Wednesday, August 29, 2012

¡Me Quedo baby! ¡Y voy a entrenar!

Hey there!
Just putting in the weekly news. It looks like we have some good highlights focusing on traslados(transfers). It looks like I will get to be staying for two more transfers(3 months) here in San Juan. É Wahl is heading back to Mendoza to a zone called San Rafael and I am going to have a kid. Yep, I am going to be training a new little guy for the next two transfers here!! I won´t know who I am training yet until Wednesday. I have to go to the offices back in Godoy Cruz in Mendoza tomorrow night to await the coming of my comp. I am pretty stoked to get to have the opportunity to train and all that good stuff. You will get all of the pics the coming week.

It has been a good transfer with É Wahl. I have learned a lot from him and we have been able to have some awesome experiences together changing peoples lives here. Too many good times to count. He will have success in his mission! High hopes.

We had a pretty successful week in the area. We did exchanges with some of our leaders and we saw a lot of success come from that. We had some amazing visits with some our new investigators like Sandra Calívar, Senia Ochoa, and Ana Pereyra. All of the people we meet have their own different story and their own different problems to face, but there is a solve-all remedy called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We, as missionaries, have a lot of opportunities to teach the restored gospel every day and always get a different response from the one before. This past transfer has been a little hard for some people to accept the Resoration as the truth because they have been vistited by missionaries before and they didn´t understand the message. This past week, we were able to work in new areas and teach famillies that had never heard the message of the restored gospel. We got responses including: "Wow, I have never heard anything like that before", "Yeah, I just want to know more about baptism", and "Yeah, I have gone to a couple churches before but I was not able to find the ´truth´, so yes, I will pray to know the truthfulnes of your message". Those are just some of the ideal answers that we as missionaries always hope for. I know that God prepares a time for each and every one of His children to receive or reject the gospel. We have some really good investigators, let´s just hope that they can receive answers to their prayers. I think my new comp and I are going to see a lot of success in these next couple transfers!

FYI, I uploaded a bunch of pictures to your Walmart account again because this computer is super slow and I will not be able to send them through email today. Check them out!

Not way too many more highlights. Just another week of hard work. My shoes are starting to fall apart again because of all the piedritas that we walk on, but I walk the line...

Spiritual Thought: Umm, I am just going to paste what É Wixom´s MTC teacher has to say again. Maybe you´ll get something nice from me the next week. Ha. Enjoy:
Two days ago, our new elders quorum president sent out a late night text asking for volunteers to help a sister in need who was moving. Many responded and simply asked to be removed from the text list because of The late hour of the presidents request.

I promptly responded and said that I would be there on Saturday morning to help The sister. I showed up on Saturday with two other brethren to help pack the truck. The sister was moving 30 minutes away in draper into her parents home because her husband lost his job. When the truck was packed, the father asked if we could go to draper and unload the truck- the two other brothers declined saying that they did not have enough time, I said I would go- and I rode with this old man to draper and the two of us unloaded the truck on our own.

The service took up most of my Saturday but I was left with an exalted soul and a good sense of gratitude for God.

I tell you this experience because I want you to remember the following:
1. The Lord's Voice and the voice of his servants are the same. You should not treat a request from your local leaders any different than a request from God himself! In fact your response to requests by your local leaders is the best indicator of your true faithfulness to God.

2. The Timing of the Lord's call is not always convenient or comfortable, but responding to the call is always worth the pain- he came at midnight in the parable of the ten virgins, and He came late at night in my experience above.


So yep, there it is. I hope everyone is just enjoying the transition to autumn over there on the other side of the world. It is supposed to be getting very hot here in the next few weeks...so should be pretty fun. Well, I still pray for y´all and hope all is well. Till next time...

Abracitos,
Élder Deven Larisch
La Iglesia es verdadera

That´s cool that the missionaries passed by. I don´t ever remember them coming by. Yes, most houses here have gates and we can´t get to the door so most of the time we just clap. I will have to say that yes, my clap is almost a perfected clap with all of the experience that I have. I will pray that Dad stays safe in the race...and that he takes first again...ha. Jk. ¡Chau!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Las Aventuras de Élder Larisch y Élder Wahl

Yeah.

Oh my goodness, she is gone! It is kinda tough seeing that we had so many memories together. I first met her when I was 15 and we hit it off pretty well. She sure was pretty needy and she costed a lot sometimes, but we went so many places together. Even into a brick wall one time. Well...I hope that other guy takes better care of her than I did. I have hope for some of the other fishes in the sea that hopefully won´t cost as much when I get home.

The weather here is still the same. I don´t have to bundle up near as much as my last area because there are basically two different types of weather here in the winter: El Viento Zonda(hot wind), El Viento del Sur(cold wind). It changes constantly so a sweater is always safe to go out in. I have only used my coat a couple times here.

To answer your question ma, here in San Juan meat is a lot more expensive. Asado(BBQ) is a bit more rare to see here. I definitely ate more meat when I was in Mendoza. Just about every other northern South American country eats nothing but rice, but in Argentina they are prideful of their food and they are known for eating really good. I think I have luck being in a place where they cook really good. Here in San Juan I have been eating a lot of pasta and milanesas(just basically big strips of chicken or meat breaded and fried). Actually, I think we had milanesas just about every lunch last week...ha ha. I don´t get sick of them because they are just too good.

Highlights of the Week:
Saw a pobrecito little, constipated dog curling around himself to eat the poop out of his butt. It made it to the top 5 grossest things ever to be witnessed by the human eye. Dogs live pretty sad lives here. Their diets mainly consist of full baby diapers and other garbage just thrown all over in the streets.
Record-breaker for the amount of people on one moto(motorcycle) at the same time was 6. A full family riding on one moto. So...mom, do we really need the Sequoia? There is at least one moto to every family and so I am always witnessing strange things with motos.
We did our actividad misional Saturday night with the ward. We had a pretty good show-up. The other Elders brought a ton of investigator kids and so it got kinda crazy and the spiritual part kinda got lost somewhere in there, but we had a good time. We did the demonstration of Señor Huevo(a fun way to teach one of the missionary lessons "El Evangelio de Jesucristo(The Gospel of Jesus Christ)"), then we played Jeopardy to test their knowledge on what they learned from Señor Huevo. The Elders Quorum also did a little skit. So yeah, I would say it was a pretty good activity.
I ordered a cool aerosol art thing last week from a guy in centro, but seeing that today is a ferriado(holiday), all of the stores are closed here in centro and it looks like a ghost town. Next week I´ll be able to show it to ya.
We had a day full of milagros(miracles) this week with just everyone we talk to was interested in some way in the Gospel. We received a bunch of new investigators.

Even with all of the new investigators this week, unfortunately we were not able to get anyone to church. Countless hours we spent teaching people Sabbath Day Observance stuff and on Sunday before church, going out to find and bring these people to church. At this point we have heard about every excuse why they cannot attend church. There is not really any reason to feel bad because we did all that we could to get them to church and they will always have their agency. A good attitude is one of the most important things to have as a missionary because missionaries pass a ton of down moments where "Freaking Satanás", as we say it here, tries to make us miserable like unto himself. If a person has a good attitude about life and goes through life being happy and enjoying the blessings of life, God is going to mold that person and help them progress.

The investigators that we are working with right now that have the most potencial...and will be baptized in the next few weeks are Miguel Metola, Rodolfo López, and Alfredo and Graciela Gil. Individually, they all have their own doubts. As we help them gain their own testimony of the restored gospel they will be able to solve their own doubts.

But yeah, other than that things are going pretty swell here. Tune in next week to hear about transfers. Should be a good one!

I think I have been lacking spiritual thoughts in my last few letters. Here is something from É Wixom´s MTC teacher(future general authority, look for a Ryan Coles in the future). I love stuff like this:
Prayer, Scripture Study, and Church attendance are the primary activities that we are told to consistently perform as Latter-day Saints. In recent years, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have taught us that the purpose of these activities is Revelation. In fact, Missionaries are trained and retrained on how to help other people receive revelation when they pray, study scriptures, and attend church because the purpose of prayer is not to talk, the purpose of scripture study is not to study the words on the page, and the purpose of Church is not to hear others speak- the purpose of all three are to receive communication from God.
Recent studies on Innovation have found that daydreaming is key to creativity. That's right, the individuals who scored highest on creativity tests were those who were the most prone to daydreaming. The essence of revelation, or innovation and creativity, is making new connections that lead to new solutions to various challenges. Studies show that these new connections are made when people daydream, not when they are absolutely focused on the problem (in fact, they found that caffeine stifles creativity because it causes the mind to focus- think word of wisdom and why it is required for a temple recommend). Finally, and obviously, they found that people daydream when they are bored.
The caveat, however, is that one must be somewhat aware of their own daydreaming in order to recognize when genuine connections are made, or else they will be lost. Thus, disciplined daydreaming, or pondering, is they way to revelation. So maybe Church meetings and the scriptures were intended to be boring- either way, if you are looking to experience God to the degree that Joseph Smith and other prophets experienced God, then let us all embrace the boredom!

¡Amen!

Wow, a long letter this go-around. Unfortunately, you are going to have to wait another week for pics because we came to the computers coming right off of exchanges with the zone leaders and I don´t have anything to hook up my camera with me. Till next week then. Thanks for all of the prayers, they always have been and always will be greatly appreciated. Que Dios les bendiga. ¡Chaucitos por esta semana!

Abracitos(I think this smiley has a moustache),

Elder Dev Larisch

La Iglesia es muy verdadera

That is AWESOME that Lex got a job. Yeah! Workin at the hut handin out HOT-N-READY´s. Does she get to wear the costume and dance outside while she does the advertisment? Good for her! She is going to love it. The job will help her improve a lot more skills including customer service(which all employers look for) and being able to talk with people and solve problems. ¡Felicitaciones!

Monday, August 13, 2012

Trabajamos afúl (we work a ton)

Jello!

Good day, how is everyone doing? I am doing pretty well here in Argentina. Just doin what I can ya know?

We had a really good week just working our butts off again. It is good to feel tired and super sore on P-day because you will know that you worked a ton. Ha. We had one of the traveling asistants to the pres come and work with us for few days this past week and he taught us some super good tips in teaching and helped us out with a few investigators. We have a lot that we are working with right now. The thing is that there is just too much hipocrisy and no one does what they say they are going to do... For example, we have really good investigators that have the desire to learn about the restored gospel. Fortunately and amazingly, we were able to commit 17 of these people to come to church; some with members, some with us, and some on their own. Unfortunately, after all of our efforts and the efforts of the members, dang Satanás had to come in and ruin everything by putting excuses into the minds of these good people. It was tough for us to see that, but we got some faith and hope for the next week.

We actually have some super good investigators though such as Adriana Peralta and a couple of her sisters, the famillia Gil, and Roberto Flores. We just gotta get more lessons with members and we will start to see more success.

There seems to be a problem with attaching pictures to emails on this computer so lamentably, you will have to wait till next week it looks like.

I think for P-day today we are just heading over to the church to play some pong and some cards and maybe write some letters or something. Líbano B(the other elders that work in our ward also) stayed the night at the pension because we had to plan an activity for next saturday. We have been in San Juan Centro all morning just wandering around. I asked the aerosol/spray painter guy to make me a custom art piece. I am going to pick it up next week because it was a little more complicated that just one of his normal works, so expect something awesome next week. Ha.

I love you all and hope that a good and safe week passes you by.
Un abracito,
Élder Larisch
La Iglesia es verdadera

Monday, August 6, 2012

¿Tengo veinte años ya? (I have twenty years already?)

Hey there...

Yeah, that doesn´t make me homesick at all looking at those pictures
of Lake Powell...ha ha. I hope you all had a good time and got back
safe and sound. That is crazy that dad actually threw up playin
punishments! Ha ha ha! I bet his brothers just got a kick out of
that. I think I may or may not have to introduce that game into the
misión mendoza. Ha ha. There is some stuff here that would go just
swell for that game.

It has just kinda been one of those bring you up then drop you down
weeks ya know? We had a ton of success just finding incredible people
this week but we still just can´t seem to find a way to get people
inside that chapel at least for one little hour! Holy cow it can be
frustrating. Ha ha.

As I said, we have just been finding lots of incredible people. We
were able to put some good baptismal fechas(dates) so we will just
have to see if those are able to follow through. Hoping and praying.
Our top candidates for baptism in the upcoming weeks shall be Adriana
Peralta, Silvia Saavedra, and the familia Valdez.

It still is super hard to focus inside houses because all of the focus
is on the tv(los olimpicos). There have even been times where we ask
nicely for them to turn off the tv for a few minutes but we get
rejected with a nice response saying no. Ha ha. Argentines are very
hard core fans and supporters of the sports even though they don´t
like sports. I get updates a lot from the family we live with and
tons of other members. I hear china is leading with us on their tail.
Go US!

Yep, just kinda passed the birthday by just like any other day. It
was a pretty cool day. Maybe the Lord wanted to bless us a lot on the
b-day because He allowed us to get to know some awesome people. To
let you know, yes, I was able to get the ice cream cake that I have
been desiring. It was one of the most tasteful, dulce de leche-ful,
and happy-ful cakes that has ever entered into my own stomach. I wish
I could email the taste of it just so you could try it, maybe sometime
in the near future. Yep, I wanted to do something crazy for my last
night in my adolescence but I couldn´t really think of anything that
would be appropriate for a missionary to do. Ha ha. It was a good
day though...Oh, and I am still expecting the package. It will be fun
to get another sweater.

For Pday today we cleaned all morning while listening to the
thundering voice of Bruce McConkie telling us to figure out our own
personal salvation with fear and trembling before God. Ha ha. I love
listening to old talks. But seriously, they are really good!
Everything in our house has been leaking so it was a little
frustrating this morning but I think I already got over that
frustration now. We actually got out and played sports(for the first
time in a LONG time). I brought my frisbee(thanks mom) to a cool
park(surprisingly there are not very many parks appropriate for
playing frisbee and stuff because they are made terribly with trees
and big rocks everywhere, but fortunately we found a good one today)
and we played for a while and it felt really good to run(I don´t run
in the mornings anymore like I have done once in a while with other
comps, mostly because it is now really cold outside in the mornings).
Then after we went to the closest place we could find to grab some
grub. We all were able to get some lomos and chori and enjoy
ourselves playing Monopoly Deal Cartas. Good times!

Good week! I hope all of you can say the same...especially for those
who spent it at lake powell...love yall.

Un abracito,
Élder Larisch
La iglesia es verdadera


 Chef Dev
The breakfast burrito
E. Wahl eating pancakes

feliz cumpleaños to me
grido cake...mmm
 can't wait to dig in...
 my photo collage
 elevated bed to help me sleep better with this cold
 E. Galati
eating chori with the gang
The bish