Another Week in March

eah, we heard about the earthquake on Thursday and someone told us 100,000 people had died. Well i don´t know where they got their news but i just saw this morning on a tv that 5000 were dead. which is it? I was kind of worried about Kyle, but for some reason, i just felt like he was ok. Maybe people will be more open to listening to us after this huge disaster but we´ll see haha.

In the zone, there are some missionaries who are working hard and others that aren´t. We´re putting a bunch of fechas which is really awesome. in the zone, we put like 12 new ones this week. But all of those fechas are from us and one of the two districts in the zone. The other district didn´t put a single one which is really frustrating. There is another companionship here in Caleta Olivia who works on the other side of the city but they live in our area and the other day, we were knocking the block where they live and saw their lights on. So we went to go see if they had just left their lights on or if they had gone home early. We knocked the door and no one answered so we were just looking into the window to see if they were there and we saw a package of mate that was open with a mate cup right by it (which is super against the rules) and the pench was a pit. so we knocked again and saw one of them poke their heads out from a back room and then both started running around, putting away the mate, hiding other stuff and then they finally opened the door. Neither had ties on and they were both wearing flip flops so they had obviously been there for some time. They had just decided to go home early for no reason and were just chilling in the pench. Oh we were so mad, there is no wonder they aren´t having any success. Ever since that night, it seemed to open the seal on them and we began to see a bunch of things they are doing against the rules and it´s just stupid. I´m glad i´ve never had a trucho comp, i think it´d be really hard. Maybe they´ll get transfered in a week and we won´t have to worry about them anymore.

In the zone though, we have a lot of baptisms planned for this week. we´ll be traveling around to do baptismal interviews and stuff so that should use up a lot of our time. I hope all of the baptisms go through, but Satan is working hard as well.

You asked if i have to pay when i go to pick up packages. I don´t. The packages always go to Neuquén in the mission home and then they send them in the bolsas all to the different zones and we go pick up the bolsas in the post office. We don´t pay anything.

anway, i hope things are all good there. We´re working hard down here! keep praying for us and try to share the gospel with anyone you meet. love you

elder newey

Zone Conference

Caleta is pretty small. It´s the biggest city this far south but it has like 70,000 inhabitants. I guess that´s not that small haha but compared to comodoro that has like 170,000 people, it´s small. Bariloche only has around 40,000 if i remember right (maybe it was 140,000 haha) so it´s the smallest city i´ve been in yet, but it seemed bigger because the city was bigger for all the tourist attractions. Its a pretty flat city and there is a big statue called "El Gorocito" in centro. I can actually see it in the refection of my computer screen right now, we´re in a cyber right by it. The church is just around the corner so we are around the statue a lot even though it is technically out of our area. But yeah, the people are pretty receptive. We have a big branch about 100 people go every week so things are good. It does actually get really cold here but it almost never snows. I´ll probably still be here in the winter so i´ll let you know how it is haha. Based on the patterns of other missionaries (which i´m not following very well) i´ll probably have 5 transfers here which would be 7 and a half months so i´ll be here for a while, but that is no set thing, just a guess on my part.

Neuquén is really big yeah. just driving through it, I saw a McDonald´s and really wanted to go buy a burger haha. Every month we´ll be travelling up there so i´ll get to know it a little more each time.

That´s way awesome that Holli is having a girl! I bet you are all going nuts haha. When is she supposed to have it again?

So kessa gets her permit this week? is it weird to think that all of us will be able to drive? She told me who she likes but i don´t know if you know yet so i won´t say anything haha.

Did you ever see Elder Whitaker? I´d like to see how he´s doing, if he´s going back to school and when and stuff like that.

I´ll be writing a letter to Brady as soon as possible which on the mission could actually be a pretty long time haha. Ryan´s farewell is Sunday? So does he go in the next wednesday, the 16th? things are all happening really fast, or maybe they just seem fast to me. In the mission, you live in the week. You hardly think about the date until planning session on thursdays and that´s only to think about the next week that you´ll be living in a few days haha so it´s a little different. I´m really excited for general conference that´s coming up and i hope my converts in Bariloche will go and hear a prophet.

I should get to call you all on mother´s day but i hear it is pretty hard to get a calling card down here, it isn´t like Bariloche where everyone is a tourist and wants to call home haha. It´s all good though, because i still have the calling cards you sent with me so i´ll just use those.

Anyway, we have some baptisms planned for this weekend and then on the 19th, we have a bunch so we´re hoping all will go through well. anyway, i think that´s it for the week. I love you

elder newey

March and Babies

yeah i´m so excited for Brady! do you know if he is going out for the whole two years or is he just finishing out his time as if he had never gone home?

It´s going to be weird to have a niece or nephew but it´s going to even more awesome! i´m so excited i told holli i´ll be buying an argentina jersey for him/her as soon as i know the gender haha.

Yeah the new area is good, i haven´t received any letter from Lukas but i don´t see him writing a lot of letters. he´s more of a facebook guy haha. My birthday package arrived just fine, thanks for everything, i loved it. I can´t think of anything else i need but if i do, i´ll let you know haha. I still have all of the epipens you sent with me. i show all my comps how to use them just in case and they all get really excited and want to use them but i haven´t had to yet...:)

Yeah, i hear the second year of the mission goes even faster than the first and i´ve been having a lot of dreams lately of when i get home from the mission. One where no one was there in the airport when i arrived and i had to use pesos to travel home haha.

This week was interesting. Early in the week, we stopped a guy in the street and started talking to him. We asked if we could share a message about Jesus Christ and he said he doesn´t worship that side. so my comp asked him what he worshiped and he said "the lord Satan" and he was dead serious. He called himself a Satanist and said he was reading the two Bibles that Satanists have. I think in the beginning of my mission i would have been scared to talk to a satanist but now we just testified as representatives of Christ that the path he was taking in his life will not bring him happiness. He knows he´s going to Hell he just says it won´t be a bad place for him because Satan already knows him as a friend and not an enemy. He´s all messed up in his head. Maybe something we said will get to him though.

Then right after talking to that guy, my comp and i were walking through a neighborhood and these two groups of girls started yelling at each other right in front of us. We quickly walked away and i was joking about how they were going to start a gang fight and then at the bottom of the street, we hear screams and stuff and looking back up, they were indeed fighting it out! Haha it was a funny fight though because they were just pulling hair and some of the girls were on the ground curled up in balls while other ones dragged them around by their hair. craziness. As you can imagine, we thought it was kind of funny haha.

Then at the end of the week, we found out we´re going to be traveling up to Neuquén for zone council with president and the other zone leaders so we´ll be preparing for that. We leave tomorrow in the afternoon, get there wednesday and get back here thursday so basically our whole week is shot.

anyway, i have to end up, i´m short on time. I love you all.

elder newey