Pictures are wonderful

This week was extra special because we found all the pictures Dylan was sending.  They were not coming through regular email.  He is working hard on the language, soon I will have to use bing translate to post his letters as he writes more and more in Spanish.  Hope this inspires you, He passed along a scripture that means a lot to him right now 3 Nephi 27:13.. enjoy... 

Hola mis amigos. (Hello all my friends) ¿cómo esta los estados unidos? (How is everyone in the United States)so this past week was alright. Kind of the same as usual. I can't believe it's already been over a month here. The first few weeks at the time felt like months but now looking back it seems so fast. 1 more week until the new set of latinos. We were told we might not have any new English speaking missionaries coming here. If that happens, my group would be the only English speakers and there will be no English class. I love latinos but I might go insane with no new English blood here haha. So in a week and a half Ill get my new latino companion. I’m excited but scared, it will be interesting haha. We'll see just how much Spanish I’ve learned. So proselitismo, it was much better this week. It didn't rain and we talked to loads of people. Literally, we got off the bus and said a prayer, then the first TWO houses we clapped we gave pamphlets and Libros de Mormón to and the families said they would attend church. We're meeting back with them and 2 other houses this Saturday. We met a guy named Nathan, he had a sweet lemon tree and garden in his front yard. We talked to this other guy too, I forget his name but he's super nice. We talked to him for a whole hour it was great. We had so much success that we had to run to the bus so that it wouldn't leave us. Well until next week. yo los amo a ellos much. no puedo esperar por proximo miercoles porque teneré cuatro horas escribir a mi familia. ¡Chau!

So just to give a basic idea of my daily life here in the CCM, I´ll give you my schedule. I wake up at 6:30 and get ready for the day. Then I eat breakfast at 7:25 which is always cereal.  Next I have personal study at 8 and companion study/progressive investigator at 9. Then assisted study at 10, where we just get help from our teacher. At 11 we have grammar study where we learn how to conjugate verbs, basically just learning Spanish. At 12:35 we have lunch which is usually a pretty big meal. At 1:00 we have Book of Mormon studies for a half hour with an hour of assisted study right after. Then we have language study until 3:30 where we just practice Spanish on our own. Then at 3:30 we have physical activity where I usually play soccer, aka fútbol. At 5 I have progressive investigator again or working on TALL. Progressive investigator is where our teachers pretend they are an investigator and we do mock visitations as missionaries. It´s pretty cool, it’s a great learning tool. TALL is a computer program that teaches us Spanish. That is also way cool. TALL helps me learn a ton of Spanish way fast. Then we have grammar at 6 and dinner at 6:45.  At 7:30 we either have more grammar or assisted study. And then we plan at 9 for the next day. There are a lot of other random stuff that changes our schedule every day such as learning stuff in our preach my gospel teaching manual. We have lots of devotionals as well. That’s pretty much my day to day. It’s pretty boring and repetitive but whatever and then every Saturday we have proselitismo.

Si estoy aprendiendo mucho español. es loco. proximo semana obteneré un compañero latino.

  We asked him if he needed anything and had been back to the temple open house. 

Nah I dont need anything. I've gone to the open house already but I don’t know about a session or the dedication. I know Eyring or someone is giving us a devotional. Ballard, Eyring, and Christopherson will be here.

Raining in Buenos Aires

Dylan sounds so great, loving the learning.  

Hola mis amigos. ¿cómo esta Utah sin mi? ¡estoy aprendando español muy rapido, es loco! ahora, solomiente hablo español. ¡Eek! jajajaja. Broma.

Translated:

Hello my friends. how this Utah without me? I am learning Spanish very fast, it's crazy! now, I only speak Spanish. Eek! jajajaja. Joke

lol. but for reals Im learning so much spanish. now that i've learned the basics. it's getting really hard. I love it though. I found out that the spanish program in the Provo MTC is 9 weeks long, but here in the CCM they condense the program into 5 weeks. so we learn spanish in 5 weeks, then review for one week, then we get a latino companion for the last 3 weeks. So in 2 weeks I get a latino companion and I go to the all spanish class, training like the natine speakers. So besides the language it's been fun here. Proselitismo on Saturday was fun but also a bummer. Fun because it was pouring rain on us. We were just laughing the whole time haha. But because of the rain, people wouldn't answer the gate to get a pamphlet. We barely had any success but that's all ok. Keep Moving Forward right? So yesterday we played futbol americano and then it started to rain. It was a full out downpour and our field is not very good so the rain turned it all into mud haha. We were sliding everywhere, just straight up gettin' dirty bro. Some peoples clothes were white when we started and now they are brown haha. It was so much fun. so yeah, how's the ward? what's going on in Utah? Keep me posted. Yo los amo, en inglés, I love you guys. Have a good week. Chau.

Extra Comments:

Connie told him about Gurarani on the Paraguayan News and how we can't understand it at all. 

Dylan comments, Yeah I learned how to count to 10 in guarani today. It is completely loco. Makes no sense at all. water is y. which sounds like ul. haha

Yeah I'm doing great thanks love you guys. how is utah.

Book of Mormon delivered

Dylan didn't actually send his letter until Thursday this week, Wednesday was a day of waiting and disappointment.  Yet thursday came with several notes and his letter, I have tried to tie the comments all together, with a note from his companion Elder Holgate.  I am so proud of him and his efforts. 

Hey sorry I couldn't write yesterday. Our internet was down until now.

     What´s up guys! So the rain has been insane! I´ve never seen so much rain, not even in Costa Rica bro! The thunder is super loud too. So the days are getting faster which is nice.

     Ok so story time. Proselitismo was on Saturday right, all 3 of our appointments bailed which stunk. We went to the same houses and different people answered the door. Haha Wat. But at the end, we were clapping houses and I saw this lady walking towards us. I said ‘hey lets talk to her’ so we did and she started rambling off on us. At first I thought she was getting mad at us because she said she was Evangelic and she said ‘malo’ like 50 times. I had no idea what she was saying haha. But then in my mind the word ‘Leerá’ came up, which is Spanish for ‘will you read’. After awhile she said she had to go but I told her to wait and gave her a Book of Mormon. I asked her to read it and she was like super happy. She said ‘for me? For me?’ Then she started crying and stuff. I invited her to go to church the next day and she agreed to go. Hopefully she did. But when she left my companions said the spirit interpreted everything she said for them. Apparently she was thanking us; saying our work is good and most boys our age are bad and she’s had great experiences from the bible. It was killer. Definitely a great prompting, so on that note.

Everyone at the C.C.M. left yesterday and its me and 18 other American missionaries until tomorrow. It’s crazy to think after 3 weeks you could get so close to some people. I will miss loads of my new friends. Oh, and no new Americans are coming in tomorrow, only latinos. Spanish is coming but now it’s getting pretty difficult. Have you heard of alfajors? It’s a 2-3 layer cookie with straight up Dulce de Leche in between the cookies. They are stellar. I eat so many. I am like addicted to Dulce de Leche bro. I’ve gained like 3 pounds here, which is amazing for me. I eat Bananas and Dulce de Leche 3 times a day haha. The food is good here, especially when we’re here alone haha.

     So what’s going on up in the states? O I forgot to tell you about the mad pranks we’ve been pulling. When people have been showing we fill a an empty trash can full of cold water and dump it on them and then one time we rotated the bunk beds around so the ladder was against the wall haha. So yesterday since it was only my group and the American group before us here for Actividad Fisica, we played against each other. My team lost but it was way fun and we all bonded close together from it. We’re the only English speakers here for the next 3 weeks haha. But yeah that’s about it. Miss the friends and family lots but time is speeding up. Mad love, and until next week yo. Lets Keep Moving Forward yeah? As they say in Argentina, ¡Chau Ché!

    Love you guys. so I will be in the MTC for 6 more weeks. they rotate us every 3 weeks

Additional Emails and responses to questions.  We asked if he needed anything. Have you sent the package? I also need parchment to write letters and a converter because the outlets here send too many watts through for our electronics. I also need some notebooks because mine is already low on paper. thanks. Send the packages to paraguay then. I would like that stuff though.  I wrote back quickly and indicated that his electronics are fine with the voltage of Argentina. Sweet. No we can only stay in our 10 block area while prosylting.

Elder Braden Holgate is his companion and wrote this about the experience they had on the streets of Buenos Aires.  It touched our heart as he referenced Elder Memmott.

"this passed saturday when we went, i knew something amazing would happen. we went to each appointment, but every door, a different person answered each door, claiming they dont know who we were talking about. Oh well. because we didnt teach them, we came across three different people during the time we would have been teaching, all of them were street contacts. the first two were good. we understood about 20 percent of what they said. but the last one was an older woman. we had 30 minutes left, so we were just going to finish off the block and meet up at the bus. during the second door we knocked, she walked by. normally we would just say hi, but we were prompted to talk to her. we introdued ourselves and she went on talking for about 3 minutes without stopping. Elder Memmott said he couldnt pick up much of it and thought she was  bashing on the bible and religion. i know about a forth of the language of what Elder Memmott and Elder Lumpkin know. but i knew the spirit was there, because i understood almost all of it. i needed to hear what she said so i could speak to her. she was talking about how the bible has been so good to her and her family, but she knew something was missing. she said she had to be somewhere and started to walk away. Elder Memmott was prompted to stop her and ask her to read the Book of Mormon. he knew what to ask without knowing what she said. she asked"¿para mi? about 5 times in astonishment. and broke down in tears. she then went on saying she knew this is what she was looking for and said it is amazing for 19 year old boys giving up two years of their lives and walked away reading it. "

Wake up and learn Spanish - ALL DAY

Today was full of anticipation, and we were rewarded with both insight into his life and precious moments of faith. I have combined emails to create this collage of comments and stories. He sounds so great, I hear his voice in each word. I now understand missionary parent's love for P-days.

So I hear my blog is pretty chill. Elder Holgate and Elder Lumpkin are my companions. So yeah. Proselitismo was Saturday and it was way sketchy. We knew like hardly any Spanish but we were still able to get 3 appointments. It was kind of a bummer though because we went to a wealthy neighborhood and we had to clap on a lot of doors and not many people would talk to us. but this story I’m gonna tell yeah happened TWICE on Saturday. so we got to the corner of a block and didn’t know which way to go, so me and my companions stopped to pray and right after we prayed, we knocked or clapped at the house right behind us and they talked to us and we set up appointments for next Saturday. It was so cool. Its gonna be tough teaching them but we have been learning Spanish super fast here. It will be fun and a neat experience. We definitely had the gift of tongues and interpretation with us on Saturday. I don’t even know what it was but sometimes I just knew exactly what the Argentines said. It was way cool. So the MTC life is kind of boring. Wake up and learn Spanish like ALL DAY but it’s pretty chill. We play soccer a lot though and we have some pretty great devotionals. We went through the temple yesterday. It was super gorgeous and the baptismal font is crazy. So we can’t take pictures except for every third Sunday before people leave, so I don’t have many pictures. But this Sunday I’m going to take loads of pictures and next Wednesday I have 2 hours to email so I'll talk to you guys then as they say in Argentina. ¡Chau! .

”How was your Saturday out of the MTC proselytiting?”

The food is way good and prosilyting was fun.  I have 3 appointments for this Saturday to teach people. It’s gonna be tough but the lord will let us speak clearly and understand and help the investigator. The food is different every day and no we don’t help with the temple but we went to the open house!!! Yeah next week I have 2 hours to write you guys because there will only be like 16 Americans in the MTC. Everyone leaves the MTC on Tuesday. Well I forgot to write about the gross hot dogs here. They have like a rubber film around this gross red meat haha. ok well I'll write next week

how is everything I love you guys so much o and that picture is way rad(We sent him the picture from the Clipper of the 2000 strippling warriors) To Nyah: I miss the puppies they are so cute and I hope flip gets better. Love you gangsta!

“Do you need anything?” 

Where is my pocket knife? and send envelopes and US stamps and a new watch battery. “Missionaries can send letters through the pouch that get mailed by the church office to addresses wihtin the USA. We didn’t send him with any, so you parents who are preparing missionaries for foreign countries take note of this item, we regret it.”

Like I said I have 2 hours so it will be sweet!!!! Ok love you guys. ¡Chau!

President Kenneth Lynn Openshaw