May 16, 2011 Random Thoughts

Right now I am listening to some song in English because I´m in the ciber. My companion is writing to his family and it looks like I´ll finish before him. We played soccer and volleyball today with the Hermanas and other Elderes. I´m kinda hungry. I´m gonna buy a Riccota cheese cake from a family to celebrate my 1 year mark in the mission. I drank a really good 150cc glass bottle of 7-up. I bought a coconut today and it took forever to open it and the milk was really bitter water and I don´t even like coconut so I threw it away but it was cool to do. Now a spanish person is talking on the radio. Uh, what else is going on here... Anyway that´s cool that Jordan is finding something useful to do. I think if he´s getting paid $85 a day he´s doing pretty good as long as he doesn´t start spending it. That´s a bummer that he can´t go to institute though, just mission prep and the Tuesday night one.

I´ve been getting really tired lately and I don´t know why. This week we had a ton of success too. One thing I tried to do is write all of our references and new investigators for the week on sticky notes and then pin them right in front of where I plan every night to try and help me. It worked because I find I can focus a bit more during planning and we´ve had more success with several of our investigators. A family we found went and so far the mom said she wants to go back to church next week and her oldest kid of 12 years old said he wants to get baptized. Another investigator also went with her oldest daughter so that was also cool. We have really improved in our desires to baptize and that has been the key in doing better and being blessed with more miracles.

I read in Alma 41 today and it said the word desire 5 times within two verses. It was teaching that we will gain salvation or condemnation based on our desires to that end. If we desire eternal life, do missionary work, achieve a goal, the Lord will bless us to get there. That´s why we will be judged in the end based on our works and desires. Interesting. I also read in 3 Nephi 27:26 that we will be judged for the scriptures that have been givin to us and our knowledge of them and how we´ve applied them, which our mission president said applies to preach my gospel since it was written to convert missionaries and not investigators. So not to be preachy or anything, but you might want to start reading that, ha ha. Hope your day is still going good.

Love you and let me know if there is anything I can do for you. Tell Jordan time to prepare for his mission is TODAY. Chao Chao.

Con Amor,
Elder David Arrowchis

No Transfer - Mother's Day Plan

Aahh, I don´t know if I want to use skype still... I´m still thinking. Anyway, I will be here still, HA, I did not get transfered which means I will be ending Elder Ludwig´s mission and have to stay another transfer after with the new missionary (Most probably). So I´m here for the next 3 months, at least! I´m actually really excited about that because I absolutely love it here in Ushuaia. It´s getting colder but I love being in a mountainous area, the members are amazing and I love them all, now I´m going to be here for when the branch president gets back and another family, and I´ll still be able to carry the work that I started, and most importantly I didn´t have to pack last night and go on a plane today, whew. But, that gets me thinking where I can get that PT test done, because there is a member who is a gym teacher (or was recently) but I have no idea where I could run the mile. Plus, the members are so ready to help us. They are waiting for us to call them to go out on visits, and they are getting pretty organized about going and doing visits and visiting less actives, and there are like 5 returned missionaries and the other are awesome as well. It´s just awesome in Ushuaia, if you want to come to Argentina for vacations we definitely need to come here! Plus, this transfer I think I´m going to get my address changed from Buenos Aires to where I´m living here so that everything is cheaper, ha ha. Maybe the President would let us go to Puerto Williams again if it´s only 100 dollars a ticket instead of 250 a ticket.

So, about the skype. Here´s the back up plan for a landline:
-The phone number is 011-054-02901-423635
-Dad calls at 7:40 pm (3:40 pm CA time)
-Mom calls at 8:10 pm (4:10 pm CA time)

So thinking about it, we can try to use skype. Here´s the plan for skype:
-I´ll sign on at 6ish my time
-Dad calls at 6:00 pm (2:00 pm CA time)
-Mom calls at 6:30 pm (2:30 pm CA time)

My companion is going to do skype, so lets do skype too. If that doesn´t work for me we´ll go to a members house for the back up plan and times. Please check the time difference between Ushuaia and California, because I based it off of a 4 hour difference and i don´t know if that´s correct. Love you and I´m done writing since we´ll be talking next week (Sunday)! Please send a confirmation email telling me if you can and/or you understand so that I can ask if I can check on Thursday or something if everything´s alright!

Con Amor,
Elder David Arrowchis