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 :)

Aug 14th

this past week was so good! we taught twice as many lessons as we usually do. so we were super happy.. nothing too exciting has happened tho.. we are still in a trio, but we're killin it. and the area that we inherited because of it is super hood, so you know i'm having a good time with it. so, transfers are next week! and half the people in our zone are almost guaranteed to leave, so there is gonna be a lot of changes. elder portillo is probably going to leave and i will be getting a new companion. but there is a small chance that i could go, if president wants to move  me back into the spanish program, which i kinda hope is what happens because i miss speaking spanish and i miss the culture.. so yeah. so mom if you send the package this weekend, send it to the mission home and they'll make sure i get it

elder zazueta

700 white plains rd ste. 315

scarsdale, NY 10583

today we are just hanging around in manhattan. right now we are at the apple store next to the temple.. on the way here we stopped in harlem to check out rucker park.. and i dunked it there so that i could say that i've done it haha but yeah, we might go see if we can find MTV, or the natural history museum cuz elder poulsen has never seen it.. so yeah. i love you guys and i miss you all very much! have a good week :)

Aug 7th

things are going well i suppose! its been a bit of a slow week. we had the mission leadership council this past friday which was really good as always. we didn't have any new announcements we just talked a lot about how we could become a consecrated mission. it was awesome! things are looking up, our mission president is truly amazing, he does so much for us! so, yesterday, an elder went home who was serving in our district. so his companion needed somewhere to go and he got assigned to us! so now we are in a trio ! haha we spent a lot of time yesterday going back and forth between the 2 apartments to get all the stuff because he'll be living with us for the next two weeks until transfers where it will be easier to assign him a new companion. today we are going to stay in pretty much all day to make sure our apartment is clean and then we're going to the other apartment where nobody will live for the next few weeks to clean it up because it is a MESS! haha but it's all good. things are going good , i am happy, God is good! i love you guys, byeee :)

July 31st

things are going well i suppose! michelle is doing good, we haven't seen her for a week and a half because the members that were gonna come with us have canceled the past 2 times.. and we cant go in her house without another male because she's a single mom.. so it's a little frustrating! but we're having an activity at the church on saturday and she said she's coming so hopefully we can get back on track with her! our other investigator alexandra really wants to get baptized but she's having a lot of trouble giving up smoking and so we're trying to help her work through that.. but things are good! yesterday we had zone conference. it was awesome. President talked a lot about becoming a consecrated mission/missionary and i think it really motivated a lot of people (including myself) to make the changes we need to to become more dedicated to the work that we've set out to do! the beach was really fun last week, the sand was really hot tho. and it was really hard, so i was really wishing i could have just jumped in the water. and while we were there some girls started trying to talk to me and all this nonsense it was pretty funny. today we are going to ground zero because portillo has never been and if there's time we're gonna try to go to the museum of natural history, so it should be a good day :) also, did you guys hear about the dress code changes? if you haven't, look on lds.org, its pretty cool! i'm gonna need money to buy a new bag because we're not supposed to have backpacks anymore.. but yeah. thats really it! I love you guys, i hope all is well :) bye!