeting yesterday which I was really worried for but it was all good, I shouldn´t have worried.

Other than the baptism, nothing really happened. I´m getting really anxious for a change so I´m really hoping I get transferred in a few weeks. The office is now keeping our passports safe in the office so I don´t have to worry about that anymore.

Oh hey, elder Slater´s friend, elder justice, is writing him a letter but he doesn´t know his home address so he´s going to send it to you and then you can give it to elder Slater. I thought that would be easier than asking you to find out his address so be looking for that letter in a month or so.

Everything is good though, I feel good, working hard, having fun. I´m so excited for Kyle! I´m going to write short so I can work on sending the pictures, so bye for this week, love you and thanks for everything
Elder Newey

So Billy´s getting married in the temple? that´s excellent. Did he go back to college or what is he planning on doing for a career? I´m excited for him either way, he´s basically like an uncle to us haha.

So the other day I was writing in my journal and realized that it had been exactly one year since I started working at the developemental center. Can you believe that was a year ago? It´s going to be like that in March when I complete a year. I already almost have 6 months on the mission. Oh hey, elder justice wanted me to pass a message to elder slater (i know he isn´t an elder anymore but i don´t know his name) that he is writing him a letter right now so it just get there in about a month or so.

Oh man i´m so excited for Kyle! He´s probably so prepared it is going to be awesome to hear stories from him in Japan. Do you know what his mail address is giong to be in Japan so I can write him? But yeah, tell him happy birthday from me on the 10th, and i´m going to be sending a present, or maybe just a picture, i don´t know yet. Oh man he´s going to love the mtc. Hey also, could you try to find out Sean Halbleib´s address? He´s my friend who is serviing in Russia and I want to write him but I don´t know his address. He almost has a year already on his mission.

Well, about my comp. At the beginning of this last week, i honestly wanted to kill him. I don´t know why but everything he did just rubbed me the wrong way. Everything he said seemed so self righteous to me and I just couldn´t stand it. So I was going to get really mad at him on Thursday during our comp inventory but that morning I decided that I was the one who was being really proud haha so quite literally, I forced myself to get along with him. It wasn´t easy but I think I accomplished it. I humbled myself and now I really like the guy, and I´m learning a lot from him. He still likes to complain a lot but He´s a good missionary and he teaches really well and we´ll have a lot of success together.

This week we found an old guy in his 70´s who had already been taught by a bunch of other missionaries. We didn´t know about it, but he was in our area book, he was about to be baptized even but he can´t give up smoking. So we put another fecha with him and are working with his smoking problem now. The problem is that I would like to give him like a nicotine patch or that nicotine gum stuff that helps people stop smoking easier but it doesn´t exist down here. It´s frustrating but I think we can get him to stop. He told us that he went a whole day smoking only one cigarette, but the problem is that we honestly don´t know if he is lying or not. I hope he´s not. He´s way awesome, he already knows everything and has a way strong testimony.

It´s been really rainy here and I´m still waiting for it to warm up. We have our baptism this saturday with david and alicia so next monday i´ll send you some pictures of it.

I think that´s it for the week though. the time is flying by, before we know it, I´ll have 1 year out, then 1 and a half, and then I´ll be home! Thanks for everything, love you
Elder newey

Almost September!

wow where to begin? ok first off, i do indeed know elder justice! he´s my zone leader here and he´s way awesome. Did he say how he knows elder justice? ha it´s a small world I guess. The thing you´ll be doing with elder whitaker´s mom is a good idea because I want to know what he´s doing and what he thinks of his new comp. His new companion was with me in the mtc and is a little on the stranger side haha but he´s a good kid.

My new companion is named Leonardo Rengifo from Colombia and no, he doesn´t speak a lick of english. He was supposed to arrive monday night at ten but his bus didn´t get to comodoro until twelve thirty about so we didn´t get to sleep that night until around one thirty haha. But yeah, it was a little sad tuesday and wednesday because i just wanted to be able to talk to someone in english, because i still can´t express myself exactly like i want to in spanish. But it´s good, my spanish is cruisin along much faster with him as my comp, he talks as fast as lightening so i have to ask him to repeat stuff a lot but I like him. We´ve already seen a ton of miracles together. Our first week together, we set two baptismal dates (we call them fechas) with a brother and a sister named David and Alicia. David is 12 and Alicia is 13. There dad already approved of the baptism but we want to get him baptized too it is just hard because he works so much. But yeah, we´re way excited. Their baptisms are set for the 11 of september so you can tell Kyle that I´ll be celebrating his birthday with a couple baptisms! When does he go into the mtc again? I just got his letter from dear elder last week so i´m still in the process of writing him back but when my letter gets to him he´ll probably already be in the mtc. I am way excited for him.

But yeah, what else to tell you? I´m really really glad i have my personal atm card because i´m out of money for the month. Some unforseen expenses came up that drained the savings I had been working so hard on, like i had to pay both gas and light because elder whitaker was gone. I´ll get that money back but it will take a week or two so without my atm card, I wouldn´t be eating breakfast for a while haha. But everything is good here. Patricia is doing good too, her mom from peru came down this week to visit so we´re trying to teach her but we haven´t been able to find her in a good moment.

Oh yeah and while we were waiting for my comp in the bus station I heard someone say in english, "what are you elders doing out so late?" I was with the zone leaders and we turned around to see an american sitting in one of the chairs by this way pretty latin girl. Well we started talking to him and it turns out he served here like a year ago and came down to visit(probably just to visit the girl he was with haha) but yeah, I got to hear all about the states. We told me all about politics and he had this sweet new phone that had just come out. It made me a little trunky to see such awesome technology and to talk about the states but it was fun at the same time.

Uh what else? oh yeah my comp wants to find a different pension to move into because, as you can tell from the pictures i sent, our pench is worthless. Haha elder whitaker never complained about it so i never did either but now elder rengifo is telling me about his other penches he´s had and i realize we can find something better i bet. So yeah we´ll be working on that for the next couple weeks. I actually hope i´ll be leaving this transfer which ends right after general conference in october. I just want a change of scenery. Quite honesty, I love my area, but i´m getting just a little tired of the wind and just comodoro in general.

But i think that is it for this week. I can´t wait for that package to arrive, the members bug me so much about when my pictures are going to arrive. That will be one hard part about leaving though, is that the members here aare so excellent and chances are i´ll be going to a branch not a ward but it will be exciting either way. Thanks for everything, I love you.
love elder newey

My Ears
to answer your questions, yes i got into the doctor this time. It was an ear specialist and she looked at both ears under this high powered microscope thing and said my ears looks "perfecto" which wasn´t what a wanted to hear. I wanted something easy that i could just take some medicine for and feel better. Then she looked at my throat and mouth and said it could be something in my mouth causing the pain like my wisdom teeth but i told her i had them taken out and there wasn´t infection where they were. So i started to really try to pinpoint the pain and realized it wasn´t my ears, it was my tonsils. So i told this to hermana peterson and she had me call the area doctor who is in buenos aires and told him how i was going to have them taken out and stuff and he put me on penicilin for a month and i´m supposed to gargle with hot salt water morning and night. so far, they´ve felt kind of better so i hope i can get it worked out and not have to have them taken out on my mission! haha. Also, it´s pretty guaranteed i´m not leaving. our area is too big to take both missionaries out at the same time, you need a guide or you´ll have no idea where you are. it´s also guaranteed elder whitaker is leaving so he´s going to start packing up this week and be ready for monday.

So just some things about what´s happened this week. We were accompanied by Brandon Day who is 13 and reminds me a ton of kaleb, i don´t really know why. But it was obviously his first time accompanying elders because he didn´t quite know what to say when we asked him to bear testimony or something. I´m not bagging on him because i wouldn´t have even gone with the elders with i was 13, i just thought it was funny some of the stuff he said. Like we asked our investigator what he liked from what he had read in first nephi and when he didn´t say anything, brandon burst in, quoting nephi 3:7. elder whitaker tried to salvage it by saying, ok what do you like about that scripture brandon? and he just said, yeah, i like that. haha it was funny, he´s such a good kid.

Also, i´ve been waiting for a story when i say something dumb on accident in spanish and it finally happened. This week, I was showing what few pictures i have of the family and i told an investigator that Holli is my daughter! My comp started laughing so hard and the people were like "what? you have a daughter?" and then i realized what i said and tried to change it but it was too late. I thought it was really funny though.

I´m not sure what else to say. Pretty soon i won´t be with elder Whitaker anymore. it´s crazy how fast the time went by, before you know it, i´ll have been out a year and a half like him. Hey you never answered my question about whether kyle got my letter i sent to him or not. I still haven´t gotten the letter from brady, maybe this week i´m hoping.

About the christmas package. You don´t need to send it in october, i´ll just get it around thanksgiving time and it will be all gone before christmas. But some things i want in it:
1. tons of pictures of the family. also a copy of that huge family picture we took on our stairs that has kirsten and everyone in it.
2. a six pack of country time strawberry lemonade
3.chocolate oranges
4. a bag of bacon bits to put in breakfast burritos
5. some more of those french vanilla hot chocolate packets you sent. the brand is land o lakes. they were soooo good.

so yeah, i´m sure i´ll think of more stuff. You can send the package around the middle of november and i´ll be sure to get it before christmas. thanks for everything you do, i love hearing all the news about how school is starting and everything. love you all
love elder newey

Another Week Gone in August

first to answer your questions. my ears are ok they really only hurt in the morning and then fell good usually for the rest of the day. I didn´t get into the doctor last week because the social healthcare here blows. We set up an appointment for two oclock and when we showed up, we waited for the doctor to get there until 230. i guess she was off taking a lunch break or something but there really isn´t anything to make them get there on time. so then we waited another hour until we found out that we weren´t even on her list even though we had been there forever so we just set up another appointment for today and left. so after email, we should be going to the doctors again. I actually don´t use the liner for my sleeping bag, it´s actually really hot in our pension at night because i have my nice sleeping bag which i really love and my thich blanket as well. and yes, we do have water now thank goodness. we also took the showerhead off and cleaned out the hard water buildup inside it so now we get awesome water pressure in the shower i feel like i´m taking my first real showers since i got here. oh and about elder whitaker going to neuquen, they changed it so he´s not going at all anymore. they decided it would cost too much money or something so they´re changing how it´s going to be done but yeah, he´s not going which i´m disappointed about and thankful for at the same time. it´s crazy that school is starting so soon oh and make sure kaleb takes the act again after about december because college writing will help him a ton, and i´m sure he´ll do awesome. he´ll probably get a 39. I got another package but it´s up at the zone leader´s pension so we have to go get that today so i don´t know which one it is yet. i still haven´t gotten brady´s letter but the zone leaders said i had a letter up there too so maybe it came this week. Also, did ryan and kyle ever get my letters?

So i came to the realization last week that i have equal time out in the mission field as i had in the mtc. That´s so weird. I thought the mtc went by quickly, but the field is three times faster! I´m enjoying my last couple weeks with elder whitaker since it´s guaranteed he leaves august 23rd. i decided that i don´t like change but i´m sure it´s going to all be fine. It will be strange working with someone else though, i´m used to how elder whitaker teaches and everything so it will definitely be a change.

let´s see, not a lot has happened this week. i got a stomach bug friday night and puked that next morning. Getting sick on the mission is the worst because if at all possible, you´re expected to go out and work, which i did. it was a miserable day but i´m feeling good now. All the members and investigators we went to gave me their home remedies which i´m sure i won´t be trying haha but they were all really nice and caring. I´m going to be really sad when i have to leave this area the people are so great when they aren´t throwing rocks at you.

but other than that, i´m just working hard. how are things back home? i really like hearing about what´s going on there. I hope everything is going good. Oh i do have one story. Elder whitaker and i were knocking doors one day and i leaned up against a cement post to rest and unknown to me, a gigantic spider was on the other side. it was about the size of a golf ball and hairy and gross. elder whitaker saw it only when it had climbed onto me and crawled all the way up my arm to the collar of my coat where my tag hangs. then he told me about it and i freaked out. i was jumping everywhere and screaming i´m sure i looked ridiculous but i didn´t care. i was just glad i got it off me before it crawled down my shirt haha. oh it was so big. but yeah, that´s my story. how´s the psych season so far? i´m sad i´m missing it but at least i´ll have something to do when i get home.

anyway, i love you all. thanks for the emails, i find myself looking forward to mondays just to read about the family.

love, elder newey!

Another Month Gone??
I´ll answer questions first. The baptism was good, everything worked out, i´ll write more about that in a minute. I did get the package with candy and mac and cheese in it. I´ll probably have another but we have to go check the bolsa. Our pday will be cut a little extra short because I have to go to the doctor today. Don´t be worried, it´s nothing serious, my ears have just been hurting for a while so they want to check them out. I thought i would tell you because they´re going to be billing our insurance so don´t be surprised when you see that haha.

California sounds like it was a lot of fun even though Kaleb had to go to the hospital. I would do anything for some warmth right now. I haven´t showered in two days because the pipes have frozen EVERYWHERE. The sun is out today though so maybe our water will be running when we get home today. That´s funny that Kyle would just go stand by a group of Asians i can see him doing that haha. Speaking of him, did he ever get my letter? I´m still waiting for the letter from brady but hopefully it is here today.

Alright, now about the baptism. So in ward counsel on Tuesday, we told the bishop how we needed to clean the font out before the baptism because someone had left the window open in there to help it air out from the last baptism. That´s all well and good aside from the fact that the last baptism was last November. Elder Whitaker had seen through a top window a thick layer of dirt covering the font and apparently the bishop didn´t understand that because on tuesday, he said he would clean it out friday. So we get there saturday at twelve thirty...and the font wasn´t cleaned out. Do we called the bishop so we could unlock the door and get into the font to clean it and we spent the next two hours doing that. Then we started filling the font and after a little, we realized the water heater wasn´t on and elder whitaker and i tried to turn it on ourselves and almost blew up the church haha. Elder whitaker was messing with it and we didn´t know he was holding a button that ran the gas and then he hit the ignite button and we heard a big boom and a big fireball inside the heater. It´s kind of hard to explain what the heater is like but luckily it was all trapped inside the heater haha. Then the bishop turned it on for us and the water in the font got hotter. It took like two hours to fill up so it´s a good thing the baptism was scheduled for 5:00. But yeah, Patricia got a ride from a member and then she got changed and I got changed into my all white stuff. We had two talks about baptism and the holy ghost and then us and the other elders in our district sang "I like to look for rainbows" but in spanish it´s called "cuando me bautice" not exactly the same thing but it was good. Patricia said that when we started singing, it wasn´t us singing. She´s heard us sing and she said that definitely wasn´t how we sound, it was really cool. But after all that, we went to the font and I did the baptism. I didn´t have to repeat it at all so that is good haha. And for converts we don´t confirm them until the next day at church so we did that yesterday. Elder whitaker confirmed her and it was really good. Things we kind of rushed at the baptism because we were behind schedule so i didn´t get as many pictures as I wanted to but I´ll send some with this email.

Other than that, not a lot happened this week. We found some new investigators that will hopefully start progressing. I think I told you about how elder whitaker has to go on the 10th and 11th to a training thing up in a city called Trelew. I´ll be with elder Moncur who only has 4 months in the mission so neither of us will be able to talk fluently. Another problem is that we found out this week that the training thing is now up all the way in Neuquén so elder whitaker will actually be gone for a week haha...it´s going to be bad. He had a good point though, maybe our lessons will be better because we´ll have to rely on the spirit more than normal, I hope he´s right.

i had something to write to kaleb and kessa but i kind of forgot what I was going to say haha. When i remember it, i´ll write it down so i can remember to include it in the next letter. I hope everyone is good back home, be safe!

love, elder newey

Various Photos

Here are some photos that Hayden just sent:

The Week of Rocks and Glass!

Well, where to start? This week was kind of slow other than the fact that Patricia is getting baptized! The end of the story is kind of anti climactic though because her mom still wasn´t giving permission but then our mission president said we only technically need the permission of her dad which we already had. But we we´re excited anyway and she´s is too, she´ll get baptized the 31st of july and i kind of hope she´ll pick me to baptize her. maybe i shouldn´t think like that but i can´t help it really. In other news, argentina passed gay marriage here, the first country from latin america to do so. The whole country is fired up about it and everyone is talking about it.

I told kaleb in his email that I have an awesome story to tell and i´m getting excited just writing about it so I guess i won´t wait any longer. So we were knocking doors in Palazzo, one of our cities in the area, and we weren´t getting a lot of people home. After about an hour, we contacted a guy in the street who said we could go by his house sometime and that he lived at the top of this gigantic hill about 100 yards off. He also said a lot of people lived up there that might by interested. Well i think he was messing with us because we decided to knock up there and, after trecking up the huge, steep hill (i´m so thankful I have my boots here, it´s muddy everywhere) we saw only one house up there. we realized he was lying to us but we decided to knock the house anyway because we were already up there. So we knock it and this guy comes out and starts yelling at us saying how we´re all evil and he didn´t want us there. I´m not sure if he meant mormons were evil or just all religions, but we were kind of stunned and didn´t knock what to do. While he was yelling, he was drawing like a cross in the air with his hand, implying of course that we were demons and I guess he thought he could banish us to hell or scare us off with the cross. When we didn´t move, he got more mad and I tried to ask him "did something happen that makes you hate us so much?" but all i got out was "did something hap--" at which point he let out a scream of rage, and, bending down, he picked up a log with nailes sticking out of it and hurled it at us. We were outside his fence, and the log didn´t really get close. I heard it hit the fence and turning to my comp, we just started walking away. Apparently walking wasn´t enough though, because he picked up another plank of wood, this one with a sharp pointy end and chucked it like a spear at us. It got kind of close but we weren´t scared because who can´t dodge a piece of wood. We were still kind of in shock that he was freaking out so much and then we came out of his house more and picked up a couple rocks and a glass bottle. At this point, elder whitaker said "oh shoot, run, go go!" So we booked it down this steep hill and it was a miracle in itself that we didn´t fall down it. While we ran, rocks hit around us and bottles were shattering right by us. I haven´t had a good adrenaline rush like that in a while and when we got to the bottom of the hill, he was up at the top, still throwing rocks and stuff and swearing at us. My comp just waved at him and we kind of watched as he threw his tantrum. He stood on the hill and yelled "this is Palazzo!" over and over. I happened to have my camera with me and I wish i had had the presence of mind to take a picture of the guy at the top of the hill but as it was, i only managed to get a picture of the hill where he was. Neither of us got hurt so the story was funny. If we had been hit, we both would have been really mad, but as it was, we could just laugh at the guy from the street until he gave up and went back to his house. He´s been the subject of our jokes for the last week though.

Other than that, not much more happened. We´re getting close with some people and might be setting some more baptismal dates soon. I´ll be sure to tell you about them when they come. I told you last week how it has been raining a ton and that weather lasted through thursday but was followed by three days of the best weather i´ve had on the mission. We went out in just white shirts and ties those days because it was so hot. It was excellent.

But anyway, anything else happening at home? is the mazda still running and did you find out what was wrong with the pathfinder? I haven´t gotten any package yet but they should arrive next week. We didn´t want to go to centro where the bolsa is today because it wastes two hours of our day and we´re both way tired. I think i´ll write some letters today to my friends like nick and brady and everyone so you can tell them to expect those in a few weeks. I´m sure kyle is so ready to go to japan. I´ll try to print off some pictures this week or next and send them in a letter home. It takes too long to upload them to the computer and the connections here aren´t that fast. This week was a long week but only because we didn´t have very many lessons. Next week should be better, but it´s way hard to get member lessons now that Kevin is gone. We saw him off at the airport and he was crying and stuff. I´m so glad I didn´t have to leave like that with my whole family at the airport. Calling was better haha. Anyway, i think that´s it. I love all the emails you´re sending and everything! Keep me updated on anything that happens! I love you all
love, elder newey

WHAT A WEEK!

First off to answer some questions. I don´t really listen to my ipod because elder whitaker´s ipod has a lot better music than mine. I should have done a better job of filling mine up with songs and stuff. But when christmas comes around, i´ll be set, haha. I got Nick´s letter today so i´ll write him back this week hopefully. We don´t have a lot of time to write letters unfortunately becuase every pday we have to travel up to centro to make purchases and do internet. The travelling wastes about two hours of our pday but we just use it to catch up on some sleep. About my investigators, i´ve told you about patricia. She asked her mom if she could get baptized and her mom flat out rejected it saying that she is too young to know what she wants and that she doesn´t know anything. I had no idea what to say to patricia becuase she was really upset that she wouldn´t be able to be baptized, but the inspiration came and I shared 1 nephi 3:7 where the lord gives no commandment save he shall prepare a way that that commandment may be accomplished. We also shared how it took three tries to get the plates from laban and then as a joke I told elder whitaker we might have to kill her mom on the third try haha. But yeah, she is going to keep asking her mom and we are praying her heart will be softened. We also have Carlos who accepted our baptismal committment a couple weeks ago. I think i told you about him but just in case...he´s living with a member so they are obviously breaking the law of chastity. The next visit we´ll be teaching that so hopefully he´ll keep progressing after that and they´ll get married so he can get baptized. He´s really awesome though.

So i gave a talk in church yesterday. The talks were about missionary work within the ward and my comp and I dropped the cane on our barrio. haha no, we actually weren´t very harsh but I did say something that hopefully will show them we´re serious about this. I said "¿Hay razones que no quieren compartir el evangelio restaurado con sus hermanos y hermanas quienes estén en obscuridad espiritual? ¿O solomente no les importa?" or in other words, "is there some reason you aren´t sharing the restored gospel with your brothers and sisters in spiritual darkness... or do you just not care? haha i was kind of proud about that and maybe they´ll start helping us more. We need the help too because kevin day who usually comes out with us is finally leaving for columbia on wednesday. But yeah they were good talks. On that same note, i want to challenge all of you to share the gospel with someone this week. It´s not easy but it feels good to get into the spirit of missionary work, and all you have to do is bear testimony and invite them to listen to the missionaries.

So this is the first day of a new transfer. Luckily elder whitaker is staying for at least one more transfer here. The world cup ended of course and spain won for the first time ever. No one really cared about the world cup after argentina got out, it was kind of funny.

haha on a little pride note, our zone leaders told me and elder whitaker that we´re leading the zone in numbers which obviously isn´t everything but it feels kind of good to get some recognition. I know i shouldn´t thrive on that but maybe it´s my competitive attitude that makes me want to be the best at everything haha. As long as we know we´re working hard, that should be good enough for us.

So holli and keith are moving? i still haven´t read holli´s email i just realized. I was going to ask what job keith found but i guess holli will tell me that in her letter.

I think that´s all that has happened here. It´s been raining like crazy and it´s only getting colder but i´m having a lot of fun. I love the people here, they´re the best part.

stay safe and everything good like that haha.

love elder newey

ARGENTINA LOST??

Yes, unfortunately, argentina lost. They not only lost, they got killed 4-0. That day we were doing divisions with the district leaders so I was with Elder Nelson from Arizona. He´s really good and we were knocking doors and stuff during the game. There were a ton of people who got mad at us while we were working during the game and then after, everyone said they were too sad to let us in. So yes, the whole nation went into mournig. They´re basically over it nowand at least we won´t have to work during any more games.

To answer your questions, yes i have brady´s email but i can only email my direct family so i will have to just write letters. Speaking of which, i just wrote a letter to Ryan and Kyle so tell them to watch for it. Ryan´s will get there after he is gone but his mom can send it on i´m hoping. On the subject of transfers, every yankee (pronounced shawnky, or everyone white american) has 16 transfers in the mission. usually, you´ll spend two or three transfers in an area. each transfer is 6 weeks, by the way. however, it is not uncommon to spend just one or four or five in an area. This is elder whitaker´s fourth transfer in comodoro and he´ll probably have another with me because he´s training me. Elder Nelson though, has only been in three areas, 4 transfers in each or 6 months in each area. I guess there are pros and cons to being in an area that long, but i think i would want a change after that long. Dad, you said some stuff about the testigos (or, as the jovenes here call them, the "testiculos" which i´m sure you know the meaning of) and how they like to argue with you. yeah, we always run across at least one a day and it´s hard to just bear testimony and leave but i know that´s waht i have to do.

So dad got released? They´re also supposed to be changing up the bishopric soon right? Dad is going to be first councellor, that´s my prediction.

Just some stories from this week. Well first, i forgot to tell you something funny. You know how the comedian jerry dee talked about the italians watering the driveway? yeah well argentines water the dirt. i don´t know why, but they just stand outside, watering the dirt. There´s no grass, no plants at all, they just feel the need to water the dirt and rocks by their house. Got to have clean dirt right? Also, i added a dog to my hate list. The boxers here are ridiculous. One almost attacked my comp and didn´t run away when we threatened to throw rocks at it so i ran at it like i was going to kick it and it backed down. but now i realize it probably would have been a better idea just to throw a rock at it instead of play chicken with it. It´s weird, because all of the stray dogs are really nice, they know they can´t get any food if they´re mean. The mean dogs are the ones who have a home becuase they protective of it and think you´re threatening they´re territory. but anyway, i bought some yogurt the other day for the first time and they come in bags like i´ve said i think. When i opened it, i realized it was drinkable yogurt and elder whitaker said that´s how all the yogurt is here. So i have these huge bags of drinkable yogurt and they reminded me of kaleb how much he loves drinkable yogurt and how he has the buy little cups of it for a ridiculous price and i can get a bag for about a dollar. oh, also, yes this week was the fourth of july. yesterday actually. We listened to the national anthem on elder whitakers ipod and did a bunch of patriot stuff, it was fun. The members were giving us crap because neither of us had an american flag tie, or at least a red white and blue tie. i might need to buy one down here if i can find one.

At church though, we talked to patricia who still hasn´t asked her mom if she can get baptized. She said she is going to ask her today so we´ll see. However, she brought her friend to church because, she said, "she´s my friend and i want to help her by giving her the gospel." That´s the true sign of conversion right, wanting to share it with others? It took me about 19 years to get that, it´s just really cool how she already has it. If she can´t get permission, she´ll have to wait until december to get baptized so we´re hoping sooner rather than later.

I just realized that Luke should have his call by now right? if so, where is he going? he put his papers in while i was in the mtc should he should have everything. I can´t wait to see where he´s going.

So that´s good that kaleb and kessa have gotten into a rythym of running every morning. occasionally we have to run to catch a bus or something and my legs scream in protest because i haven´t run in forever. I hope they have a good time at efy and youth conference. They both sound like a lot of fun. So there´s no work on where Lebron is going yet? it will be cool to see how everything works out.

Well there´s nothing much more I can say. I wish i could email you each individually but i just don´t have enough time for that. The time is flying though, it´s always weird to look back and think that it´s already monday again. I love you all, stay safe and stay strong

love, elder newey

3 WEEKS IN ARGENTINA!

ok so yesterday was father´s day so we almost couldn´t find a place open to email. apparently, the day after a holiday, everyone has the day off of work and everything is shut down. it´s weird.

first off one story. It´s been raining here like crazy so it is ridiculously cold. we were knocking doors the other day in the rain and this huge german shepherd jumped up on his fence and sprayed us with mud from his feet, then when we started walking away, he jumped the fence somehow and started charging at us. my companion bent down quickly to get a rock, but all we had were little pebbles and mud and he was coming to kill us. Luckily, he thought we had a big rock and ran away. we were breathing hard for a little after that haha. oh yeah i don´t think i ever told you that we clap at the doors. almost everyone has fences so to "knock" doors, we stand outside the fence and clap really loud. its kind of cool.

We were in an investigator´s house this week and we saw a news report about Bariloche, the area i wanted to go to first, it´s like a skiing town, just beautiful, but anyway, the news report said they were having huge civil unrest there. the police apparetnly killed a 14 year old boy and the whole city is in protest, throwing rocks at police and smashing stuff. the police have already killed 3 more, in the report, it had a video of a police man firing a shotgun into a huge crowd, so i´m sure more than just 3 are dead. i´m sure the missionaries there can´t even leave their houses! i´m a little glad i´m not there now, but it would be exciting.

Oh happy father´s day dad! and yes, i have been getting your emails, they´ve helped a lot. I haven´t had time to read all of them from this week because like i said, we barely found a place to email and we´re short on time today. we had a zone activity earlier where we ate pizza an elder made and played some soccer. i´m so bad at soccer it´s not even funny. but yeah we we´re playing and an elder got hit in the mouth by another elder´s shoulder when they jumped for the ball and it almost knocked out one of the his teeth. it was one of his front ones too and it was barely hanging on. he went to go find a place that could fix it but as he said, i wouldn´t want to go under the knife here in argentina. he´ll probably lose the tooth, but at least he´ll fit in here. i swear everyone here is mission most if not all of their teeth.

We run into a lot of testigos de jehovah down here, what´s that in english, witnesses of jehovah? i already can´t remember some english haha. but anyway, one thing i found out, most people outside the church believe jehovah is god the father and jesus christ is just jesus christ. I had no idea! i just grew up learning jehovah was jesus christ and i didn´t know anyone thought differently. But when we talk to them, that´s the main reason they won´t let us in, because we say jehovah is jesus.

I tried a little piece of heaven here this week. I got a churro. now that doesn´t sound that good, but imagine the most delicious, warm, soft, and sugary churro you´ve ever had and then mix in the fact that they fill the inside of the churro with dulce de leche. oh man they´re so good and they´re only 1 peso which is about 25 cents in the us. i could eat them all day.

We have some good progressing investigators. one is named patricia, she´s 17 and from peru. She lives with her dad here but her mom in up in peru still and she keeps telling her not to go to church and to quit listening to us. The good thing is that she keeps coming to church, she´s reading the book of mormon a lot and she keeps listening to us. We extended the baptismal committment to her yesterday and she said yes which made me so happy but then we remembered she is only 17 and needs her mom´s permission before she can get baptized. We´re going to teach her about the law of the fast this week so she can fast that her mom´s heart wil be softened and she´ll give permission to let her be baptized. We´re not supposed to have our families fast for investigators here otherwise, i´d ask you to as well, but yeah, as it is, i think we´ll get the whole ward to fast for her.

We also have an investigator named Blanca (yeah like from street fighters, kaleb and kessa). she´s about 45 and she´s progressing a lot. she´s smoking though, and she´s trying to stop but she has to completely stop before she can get baptized. we actually set a baptismal date with her because she is old enough to choose for herself so we´re working towards the 10th of july as her baptism. we have some other people who are getting close to a baptismal date as well.

Hey can you ask Holli if she knew anyone with the last name Cox in high school? There´s an elder here with that name who graduated from AF in 2009 and he played football. He´s in my zone, so it´s pretty cool that we ended up so close to each other. He lives just a little ways away from the mt. timp temple and could have been in our stake for all i know. but yeah, just check to see if she knows him.

Some things i need though. Kaleb, and dad, i love the sports updates you give me, keep them coming. no one ever knows what happened in the US soccer game because they only really care about argentina. hopefullly the us never plays them or that could be trouble. oh and my companion and i were talking about football this last week and i thought i remembered you telling me that brandon marshall left denver, but if that happened, where did he go? are there any other major changes in the nfl teams that i don´t know about? besides tim tebow, what happended in the draft, and who has the best upside in the nfl this year?


I´m glad to here from everyone, kaleb, i really liked your email about the priest´s camp. Holli, i´m really sorry, i haven´t read your email yet, so i cant respond to anything in this. don´t worry though, i´ll read it before i go. Dad, i´m really grateful for your emails, i really hope you can go to that spanish class at work, that would be cool. mom and kess, your emails are always good, thanks so much, wish me luck!
Love, elder newey

2 Weeks in Argentina and the World Cup

oh man where to start?

So the mundial...or i guess, the world cup. it started on friday with a game between mexico and someone like nigeria or something. argentina wasn´t even playing and they closed down the schools. we were nervous for the next day when argentina would play because eveyone would be watching the game and we didnt want them to get mad at us. we were right about mostly everything except that everyone was really nice that day. maybe they were all drunk or something but we got a ton of contacts that day. everyone we saw was wearing an argentina jersey and we knew when they scored because fireworks went off everywhere and the neighborhood we were in just exploded with noise. we saw some of the replays at a members house when we stopped by for lunch and argentina should have won like 5 0. the other teams goalie made some excellent saves. now that i think about it, i think argentina was playing nigeria but i´m not sure. the US tied with england or as its called here inglaterra but apparently it´s only because their goalie made a mistake and practically gave us a goal, haha. everyone here is in the soccer mood, everone plays soccer in the streets and the other games are always playing on tvs.

i´m getting more accustomed to the food here and i have to tell you, dulce de leche here is one of the best things i´ve ever had. it´s like a carmel spread that they put on everything and it´s exactly what it´s name says, it´s candy of milk. it really doesn´t have that much milk in it and it doesn´t bother my allergy so i´ve been eating a lot of it. i mix it in my oatmeal in the morning, i put it on bread, on apples, on everything, it´s so good.

speaking about food, i remembered some stuff i would like in a package. first, macaroni and cheese in a box like the kraft kind. also, some candy bars like twix, snickers, that good stuff. also, i might need you to send some more ibruprofen and tums, i´m not sure if i can get them here. i haven´t checked but if i can, they´re probably expensive.

but some stories for the week. we went to an investigators house on wednesday night and taught the first lesson and about joseph smith. then we found out that they are from what they call, the "universal church." they say that every religion is correct becuase they all have the same goal, to get to heavenly father again. so when we explained joseph smith and asked them what they thought, they said that they believed all of that. so then my comp asked them why they werent baptized in our church to which they said they didnt need to and that they were already saved. we tried to explain proper authority to them but they wouldnt accept any of it. they said¨"la PALABRA es la autoridad" or "the word is the authority". they think that anyone with the bible has authority to baptize and work ordinances. it absolutely ridiculous. they say they believe joseph smith was a prophet but they don´t know anything that he said and if they did, they would know that this is the only true church on the earth. it was really frustrating and my companion kind of started arguing with them, so much so that we missed our bus back to our apartment and to walk home would take about 2 hours...and it was already 9 at night. but we know we´re being looked after because the first car we tried to hitch a ride from happened to be a less active member who was going to our part of town. it was awesome.

we have some good investigators though. cirilo is one of them. he is from paraguay and is so nice. his house he made himself and is about six feet by six feet in area. whenever we come by to teach, he wipes down our chairs and lays out rags on the seats for us. no one else in argentina would do that. he came to church yesterday and he said he liked it a lot. we keep asking him if he´s read and he always says there isn´t enough light in his apartment, but i think he just can´t read and is embarassed by it so he won´t tell us. i really hope we can get him baptized.

oh here´s a good story. so on saturday, we were knocking houses in this one barrio (neighborhood) and it was about 800 so already dark (the sun goes down around 630 here). we were going to stop by an investigator´s house and then these two boys ran up to us asking for a folleta, or pamphlet thing. we asked them why and then they started being dumb asking for marijuana and stuff. then like six more boys ran up and all we about 10 or 11 years old and they started mocking and making fun of us. then one tried to kick my comp in the area so we started to walk away. one then asked where we were from and when we said the US, they started chanting "argentina! argentina!" and started throwing rocks at us! at first they were just pebbles but then one about the size of a golf ball hit elder whitaker in the side of the head. he almost lost it and turned around to get mad at them and they all scattered. he was so mad the rest of the night but again we were protected. only one rock hit us and it hardly left a mark on my comp´s head. he just has a little bump there. it´s just crazy that little kids have nothing better to do than harass the missionaries. but at least now we can identify with the scripture, where missionaries are mocked, and hit, and stoned for the sake of truth.

i think that´s about all that´s happened. i´m starting to understand more and people say my spanish is really good for how long i´ve been here. thanks for all the emails, i loved all of them. wish me luck with my investigators! I love everyone of you so much!

love, elder newey

COMODORO RIVADAVIO, ARGENTINA

Hi! it´s so great to read english, haha. i have a good deal of time on the internet, close to an hour so email away. so here is my story and my keyboard doesn´t have a good shift key so i just won´t use it.

i left utah at eight on monday and we got to buenos aires at around 930 our time so 630 your time on tuesday. we spent that day flying to neuquen and meeting the president and stuff. we spent the night in a building next to the missoin home and the next moring, we met our new companions. mine is elder whitaker from pleasant view utah, and weér pretty similar. he loves a bunch of sports and his favorite team is the saints so he was mad when they won the super bouwl becuase he was out here. but yeah, we did some door contacts on wednesday until our bus left at 10 at night. we rode the bus for 16 hours to my new area, comodoro. so in all, it took 4 days and 3 hours, calculating in all of the time changes, before i got to my first area. But yeah, go look up comodoro on a map or on google earth, im right by the coast so its always windy and freezing cold. luckily there is no snow but its a desert so the sand is constantly blowing in your face. the wind is unlike anything we have back in utah, i can literally let it hold me up if i lean into it.

when i first got here, i couldn´t understand a word that was said to me, they all talk to fast and have an an argentinian accent, but i´m starting to pick up on words and stuff. i just exchanged all of my dollars to pesos, 120 dollars worth to 460 pesos. sweet exchange i would say, but i don´t really know...when we´re done here, we´re going to go grocery shopping and stuff. the meals aren´t quite like how i heard they would be. i heard you never stop eating but that isn´t true. we eat breakfast at the pension and then eat a big luch with a member and that´s it. we have to eat when we get back to our pension at night. but it´s all good, we have plenty of food and stuff, just around 830, you start getting really hungry because your body is used to more food at that time.

the dogs here are insane. a couple are nice and just follow us around for a block or so, being scratched and stuff. the others try to attack us and we have to bend down to pick up a rock, which they all understand means ´¨run away¨. the other day though, i just had to carry a rock with me to keep them back. the nice ones follow you and bump your leg with their noses and it´s kind of a weird experience because your heart always jumps because you think it is another dog tring to bite you.

i had my first sunday yesterday and the members were all really nice. a lot of them call me ¨the baby¨ because i look so young. I had to bare my testimony in sacrament, the bishop asked us to because no one was coming up, haha, but everyone says i can talk pretty well, but i can understand next to nothing. it´s true too, i have to ask people to repeat themselves over and over until i pick up on one word that i can kind of know what they´re talking about. it´s a lot of fun though.

i really need the prayers because people aren´t that receptive down here so keep praying that we´ll be guided to those who have been prepared. especially when the world cup starts, no one is going to open their doors, it´s going to be tough.

don´t worry about me though, i´m warm and safe

love, elder newey

ps. it would be kind of bad if someone broke into our pension so maybe you should pray that that doesn´t happen either.

FROM ARGENTINA WITH LOVE!
I just got a call from the Mission President wife in Argentina! She said Elder Newey was there safe and sound and that she already loves him. She said he had a huge smile on his face through the whole training day, and was volunteering to do anything they asked. That really makes a Mom happy, I must say.
His first companion is from Pleasant View, UT and he will be serving on the coast right by the Atlantic Ocean. His area is called Comodoro Rivadavia. We looked at pictures and it looks beautiful, but dry and arid. Patagonia is a desert after all!
His P Day is Monday so we'll be hoping for a long email, but knowing Hayden we'll probably get a short note telling us how great it is. Hey, a mom needs details!!
We are so happy to know he is safe and happy and serving the Lord.
-Gretchen Newey (Mom)

ALMOST DONE IN THE MTC

Well it pounded snow here this morning so that means it probably was the same there. This was kind of a boring week, but our new district is loaded with basketball talent. One of the elders even walked onto the BYU basketball team. He plays at like 25% all the time and still works us.

Oh I almost forgot. I got my travel plans this week. Unfortunately, this doesn't guarantee that I got my visa. I won't find our if it came until Thursday or Friday of this week, so keep praying for it to come! But if everything goes according to plan, I'll go to the travel office here at 8:00 in the morning so I should leave here around 830. That means I'll get up to the airport around 9:30 and my flight won't leave until 12:10 so I'll have a really big window to call you. If my visa doesn't come though, and I get delayed, I'll email you early next monday so you aren't waiting around for a phone call that won't come. But if you don't get an email, it means I got my visa because I won't get to email at all monday if i'm leaving. My flight from Salt Lake goes to Atlanta Georgia where we have a huge layover until like 8 at night. Then the flight to Buenos Aires will take a full 12 hours, from where we'll fly probably another 3 hours to Neuquen. Once at Neuquen, I'll get on a bus to go to my area and if it is al the way down south, that could be another 20 hours of travel on the road, so in all, it could be around 2 and a half days until I get to my area. So if you don't get an email next monday, be ready for the call and I'll be on my way to Argentina! So yeah please just make sure that I have some extra money in my account so I will have plenty to check my bags and stuff. I'll do what you said and pay for food with cash and just check bags with the card, that should keep it relatively safe and not stolen.

Other than this, nothing has happened. I just sent a package with some stuff I won't need. I'm so excited for Brady to come in, but I don't think I'll be hosting this week. We've done it for the last two weeks in a row so I guess they thought that was enough for us. I'll keep my eyes open though and I told the district from our zone that is hosting to look for him and let me know where he is. In your letter you said he was coming in Tuesday at 1:15 but I'm hoping you meant Wednesday at that time, otherwise I won't be able to see him because I have class at that time on tuesdays. but anyway, it will be awesome to see him and that's also the day Kyle's getting his mission call! I'm pumped to see where he's going. When are the clements going to russia again? I know it has to be soon I just can't remember.

Oh yeah, how much is left in school? Will everyone be out when I'm calling? I'd like to talk to everyone since I'll have so much time. I'll bring a lot of quarters or you could buy a phone card and send it to me this week, that would probably be easier.

Anyway, I'm way excited. I hope my visa comes through. President Watkins says that as long as you turned everything in on time you should be good and I'm sure we did that. I think we even had it in a few weeks early. And when I say WE had it in, I mean you, mom and dad, had it in because I was being such a slacker.

But I love you all. I love the letters so much, Kaleb's letters are a short breathe of sanity in here. I love hearing from Holli and Kessa and Keith, just keep those letters coming. That's almost all I have to look forward to.

Pray for that stupid visa!

Love, Elder Newey

Week 6, or is it 7???

Dear fam,

Well, three of my favorite elders in our zone left on thursday, so on tuesday night, we had a huge sleepover in their room. Ten of us fit mattresses in there and it was so packed. One elder even slept on top of our dressers. You can imagine the smell in that room, but it was so much fun, it was worth it, and we weren't breaking any rules either. I still need to develop the pictures i got before I can send you any. Elder Newell, one of the leaving elders, said something about his best friend from college named Eric Stapley and that all of his family is from Washington. So I just wanted to ask, what exactly is my relation to the Stapleys and do they have a son named Eric serving in Brazil right now? It would be kind of cool if we were somehow related.

Edler Holland spoke to us on tuesday and he gave the best talk I have ever heard. I've never had a general authority yell at me from the pulpit before. He spoke about the importance of missions and how irritated he gets when he sees missionaries wasting time. He said how tired he is of talking to missionaries about obedience. He bore the strongest testimony at the end. He said some great things like, "You don't have the right to come home from your mission and go inactive," and "somehow, as they pray, the small children who are looking up to you understand to a small degree what you are doing-- don't you dare let them down." I'm so happy I got to hear him speak, he's my new favorite.

I did get the pen Kessa made for me. It's such a nice pen, I carry it around with me everywhere I go and I brag about it to other missionaries I don't even know. Give her a big hug for me. I really liked Summer's book too. My favorite picture she drew was the penguin.

So I took a spanish assessment test thing this past week. It scores you on a scale of 1-7 and if you get a 7, you're like a native speaker, but I'm not usre how accurate the test is because I got a 5.5, and my spanish isn't that good. At least I didn't think it was. I'll bear my testimony at the end so dad can tell me for real how my spanish is coming.

that's awesome that Kessa made it into Musical Theater. I definitely wouldn't have had the courage to do that in 8th grade. I'm glad everyone is doing good. I'm glad Addie is better too. It's so weird that Kaleb is almost a senior and that Kessa is almost in 9th grade! crazy. I should be getting my travel plans this week on thursday. Pray for my visa to come! I'm so excited to get to Argentina and start teaching real people rather than these fake investigators we have to practice on.

Well, I wish everyone luck. I guess I'll say my testimony here, but I can't really put on accents, just be aware.

Jesucrist es mi salvador. A traves su expiacion, podemos vivir con dios despues esta vida. Por el poder de Dios, daba a Jose Smith, el Libro de Mormon fue traducido. Se que Thomas S. Monson es un profeta verdadero sobre la tierra hoy. Yo se que el poder del sacerdocio fue restaurado a Jose Smith en estes ultimos dias. Estoy tan feliz ser un misionero y estoy agradecido por la ayuda que me dan. Todos los amo y amo este trabajo. Este Evangelio es el camino solo a recebir perdon para nuestros pecados. Yo amo esta iglesia. Esta iglesia es mi vida. Jesucristo vendra otro ves en poder y gran gloria. El Espiritu Santo es tan fuerza aqui, y lo siento cada dia.

I don't really have much to say but yeah, en el nombre do jesucristo, amen.

I love the letters you send me, thanks for everything.

Love, Elder Newey