Monday, January 30, 2012

¡Me Voy! (I'm going)

Hooooola
Amados míos,(my dear friends),

Well when the six week period ends in the mission, it feels like just a little touch of Christmas each time. Transfers is like a gift that you have to wait to open until a certain time. I just barely got the news from the line of leadership. We are actually with our District Leader right now so he was able to tell us right when the Zone Leaders called him. It turns out that I will be the only one leaving in our district! The new area that I will be going to is in the zone of Godoy Cruz(definitely more of a city area), where the mission offices are, and the area is called something along the lines of San Ignacio, but Elder Hansen(district leader) said the phone was cutting out a bit so it was hard to understand. I am pretty stoked to go and experience a new area, meet new people, and have a new companion(not that I´m getting sick of Elder Hudgens...ha ha. Nah, we get along great) whose name seems to be Elder Wilson. No one in the District knows who he is so I guess I will have to give you the profile next week. I am also pretty bummed though because we were getting to know our area so well and have some really good new investigators, but "I´ll go where you(the Lord) wants me to go." I will be moving Wednesday of this week. Transfers are fun.

Oh yeah, and a big bummer is that my comp forgot his camera cord so I will not be sending you any super good pictures this week. But no worries, we are going to work something out so that he will be able to send me a flash drive or something through the mission. This week we have taken many good pictures at church with all the members and stuff. They are some of my favorites so far...so be ready for something real good coming your way sometime soon!

Some not so good news will be that we did not get the chance to baptize Sol this past weekend because it is too soon for the family. Some of our more progressed investigators, or otherwise known as older investigators that we have had, are not quite progressing as fast as we need them to. We are starting to just kind of start off new with our good new investigators that we have adquired. Hopefully my comp and his new companion will be able to work miracles when I leave. The last couple days we have had to go despedir(say good-by) to a lot of the members that we are closer to. We weren´t able to tell them who was going to be leaving, but we basically both had to say goodbye just in case. Ha. Those were pretty hard(emotionally), especially for Lucía. She said that she will always know us as her niños and ángeles. It is really cool how close you can get to the ward here because they are a bit smaller than back at home. I don´t remember seeing the Elders very much working in our ward. It is a blessing to me that I can have so much love coming from this ward. I hope the new ward in Godoy Cruz will be just as good as Colonia Bombal.

To mom: Well, the sweat stain picture was not mine. It was from E´ Hudgens, but I just threw it on because I thought you would like it. But...this week the same thing if not worse happened to me. Ha ha. It is pretty disgusting. There is definitely a need to wash our clothes a lot, but to be honest there isn´t really too much of a way that I can wash as much as my clothes need it. Tell Grandpa he doesn´t have to send more money. Ha. Oh yeah, and about money. I took 200 Argentine pesos out of the ATM last Saturday from my Cyprus card just in case you would want to know. I don´t have much money at this end of the month because I have had to pay a bunch for bike fixes and still haven´t gotten reimbursed from the mission offices, so I had to pull a bit out of my own account. I went to try and look at how much was left in the account on the card today and for some reason it says that the checking and savings accounts are both empty. So, you may wanna check that out somehow. That´s not fun that everyone has been sick at the house, I hope everyone can get back to feeling good as new as fast as possible. I will be sure pray for good health for the fam. I can´t believe Luberta is already in drivers ed. Make sure you teach her that you are supposed to speed up when you see a yellow light!

Tell Mallory that Ailín really likes to read. She always pulls out her favorite books when I come over for Tuesday lunch and I help her read Ruana La Rana(Ruana the frog). Ha ha. I won´t be in this area when I get your package, but I´m sure there will be a plethora of little children who would love to receive candy bracelets that Mallory picked out.

Here, they have a fair every tuesday, thursday and saturday. We go every saturday to eat with one of the members in their stall that they have. Mmm, empanadas...

I really like that your lesson was focused on the small things in life. Alma 37:6-7 was one of the first scriptures that I chose to memorize in Spanish. That really is true that the small things in life are what turn out to be the big things. There are so many ways that that scripture can relate to us. Thanks for that little thought. Yesterday in church, the Principios de Evangelio teacher didn´t show up so we got to teach the class. The section was labeled Sacrifice. We had some really good discussions about how much it is worth sacrificing things to receive blessings. At the heart of sacrifice comes trust in the Lord. There are many examples of ways that we are asked to sacrifice in this life; our time, talents, and worldly possesions, to name a few. For example the law of the tithe asks us for a tenth of our income, and with that often comes challenges. A tenth of our income is no small bit of pocketchange, and it can sometimes appear that how the world runs economically today, it just cannot be done. I know for myself though, that as long as we pay a full tithe we will be blessed, whether it be spiritually or temporally. Sacrifice takes trust and faith to look into the future in the Lords hands.

Here, we have not had that many chances to do service for people. That is one thing that we surely could improve on, because it is always a great way to find new investigators. But I definitely can agree with the part about inviting non-members to activities of the church. The biggest thing in our ward now is fútbol every Miércoles en la noche. Non-members always feel much more comfortable coming to church when they already know some of the members. That is where the job of the members comes in. If the members are good and befriend the new one, it is surely going to have a very good outcome. It is like we are slowly handing them over to the ward, the only thing they need to pass through is the waters of baptism.

Don´t feel bad about the long letters. I like hearing as much as you can tell me about whats going on at home. Ha. Sorry that this one isn´t very organized. I should start outlining it or something on the collectivo so that you will be able to follow better.

Thanks for all of your prayers. I know that there are so many prayers worldwide for all us missionaries. I´m pretty sure that all of your prayers work just like fuel for a car, so just make sure you always keep filling up our tanks! :) *I don´t do smiley faces that often, so enjoy this one. Love you all!!!!
Con mucho amor,
Yours truly,
Sincerely from the deepest of my heart,
Elder Dev Larisch

La Iglesia es verdadera!
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
This means that the church is true!
The biggest dog ever!

Dad is this helmut safe??

Sweat marks...Deven said his were worse!!

Couple missionaries are awesome!!

Elder Hudgens birthday cake...I love the expression of the sisters in the back..
Deven said she always makes a cake for the Elders birthdays!!

Cheers to the New Year

New Years celebration at a members home...