Nov. 20th, 2013

Buenos Dias!

Dad.yeah,, sorry, we had a bunch of trainings! and no we don't have iphones..i don't think i will get one one my mission, they are still in the piloting stage! uhhh my coat. i don't know. i haven't bought one yet. is it cool if i use some of the money in the account to buy it? 

sleepy hollow was sick! it is the weirdest place for a cemetary.. that place is a maze haha but it's super cool. we didn't see anything creepy, but i think if we were to go after dark it would be for sure! i really really wanna see the saratov approach, i've heard from a lot of people that its really good, so it's definitely on the list for when i come home. as for our hands haha i don't know really.. i just started doing that when i got to this area, and the zone has kind of adopted it as our symbol for our zone. we go hard! haha and for the facebook usage.. its just our mission presidents have different views on what we should or shouldn't be doing. so they have a little bit more liberty, but really it's not a big deal. i'm not complaining! 

and as for my contacts.. i'm still pretty good on them, they should last me a while! butt.. i'm pretty positive all of those locations for america's best are out of our mission boundaries, so i couldn't go and get tested even if i wanted to . there's none that are closer??

Mom.

i'm sorry you don't like the new yahoo haha but i got your email this week :) uhh yeah the technology. its actually not my favorite. we are busy right now because we are still trying to figure everything out! the beginning stages of things. a little difficult. yeahh Sister Gonzalez! i've only met her twice, but she is SO GREAT. super nice, and she cooks really good too haha that would be awesome for you to send her a card. i'm sure she would love it! yesss i wrote brisa, but i don't know if she got it cuz she hasn't written me back or anything.. i really hope she is doing better! i'll be on the lookout for the jacket! and no, we haven't finished the candy. i've actually given a lot of it away. i've met a few missionaries out here who also love the mexican candy so if i know i'm going to see one of them i take some candy to give them.. we still have a lot left. its awesome and terrible at the same time cuz we don't have food, only candy haha soooo healthy. i don't think i need anything. i'm happy :) i will be sure to let you know tho, but for now i'm pretty sure i have everything i need! i'm so glad you liked your primary class! we had the primary program here last sunday and it was.. interesting. haha 4 of the missionaries had to sit up there and sing with the kids cuz they needed help.. i haven't bought a bag yet.. i need a bag, and i need a jacket, but i don't know which one to buy.. if the one tia sends me works, i will buy a bag, if not i'll buy a jacket i think.. so yeah, i'm gonna put that off for a little bit longer.

other things. 

everything is going good. we have a small teaching pool. really small. but its fine. Kevin is still doing awesome, he came to church last sunday, we were pumped! his boss still doesn't want to give him sundays off.. but he is so ready! we've taught him almost everything and he willingly accepts and applies everything we talk about. its awesome! once he can get sundays off he will be 100 percent ready to go. he really wants to be baptized, he talks about it every time we go over. but his work schedule might not change until the new year.. but we're praying for him, we'll just have to see what happens. 

all of our missionaries have ipads now. it's pretty weird haha it's cool, but its still not really my favorite. i think it's more of a distraction for most people right now. we look around and somewhere you'll see a mission, face glued to the screen haha but hopefully that will change once the novelty wears offs. this weekend we had stake conference. it was awesome! every area i've served in so far except for danbury has been in the same stake, so i got to see a lot of the members from my past wards. it was doooppeee :) also, Elder Gifford Nielsen of the 70 came here to New Roc on sunday night for a fireside. he was the guy who gave the talk about "exclamation points" in general conference. he's tall haha but it was pretty cool. so yeah we've been busy. and we will remain busy for the next while. our mission is having a christmas devotional on the 6th of december which is basically a musical fireside for our mission. and i got chosen to sing in the choir, and we are be going to be having a few rehearsals from now until then, so we will be traveling in and out of our area to go to those practices..

we really feel so busy.. and i feel like we do a lot here in this area, but the things that we do aren't always in our area. we are really busy with other missionaries in the zone and so many things come up that we have to take care of.. some days fly by because we have so much stuff to do, and then we come home and review our day and we feel like we haven't done anything at all because we barely spent time in our area. its weird. i'm having fun, we're just trying to figure out how to balance everything a little bit better. 

today we're just chillin.. email, get some groceries, and i think we're just gonna go play some volleyball or basketball over in scarsdale with some other missionaries. it should be fun! i hope everything is going well for you guys, i miss you a lot! do good things. be good examples. love you alllllll! me voy :)

Nov. 15

Hey!

I'm quickly gonna reply to yours dad! send it out to everyone!

i'm sorry i didn't get to email on wednesday. we had transfers and we both stayed. we played basketball after so i changed.. then we went to a dinner appointment and i realized i forgot my shoes and my tie at the church. so we had to drive back to the church. i found my shoes. i lost my tie :/ and so we didn't have time to email. and then yesterday we had to go down to manhattan and were at the temple from 9:30 am till about 6 pm because we had to help train all of the missionaries in the city on how to use their ipads. we didn't get back into our area till 7:30, and i was feeling really sick so when we got home around 9:30 i went straight to bed. this morning we drove to the church in ossining, and we were there from 9 am till about 5:30 because we had to help train all of the missionaries who are upstate on how to use their ipads.. so it's been a really busy past couple of days. so this is really all i can send out. i'm really sorry! i promise to send a real email this wednesday. love you all, have a blessed week :)

Nov. 6, 2013.

New Haircut!

today, we are planning on going to sleepy hollow, since we didn't get to go when we carved the pumpkins.. so we're gonna make sure we get there early! it should be cool. other than that i think we're gonna go "shopping".. elder McEachern -pronounced "Mc-ECK-ern" - needs some sweaters, and i'm going to try to find a shoulder bag..

now in regards to ipads. on monday, we stopped by the mission office to pick up some stuff for our apartment, and we ran into the AP's and the Mission President there. long story short, they told us they had some good news for us, and told us to come back the next day. so yesterday we went back to the office for a conference call with our mission president, the assistants, and some guy from salt lake, who was telling us how to use our ipads. haha sooo yeah, as of yesterday, me and my companion have ipads! and we are actually the only missionaries in our mission, aside from the AP's who have them. we don't know why they decided to give them to us early, but we got them. they rest of the mission will be getting them next thursday and friday. and yes dad, the area book and our daily planners are in there, along with the list of our ward members and all of their callings. ITS AWESOME! its gonna be such a big help.. it's gonna take some time getting used to using them since we're used to having everything on paper.. so right now it's taking quite a bit of time to input everything that we need, but i'm sure things will speed up once we get used to them. i'm lovin' it haha it's super weird having one... and since you're probly wondering, the church has these on lock down ha we can't just browse the internet or download whatever we want. theres a filter and things so that if someone tries to do something that we're not supposed to it will either prevent it from happening or it will send a report to salt lake and they'll forward it to the mission president. we're being watched very closely haha which is good, cuz who knows what people would try to do. so yeah, that's the big news of the week :) pretty exciting stuff!!

the picture is of us on halloween!

Oct. 30, 2013

i'm sorry this message is so short, we don't have a lot of time today! we are going down to manhattan and it takes a lot longer to get there from here than when i was in the bronx.. maybe we'll have time later today to email and if we do i will send pictures!

but yeah, yesterday i got my haircut by Sister johnson, who went to westwood! she's family with some people in our stake, so that was awesome being able to talk to her because we know a lot of the same people.. and it was a free haircut! who sent you the picture? this weekend is gonna be cool.. on friday we have the mission leadership council which is with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders in our mission, and usually they are awesome already, but this one we are combining the council to be with all of the leaders from the ny-ny south mission! so i'm pretty pumped about that. well guys, i love you all. i hope you have a good week! sorry again, we are just short of time today!

Oct. 23, 2013.

Outras coisas (other things)

things are going well. we are SUPER busy all the time. but mostly with doing things for the missionaries in our zone. we have been doing a lot of thinking and planning in regards to how we are going to help all of the missionaries in our zone go in the direction that will benefit us as a whole. it's been great. yesterday we had zone conference which is when multiple zones in the mission get together.. so our zone got put with the 2 bronx zones.. so i got to see all my homies :) it was nice! our whole mission is officially approved to use facebook.. so now everybody in the mission will be using it. crazy! and they also announced that we will have our ipads and our iphones within a month. i'm pumped. out here for P-day we kinda just do whatever comes up. one day we played volleyball/basketball.. one day we just played pool in the top room of our apartment building.. today we are having our zone activity. we will be having a pumpkin carving contest and then we are going to the cemetary in sleepy hollow to go find the headless horseman. or something like that. so yeah. me and McEachern went and bought 13 pumpkins this morning. it's gonna be a party :) next week i think we are going down to the city. i really wanna go to central park to see all the trees with the different color leaves. so yeah guys, i'm having a good time :) i hope you all are too! Love you, miss you and all that good stuff. I'm out!

Oct. 16, 2013.

this past week was pretty great. we got a new investigator who is SO ready to be baptized. we've had two lessons with him in the past week and we are going back to meet him tomorrow and our 2 visits that we've had with him have been truly amazing. he's surprised us both times with his desire and his understanding of what we teach him.. we are planning to have him baptism in the beginning of november.. we have faith that we can help him do that :) i'm really liking it here. although its not the city or the bronx, which is where all my peoples be, i'm having a lot of fun. i've made some good friends in the zone. we are living quite comfortable in our apartment. the weather is pretty nice still, and all the trees are starting to change color which is amazing! and i'm not too worried about staying in shape because we wake up early everyday to exercise! 3 days a week we work out in our gym and the other 3 days we go play basketball. so i'm pretty happy about that! i think about basketball a lot.. like a lot. frustating at times. hopeful at others. but. we'll see what happens. things are all good here :) today we are just gonna hang out at our apt and play pool and just chill with some of the other missionaries. it should be nice :) i hope you all have a blessed week. Love you all!

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 :)