Starting to feel like a missionary!

orale!!!

Dad

yes, it's so nice having people to teach haha i finally am starting to feel like a missionary.and yeah our mission president is super smart and super spiritual.. sometimes i don't understand how he does it. but i'm so grateful for him. sooo yeah, i just wear the same suit every day haha i have two pairs of pants, so i mix those up, but yeah. same thing every day. i think i'm gonna by the other one soon tho! there's an H&M in manhattan where they sell full suits for 89.90   and they sell them slim, which is what i want . so whenever i go to manhattan i think i'll be buying a new suit! haha me da riza imaginandome a ti parado enfrente de tantas personas traduciendo con cara de zombie! haha i bet you did awesome. did they pay you good? and i'm sure you enjoyed your trip to california! did you go on "soarin' over california" ? i know how much you love the sensation of flying.. haha i'm trying to figure out what to do for my birthday.. my birthday is actually on the next transfer day, so allllll of the missionaries are gonna be together. i could just throw a huge party... we'll see! but i'll for sure have the sisters make me a cake.. they make pretty good tres leches, i'd be down for that! haha 4 weeks away from break.. that kinda sounds like a long time, but it goes by so fast. i can't believe i'm almost at 7 months. time flies. dile a mis abuelos que les mando saludos y mucho amor de regreso!

Mom

I'm doing so good :) our investigators are doing sooo good! i'll update you guys in a bit. pero si, yo se que tengo que practicar mucho! especialmente porque creo que voy a entrenar un misionero nuevo empezando en el dia de mi cumpleanos, y cuando averigue que soy mexicano va a esperar a que yo sepa como hablar perfectamente! no pressure.. haha but i will be okay. dominicans call plantains "platanos" and they call bananas "banano" or "guineo".. weird right? and just for fun, i'll let you know that they call oranges "chinas" but anyways the mangu was really good! i liked it.. we ate it with salami and fried cheese and onions.. the usual dominican stuff. elder vasquez says hi to everyone! he has almost been out on his mission for a year.. he hits a year on the 28th of this month! and no, he doesn't live in mexico. his family lives in new jersey! so he didn't have to come very far. NO haha i don't miss bethel. that was possibly the most boring place in the world. the only thing i liked about it is that we played basketball every wednesday. other than that, i don't miss it. haha my pants do NOT stand up by themselves.. i will be taking them to the dry cleaners very soon...aww man i don't know how i'm gonna be able to sign for the package!! i don't know what time the mail comes.. i'll see if i can figure out where the post office is and see if they can tell me anything about it. i'm sorry you're sick :( have you received a blessing yet? elder vasquez has been feeling sick the last couple of days too, its no fun! i hope you get better soon mom.. as for me, my immune system is proving me right once again. it's official, i'm a beast haha i feel so good. i haven't been sick, and i think it's gonna warm up soon, so i don't think i'll be getting sick at all. no worries! what do i want for my birthday? jeez.. that's a super hard question haha I HAVE NO IDEA! my ukulele. except right now we're not allowed to have them in our apartment. lame. uhmm.. maybe some money to buy some hats? i've realized that asking for stuff while you're on a mission is hard. because whatever you get, unless it's food, you have to carry it around with you haha so i don't know. just send me whatever you want, i'm really not expecting anything big!! and for your other question, we have a subway, mcdonalds, and burgerking right by our house, so any gift cards to any of those places would work!

now. for the rest of the story.

this past week has been awesome. in particular with our investigators. first let's talk about yobanna. she's 17, she's got an attitude, but she loves having us over. she's the one who is getting baptized on saturday. so we had an appointment with her last saturday, and she juked (she wasn't there).. which is bad because we needed to help her prepare for her baptism.. so we were a little frustrated. so we called her saturday night to see if we needed to pick her up for church and she didn't answer. so we called sunday morning. she didn't answer. so we were super frustrated and decided if she didn't come to church we were going to have to move her baptism back a couple weeks.. so we prayed and then went to church. we sat with our other investigators (whome i will talk about in a second) and then i looked to the back and saw yobanna.. i was soooo happy because she depends on us to go pick her up for church, but without us saying anything to her she came and she payed more attention than usual.. so that was good. then we had a lesson with her after church and invited her to a fireside to meet our mission president and she came and was telling everyone she would be getting baptized on saturday so we were happy to see she was excited. but when we took her home her mom was super mad and started yelling at us this and that and a bunch of nonsense and said she didn't want yobanna to get baptized and all this stuff soooo we didn't know what to do. long story short, we prayed a lot, we went back to yobanna's, she had her baptismal interview, and we talked to her mom and she's willing to let her get baptized. we're so happy! and she wants me to baptize her, so i can't complain about that :)

now, for patricio and teresa (other investigators) they are awesome!! from mexico, they live together, but they aren't married. they come to church every sunday and they pay attention and they love it and they ask perfect questions during our lessons and we love them so much.. we invited them to be baptized on april 6th, and they've been thinking about it. i'm sure they'll say yes. but for them to get baptized, they have to seperate or get married. sooo yesterday we went over and taught them the law of chastity. we told them about eternal marriage and families, and then invited them to get married. teresa totally wants to. patricio is thinking about it. but i honestly think they'll say yes. i'm so excited for them! i mean, nothing is for sure, but i think they will and i'm super happy. so yeah. that's been the highlight of my week haha

other news, my back has been hurting a little, i don't know why. it kinda feels like the back spasms i had when i was a senior, but not nearly as bad. i just hope it doesn't escalate to that point because that would be terrible! another funny story, we had a new investigator that lives in the other missionaries area so we all went to her house so we could hand her off to them. she wasn't there, but her daughter was. so we started talking to her and found out she plays volleyball.. vasquez looked at me and said that i play volleyball.. then she looked at me and said i was cute and then kept talking to vasquez. then he asked if we could come back and if she would be there to listen to us, and she said she'll only listen if i was one of the people who came back hahahaha nonsense. i thought that was funny. goodness, i love you guys so much. i hope everything is going well with you guys, cuz everything is going well with me :) miss you, take care of yourselves! and mom, get better!

Zazuetaaaa

ps. i got two new nicknames in this ward. instead of zazueta they call me "se suelta" or "se azota" haha mexicans these days!

New Address

Pa

our week was pretty good! we are actually only teaching a couple and a young woman.. but soon we will get more! a lot of our work has been with less actives and helping them do FHE and come to church and things like that.. we visit a lot of the members in the ward too! the girl we are teaching committed to baptism, she'll be getting baptized on the 23rd, so next saturday! i'm excited.. the couple that we are teaching had something come up, so we haven't seen them in over a week.. no bueno! but we are going to their house tomorrow so hopefully we can get them back on track. don't worry about the pages from the book, do your thing haha your work is more important.

Ma

Yesss now i'm with my people haha i don't know that much spanish.. i feel like it was better when i was here the first time.. i just know that it's mofongo, not mojongo! haha i've actually never even had it.. but i think it's something with plantains? not really sure. tonight i'm gonna eat mangu for the first time, which is another dominican food made with plantains. i'll be sure to let you guys know how it is..  also, arizona is crazy! haha i can't believe you guys are colder than us! that doesn't make sense.. haha i know, i think i bring the trouble.. i'm just going to have to warn people next time i get transferred so they can prepare to get hit with who knows what.. i'm patiently waiting for my package haha no worries, i ain't trippin!!! elder vasquez is from celaya, guanajuato! we haven't had any baptisms yet, but we will get some on the way! i hope..

okayyy my turnnn

so. everything is everything. meaning everything is good! i'm meeting more and more of the members and they love me and my companion because we speak fluent spanish haha we have an unfair advantage, and i'm grateful for it! we are still working hard and staying busy. our mission president has really been focusing on re-activating less active members and said they are of as much importance as new converts, so we've been having a lot of lessons with less actives members and it's going really well! we have fun. me and elder vasquez are getting along really good, so we don't have any problems! the other two that live with us tho are completely different, so they struggle a little bit. good thing the mexicans are there to lighten the mood haha you guys ask about the blizzards. they're not fun. not here in NYC! we got a lot of snow, somewhere between 6-12 inches. which would've been fine if i was in connecticut, but here in new york city the snow SUCKS. there is no space to put it.. cars get buried when people plow the snow.. the other day me and my companion helped push like 7 cars out of there parking spot and we shoveled a few sidewalks too.. and the snow turns black and gross since its the city.. and then we got the kids having snowball fights in the middle of the street. crazy! we were walking right in the middle of one and some little 12 year old kid was like "STOP THROWING SNOW! WE GOT PEOPLE WITH SUITS ON OVER HERE, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!" hahaha it was so funny. it was good to know he had our backs. i haven't bought my suit yet.. i  think i'm gonna buy it the next time i go to manhattan at a store called H&M.. they have them for like 100 bucks.. and i wanna get a skinny suit and they sell them there. so i think i might wait a little longer. we'll see! i haven't touched any of the money you deposited .. as promised haha i'm so sorry i forgot to give you guys my address! in the NYC public libraries we only get 45 minutes to use the computer before we get kicked off.. so i logged out and forgot to put my address, and i tried to log back in , but it wouldn't let me because i used up all my time. i'm sorry! 

my address is:

The King Of New York

811 Walton Ave #B6

Bronx, NY 10451

sorry.. forgive me :) also. today is brisa's birthday! can you tell her i said Happy Birthday Please!  that would be great. soo yeahh..i don't really have anything else.. i don't really have any big news, other than i've never been so happy for a day that is 42 degrees. haha i'm out here in a T-shirt it feels so nice!!!! new york has changed me. i hope everything is going super good with you guys. I miss you all so much. tell everyone i said hi, and let people know my address ! Los quiero y extrano muchisimo. cuidense!!

Zazzy

I love to be back in NY!!!

 I love being back! My Ward is awesome. we are Concourse ward. lots of dominicans. 

mostly dominicans actually.. in my side of the bronx, there are 2 spanish wards and 1 

english ward. its kinda funny! Elder Vasquez is so cool tho.

 

.WE'VE HAVE BEEN WORKING SO HARD!!

we have 3 people who we think are ready to be committed to baptism.. so 

next time we see them we are definitely gonna be inviting them. but yeah. Elder 

vasquez is from Mexico! so we're two mexicans, we both speak fluent spanish, and 

everyone in the ward loves us haha he's 26, almost 27. so he has a little bit more of 

life experience than i do.. and his spanish is better than mine because he came here 

when he was a teenager.. but we get along super good and have been working super 

hard! it's the first time on my mission where we've been too busy to knock doors.. 

we just have a ton of appointments! we hope to keep it this way.. 

i have to tell you guys that i am so lucky to be in THIS mission. You guys know what 

preach my gospel is right? our book that helps us know what to teach and how to teach 

it? well the guy who wrote preach my gospel came to our mission and trained us on 

how to be better missionaries and all this other stuff and it was INCREDIBLE. 2 out of the 

3 guys who run the missionary department were there helping us.. that was why i couldn't 

email on wednesday, because my zone got the training on that day so we had to change 

our p.day! and then yesterday all of the zone leaders in the mission got to come and receive 

the training along with some other missionaries, and i got chosen to go again.. so i got 2 

full days of training.. and what they showed us was so simple but so powerful and just 

changed the way of thinking for all of us who were there.. so the night after the first 

training, our zone committed 7 people to get baptized.. in one night. 7! thats a lot! at 

least for our mission/area. and the next day we got two more.. and i think by next week 

me and elder vasquez will add another 3.. we are praying! but it was amazing. the head 

of the missionary department right now was actually the mission president in mesa, so i 

talked to him a little while about our stake and stuff.. it was cool! but yeah.. i'm doing 

so good haha working hard.. loving my ward. and dad, you going out with the missionaries 

is paying off because now i have someone coming with us to almost every single 

appointment! so thank you ha ohhhh also, my area is super small compared to my last 

one, but it's awesome. and yankee stadium is literally like 2 blocks from my apartment.. 

so if i walk down the street i can see it.. pretty cool right? so yeah. i don't know what 

else to say haha I love you guys so much. 

Goint back to the Bronx!!! ......

I'm not in the bronx yet! haha i'm in bethel still.. transfers are today! but no, i won't be in the same building. before

my area was on the east border of the bronx.. now i'll be covering the area that is on the west border.. it's a

i'm going to be Jr companion again... and i will be with Elder Vasquez! he's like 26... i actually had to leave some 

candy and some ties because i couldn't fit it all in my luggage.. but it's okay! and yeah, i think i will be buying a 

suit pretty soon! we'll see if i can find a good deal. i'm super excited to go back down to the city tho! and speak

 spanish.. there are a lot of dominicans there.. so it won't be a problem finding people that speak my assigned 

language. and i knew that i was leaving because Elder Potter got a call from president telling him that he will be

 training a new missionary in portuguese, and he told him that i was getting transferred but not to tell me anything..

 but president talks really loud so i heard him say it haha so i know i was getting transferred since last thursday. 

but i didn't find out where until sunday night, which is when they call everyone and tell them where they'll be going/

staying.. i hope that made sense! i actually dont know if i have the book... i'll have to look again once i go down to

 the city. yes, hopefully i can do more exercise! i hope someone in my new apartment will be willing to go with me..

 in the city there is a gym called "planet fitness" and its only 10 dollars a month for a membership, and we're allowed 

to get one as long as we promise to be at our study desk by 8 ... so if there is one close, i'm definitely going to be 

getting a membership! but yeah, if you can find those videos of the military, send it this way haha i need it! dad 

that's so awesome that you've been going out with the missionaries.. i don't know if they've told you, but i'm sure

 they are super grateful that you are willing to do that with them!

Ma

I'm doing so good! very excited.. i knew you guys would be happy that i'm going to speak spanish again haha 

i am too... Elder Potter is doing good! he was really sick yesterday.. he stayed home all day! but he's doing a

 little better today.. but yes, i will miss him! hopefully my new companion is cool and we get along.. that's awesome

 that sammy is gonna be going out with the missionaries! i wish i would've done that more before i came out so 

that i could have more experience..  

 Ha ha! Beto told me he made regionals, alexia told me about her contacts, and karla told me she went over to the house 

haha and i'm happy for all of them :) and yes, i got both packages! you guys are the best.. i'm gonna try to 

write back to all the letters i got, but i don't know if i will have time! don't worry, i don't feel pressured with you 

telling me that.. i just hope all my cousins and family members will also make the decision to serve a mission 

when it's time, because it truly has been a blessing for me.. and really there's nothing else i would rather be 

doing than this!

 

soooo yeah.. this past week was a little hectic. since i'm leaving i wanted to say bye to all of my favorite people 

in our branch, but elder potter was sick yesterday so we couldn't go out.. but it's okay! the senior missionaries in 

our district took me out for lunch yesterday to the cheesecake factory as a way of saying goodbye.. it was very 

nice of them! i have so much stuff haha my suitcases look like they're going to explode! so yeah, right now i'm 

still in bethel, and transfers are at 1.. so we have transfer meeting at a chapel that is about an hour away (which 

is where all of the upstate missionaries go) and then they will drive me down to a chapel in the bronx (which is 

where all the missionaries in the city go for transfers) and then they will give me my metro card and i will take the 

bus/train to my new apartment.. and then i'm settled haha our mission president called me on sunday night to 

tell me i was getting transferred, and then he told me to prepare because he wants me to train after this next 

cycle.. so i'm excited! and a little nervous. but it's all gravy, i'm super excited to be down in the city where its 

busy and noisy and dirty and just NEW YORK haha ya tu sabe! i don't have much else.. sorry! but next email 

i'll for sure update you guys with my new address and all the details about my area and stuff.. cool? i love 

you guys so much! cuidense por favor :)

Wise, wise advice to Brother Zazueta ...

HEY!

can i just say how happy it makes me to get all of your emails every week? i love you guys 

so much!

Papai

I'll be sure to cover up! it's been in the 10's lately.. not my favorite type of weather haha i'm a fair-weather-fellow! 

and this weather ain't fair! i'm sad to say i don't have the book "a marvelous work and a wonder" ..... i need to 

get it! that would be great to have.. and what are the scriptures that talk about Jesus/Jehovah being seperate 

from God? those would be helpful too. don't worry about not writing a long letter! your first responsibility is 

your wife.. who is my mom.. who is very important haha so thanks for helping her. Just seeing that you wrote 

me is enough :)

Mamae

I'm glad it's warm over there, i know you don't like the cold! especially when you have to work outside.. good 

thing you're not where i am haha it's freezing! yesterday the low was like 7 degrees and we were outside for 

like half an hour and i forgot my beanie so my ears were freeeeeeezzzzinnnnggg! seriously haha i'll never 

make that mistake again. so yeah. safe to say i don't like the cold. i'm glad you guys liked the pictures and 

videos :) not a whole lot happens out here, so i have to try really hard to find things worth taking pictures of.. 

kinda wack! but we have fun with it haha beto sent me the video of the backflips.. that's so cool! he's like me 

now haha and if alexia does cheerleading she'll have to learn how to do that too! I'm glad to hear that karla 

and aaron are doing good! i hope the headaches aren't serious either.. maybe she's pregnant haha okay 

maybe not. but what do i know... i'm also glad to hear sammy is doing good! do him and beto hang out a lot? 

and okay i will not buy another watch! but tell tio chico thank you in advance for me okay? i'll be waiting for 

the packages! you guys are the best :)

other happenings.

nothing. other than that it's supppperrrrr cold! not my favorite thing in the world. this past week has been 

kinda boring- nothing has happened! except for that a small plane crashed into some trees in the little town

 that i live in.. crazy right? other than that, things are boring... the work is still slow, we still have trouble f

inding anyone who speaks portuguese... so things are just blahh right now.. but we will not give up.

well you know me, i love basketball.. so the other day we drove past this building that is on campus at 

western connecticut state university.. and as we drove by i looked through the window and saw people

 playing basketball.. so yesterday i talked my companion into coming with me into the building to see 

what's up, and i asked around and figured out that we're allowed to play there! in a nice gym, for free. 

so yeah. that's the best news i received all week haha transfers are next wednesday. i have no idea 

what's gonna happen, but i'll be sure to let you guys know whatever happens as soon as i can! i kinda 

wanna leave, i kinda wanna stay... every area has it's ups and downs, so it's whatever! we'll just have 

to wait and see. I love you guys, let me know if there's anything you want me to do for you! Se Cuida viu!!!!

The Juan and only, elder Zazueta

Thanks so much for ....

thank you so much for the emails! my turn to write haha soooooooo 
last wednesday, we went to the temple. it was AWESOME. 
i've been before, but our whole day turned out to be awesome. 
we had to take the train down to the bronx, and right when 
we walked in some lady said "THE LATTER DAY SAINTS!" and she 
called us over and we talked to her and she said she wanted 
a book of mormon and the missionaries to go over to her house. 
so that was awesome. then we went to the temple and i saw 
one of the elders who lived in my last apartment and that made 
me so happy because he is like my best friend out here. 
then our temple session went awesome of course. afterwards 
we went to this place called steak and shake in manhattan.. 
it was DELICIOUS. after that we had to go home, so we rode the 
train back and we saw these mexicans playing music on the 
subway. i recorded them. ThEn we got on the Other train to take 
us back to connecticut and while we were on there 
(to make a long story short) i made friends with the train conducter 
and he let me go into the front of the train and blow the 
horn and talk over the intercom to everyone that was on the train 
haha my companion has it on video, so i'm gonna try to get 
it from him! but it was so cool. it was just an awesome day. other 
than that, nothing else has really happened.. but uh.. let 
me explain the money in my account. Up here, we pick up donated 
coats from burlington coat factory and we take them to a 
hispanic center where they give them to their clients.. it's a service 
we do for them. but anyway, when we arrived at burlington
 coat factory this homeless lady came up to us and begged us to 
buy her some pants and a shirt so she could get out of her old 
wet clothes.. she said she had it all picked out already and that it 
would only be 10 dollars total.. so i felt super bad and i 
agreed.. so she went and got the clothes and met me at the front 
and the clothes she picked ended up being 23 dollars.. and 
i couldn't tell her to take them back if she'll cut it for free.. i know, 
it's not me to do that, but now i have to.uhmm as for 
transfers, i still have no idea whats gonna happen.. i kinda wanna 
stay, i kinda wanna leave.. either way, i'll be happy. and 
either way, i'll still wait to get transferred to buy another suit. 
i just think it'll be easier that way! so don't worry, no rush in 
getting me the money.so how is Sammy doing? tell him i said 
what's good!!! i want to know how he's doing, i wish i was there
 so i could kick it with him haha and show him around..but yeah, 
things are going good i suppose. the work is still super slow 
here, but we still work hard and try to find. hopefully soon we 
can get things picked up. I love you guys so much. i hope 
everything is going well! Tell Karla and Aaron i said hello, and 
that i want to have a nephew when i come home. cool beans? 
haha you are all in my prayers, have a good week :)

Ghost town?

My area. super slow. there's been 1 baptism in the past 2 years.. 
and she was deported back to brazil/brasil .. sooo yeah. finding is hard. 
teaching is hard. but we keep on going. things will pick up sometime, 
i know they will. our branch is moving to a new building in march that 
is actually in danbury, so it will be a lot easier for people to get to and 
from church! right now it's hard for people to go all the way out to 
newtown, so we hope that when we get our new building, we'll have 
a lot more church attendance.. cross your fingers.. how is our ward doing?

queens! it was so fun! we got put into groups with the missionaries from 
the south mission and they were so cool! i don't know if you remember 
byron schlecty, but he is in that mission, and the elders i was with knew 
him so they gave me their phone and i got to call him, it was really cool!
 and while we were there working, some guy invited us over for pasta so 
we went to his house and we found out he was a federal agent and we 
asked if he had any guns so he brought all his guns out and let us play 
with them haha it was so cool! then we left his house and another guy 
came up to us and told us he ordered pizza for us.. so we got fed twice 
while we were there! it was so awesome.

sammy is moving in!? that's crazy! but it should be good for him. 
i wish i was there for that, i love that kid. he could teach me how to 
dance haha i know you guys will love having him there and will take 
good care of him. 

my suit. i still don't know what i'm going to do. i think i'm going to 
wait a little bit and maybe wait until i get transferred to buy a new 
one, because suits take up a lot of space in a suit case and i can 
barely fit all my stuff in my luggage as it is! so i think i might wait 
a little bit! but thank you for the money. 

we are going to the temple today! that's why this email isn't very 
good haha we woke up at 5, left our house at 6 to be here in New 
canaan by 7 to email because we probably won't have time later 
in the day. and then we have to leave here very soon to drive to 
stamford so we can take a train down to the bronx, so we can take 
the subway down to manhattan haha it's a long process, that's why 
we had to leave so early! but yeah, i'm excited to go down to the 
city again and go to the temple :) 

well, i gotta go so i can send you some pictures real quick, but i 
love you all so much. be safe, have fun. i know dad's familiar 
with that phrase haha los quiero mucho, adios :)