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