Oct. 9, 2013

Hey!

yeah, i'm doing good! i like the new area.. its definitely different than the bronx!! but its not bad. i'm still getting used to being in a car.. i haven't really been able to meet a lot of members yet because we had general conference this weekend so we didn't go to church.. so i saw no members haha we've had a few dinners so that's been nice. its so weird not having dominicans around. those are my peeps!!! me and my companion get along really well! he swam at byu.. so he's legit. and he likes playing other sports too so some days we wake up early and go play ball at the church with some of the other missionaries.. its nice :) yeah.. there's no way i'll be able to go pick up the package.. and i don't know where west street is, so i can't even call other missionaries to have them pick it up for me :/ i think she's just going to have to re-send it.. sorry!aqui espero a el paquete que mandaste!

i'm glad you guys are having fun with Beto and Maricruz. tell them i said i hello and that i love them!! i didn't get an email from dad.. i dont know if he sent one? but tell him i say hi :) haha

today we are gonna go play volleyball and i think we have some good volleyball players in our zone so i think it'll be fun.. and we are gonna go get some groceries cuz we have NO food in our apartment right now. so we've been a little hungry the past few days. but it's okay. things are going well :) i'm happy. and i hope you all are happy :)

I got transferred!

i'm just gonna do one big email today if thats okay. as you obviously know. today, is thursday. yesterday was wednesday. and it was transfers. haha Last week was good. we didn't do a whole lot because we were busy moving things into the old apartment, and we just visited a lot of members so that i could say bye to all of them. yup, i got transferred!! could you imagine if me and portillo would have done 4 transfers together? thats 6 months!! a quarter of my mission.. but yeah, it was time for me to go. I got sent back upstate! butttt not really. i'm finally out of the bronx after a year in total of serving there. i'm now a Zone Leader in the Westchester zone of our mission. the areas that the zone covers are white plains, sleepy hollow, new rochelle, portchester, mount vernon, and a bunch of others that i don't know yet cuz i've only been here for a day. My new companion is Elder Mceachern. he's dope! we actually got to the mission field on the same day, so i've known him for a while and now i have the opportunity to serve with him! and, we are spanish speaking :)) yayy! we ARE in a car. which is a blessing. and a burden, healthwise. but it will be okay. we live in a SUPER nice apartment. which missionaries haven't lived in before.  on the 26th floor. with a dope view of our city and of manhattan. we have carpet. and two bathrooms. and this time it's only me and my companion. so i have my own bathroom haha its ridiculous. annnnd we have a gym in the basement. which is free. and we have a washer and dryer in our apartment so i will be saving like 20 bucks a month not having to pay for laundry.. and on the top floor of our building we have whats called an "amenities" room. which has a pool table and an air hockey table which are 100% accessable for us. so, its safe to say i can't complain about where i live.  i will make a video soon so you guys can see. its definitely bitter-sweet being transferred. i love the bronx, its my hood! and i made a lot of good friends there- members and missionaries alike. a few of the members found out i was leaving and they bought me stuff and made me cards and all that jazz. i was definitely feelin the love! one of them even took us out to red lobster on tuesday. it was soooo good. so good. so i am definitely gonna miss being in the city, but i know this is where i need to be now. i'm pretty excited. our chapel has 2 hoops in it, which my last one didn't. and i hear we can play basketball a lot. so i'm excited because i haven't played in close to 6 months. and thats not okay. but yeah. it will be good. i'm just excited to be speaking spanish, and i'm excited that although i'm not in the city, i'm not in the middle of some forest like i was when i was in connecticut haha but yeah guys i'm doing very good :)

dad, i would like some coyotas if you feel inclined to send some :) and mom, sounds good about the money. the reason i had 40 dollars left and not the 60 you put in was because we had some unexpected things we had to pay for, but i will be able to get some of that money back. i'm still planning on buying the bag! i hope you guys are doing good :) there's nothing else for me to really update cuz the BX is old news, and i don't know anything about here. soo yeah.  here's my address tho:

Zazzy

40 Memorial Highway #26E

New Rochelle, NY 10801

you know what to do with that :)

haha have a good week- I Love you guys!

14 Months!

14 Months serving the Lord!

Not a whole lot of things going on. we've been working hard. trying to teach. trying to save. we've been working a lot with the other members of our zone to help them have a baptism in september.. as a zone, we are going to have 5 baptisms this weekend. its awesome!!! so i'd say things are going well. on monday, Elder Bruce A Carlson of the 2nd quorum of the 70 came to speak to the mission. it was awesome. he gave us a lot of insight on how we should measure success. and how we should measure ourselves. and it was super cool, because before the conference started, all the zone leaders got to go into a meeting with him and the mission president so he could talk to us as leaders. and then we got to go in again to talk to him as the leaders of the mission. i loved it. something interesting that he said was that they don't send us on missions to baptize everyone.. they send us on missions to mold us into worthy disciples of Christ, and to help us develop habits that will make us good fathers/husbands/mothers/wives. and that the baptizing is what comes along with it. i had thought about that before, but i had it the other way around. but that was the first time i've heard a general authority say it. but it was a really cool experience. being a leader in the mission definitely has it's perks! today, we are going to the zoo as a zone because its our last p-day before transfers. so it should be fun, i hope. i love you all. everyone, be healthy. be smart. look both ways before you cross the street. time to go ! byeeee!

Sept. 11

errbody in da club.

AT ZERO ZONE (OR ZONE ZERO?)

things are going really well! in regards to facebook. like i said earlier, we aren't allowed to use it to just talk to people from back home for no reason.. we are only supposed to use it to fulfill our missionary purpose.. so that means to teach. like i said in the part to dad, i am allowed to talk to basically anyone who has any questions about the gospel.. and only for that reason.. so keep emailing me cuz that will be the way we still communicate. and they told us that we will all have one by christmas.. but that changed haha right now the ZL's and the sister training leaders are the only ones in the mission who are allowed to go online.. so there's only like 25-30 of us in our mission who are using it and it will only be us for the next month or so.. and then in october everyone else will start doing theirs. but yeah i'm having to hide my pictures and all that other stuff because president doesn't want people focusing on what we USED to be or what we USED to do.. he wants whoever visits our page to focus on what we do as missionaries.. so thats why all those changes have been made and there will be more to come.. but the future is looking bright :) 

also, president told us he is planning on making some changes in leadership next transfer.. meaning he might release up to 10 zone leaders.. thats almost half! he wants leadership to go and work side by side with newer missionaries.. and thats why he's releasing so many of them. so there's a chance i could get released next cycle! but nobody knows whats going to happen.. so yeah. just thought i'd let you all know! i hope everyone is having a good week! please be careful in all that you do. and i'll do the same! (mom)... love you guys :) byeee!

Sep. 8

there's a ton going on in the mission right now. we had a leadership council this past friday and they gave us some big news! our mission has been approved for online proselyting.. meaning that this friday, all of the zone leaders are going back to have another meeting during which they will be training us on how to use facebook as a missionary tool! cool right ? they told us that after christmas, every missionary in our mission will have a facebook account and that we will all have a blog that we will use to post the things that we do and share and talk with investigators and members and all of this cool stuff haha and we will be able to use skype and facetime to teach lessons and talk with the people we are working with! cool right? so yeah, we are receiving a training on that this friday, and then we will start practicing it and making sure we know what we're doing and then we will be training the missionaries in our zones how to use it and stuff. AND they told us that at the beginning of next cycle, every individual missionary in our mission will have their own mini iPAD that will replace our planners and area books.. crazy!! so we're pumped. i mean, hopefully it happens. we are really excited cuz its new and it could really help the work increase! so i will keep you posted on that. 

also, our mission as a whole has set a goal to have every companionship have a baptism in the month of september. so it's crunch time right now. but i am letting you guys know so you are aware of what we are trying to accomplish and also if you wanna throw in a prayer or two or twenty in our behalf we would be very grateful! sooo much is going on. i'm doing good! this P-day has been pretty.. alright. this morning we had to go sing at a funeral at a chapel in harlem. it was a strange experience ha but i sang a little bit of a solo. its been so long. so yeah. thats what i've been up to. I love you guys! i hope work and school is going good. you are all in my prayers! have a good week :)

Aug 28

ahh i'm sorry i feel like there's not too much to say? things are going okay. the work is a little hard living in this other apartment because its so far away from our area.. things just take so long.. we can't buy food to keep at our apartment because we don't have time to travel home during the day because its too far, so we have just been eating out at fast food places so yeah it's no bueno.. but the new zone is awesome. we live with 2 elders who speak mandarin and they are awesome! one of them has a full ride to BYU for the piano.. he is ridiculous. and i am super jealous but its nice to have him around because he plays whatever we ask him to.. but yeah. i can basically speak chinese now. 

the AP's told us that we might be moving back to our old apartment soon.. so this cycle might be a little crazy.. there's so much going on! me and portillo are still getting along well! we are both kinda hoping we leave this area after this transfer though.. but who knows.. we can never guess what will happen at transfers. i'm sorry i don't have a lot to say today. and dad, sorry again for not replying, i just don't know where that email is! i hope you guys are all doing well :) be well, i love you guys!

Aug. 22

mom and dad and everybody, i'm just gonna have to combine everything cuz i don't have a whole lot of time. Yesterday was the craziest day. as you know, we had transfers. our zone is so different. there are 16 missionaries in our zone, and 7 of them are new.. that's a lot of people who left/came. me and elder portillo actually stayed together so we will be going on our 3rd transfer together, which is unusual haha but everybody was really surprised and happy ha we were both pumped because we are having a lot of fun. 4 of the new missionaries are NEW missionaries.. and 2 of them are waiting for their visas to go to brasil.. crazy. so president assigned me to go study with them every once in a while to help them with their portuguese.. although i feel like mine isn't really that good anymore. so yeah, i stayed, but we moved apartments.. into the very first apartment i lived in on my mission. 

2180 bronx park east #6E

bronx, NY 10462

it's super weird living their again and it's super inconvenient because we used to live in our area but now our area is a 20 minute bus ride away. and we live with 2 elders who are both new to the zone and yesterday we had to help them move in and do all this other stuff which is why we didn't have time to email.. so yeah they just gave us a little bit of time today to email you guys and be able to let you know that i'm alive.. haha sorry its super lame, hopefully i can catch up with the emails next week! love you guys! byee :)