May 30, 2011 Apple Pie in Argentina

Thanks for the letter, I completely forgot it was Memorial Day this weekend, but the Argentinians had their independence day this past Wednesday and we went to a fiesta at the church and ate popcorn, empanadas, fry bread, and an apple pie (it was the closest apple pie I´ve ever eaten that came close to like in the States).

Our mission president recently told us a story of a missionary who is baptizing more than any other in our mission and how he asked him what his secret is. One of the things he said is that he has not just a desire, but a hunger to baptize. Thus if we desire it, the Lord will bless us according to our desires, which is why many times we don´t receive blessings. i´ve also noticed that I am a lot more likely to find people to teach and find our investigators in their house if I simply think until I feel "I want to teach right now". It almost even turns aggressive sometimes, ha ha. But it works.

I was also studying today for an investigator that has a doubt as to why we don´t have "educated" ministers who give talks in church and random members are called to talk. So I read in D&C 50 about how when we teach and listen with the spirit, we learn by the spirit and both the teacher and the student are edified. Then I read in Luke 12:11-12 about how the spirit will teach us what we need to say in the moment, as long as we have the words of life in our memory (from our daily studies!). Thus, it doesn´t matter if we are listening to a general authority or a CTR 8 giving a talk, we can still learn just as much if we are paying attention to what the spirit tells us and not just the good feeling it gives us. That´s how the spirit gives us revelation in the sacrament meeting, by bringing to our rememberance scriptures and quotes we studied to answer our questions we are thinking about.

I was thinking that I sometimes share what I´m learning with you guys and you like it, so maybe you could do the same. Would you (especially Jordan) be willing to study every week in Preach My Gospel and tell me what you are learning? I think that would help me out too to receive revelation reading your studies and could especially help Jordan start to read Preach My Gospel.

I also have another Moogle request. Next month starts when I can take the PT test thing again, right? Well if I don´t score good the first time I take it I would like to do a diet thing to help loose weight to run faster, etc. I´ve heard of missionaries who don´t eat anything with sugar other than fruit for a month. Would you mind looking up ideas that I could apply in the mission that would still help me build strength and lose weight? Thank you!

Con Amor,
Elder Arrowchis

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

Baptism in Puerto Williams

So, unless you haven´t figured it out by now, I went to Puerto Williams with my companion this past weekend. We went because it´s apart of our area and there was a baptism there (I´ll let you look for where it´s located in the world). Lets just say I can now say that I´ve been to the town most south in the world. It was quite an experience getting there and while we were there. I don´t have much time so I´ll write only a little, especially since I sent pictures. So, first we had to get there. We had everything paid for in the morning and we were packing when I decided I wanted to buy a souvenire or something from Puerto Williams. So I went to my wallet and pulled out some personal money without even thinking. I pulled out 300 pesos argentinos and put it in my bag. The weird part is that I even thought that that was way too much and maybe I should bring dollars just in case. But I just said nah and left it at that. Then we got to the passenger control to make sure we could leave and come back to the country. It turned out there was a problem with my passport paperwork and i had to pay a 300 peso fine before I could leave. The boat was leaving and we wouldn´t have had time to go back for more money if I hadn´t of brought that money. Then we got there and started getting to know the members. We passed by the boy who was getting baptized and had an amazing lesson with his family where I received revelation about how 3 Nephi 20:8-9 relates to easter. We also had other spiritual lessons with the members, who are bien Chileno. That was our adventure for the week and I´ll write more and confirm the Mother Day´s call next week (and if I got transfered or not). Love you and hope you enjoy the pictures instead of mutter about not answering your letters.

Con Amor,
Elder David Arrowchis

Need FHE Game Ideas

Ha ha, you are giving a talk on Easter Sunday, how great! Well, I would recommend reading from "True To The Faith." Then, just take a second to meditate and focus on what is the focus of the atonement. Then just follow the impressions that come to your heart and look for those answers in your daily study through True to the Faith or the bible dictionary. Then just share what you learned with everyone and bear your testimony. That´s what I try to do for my daily scripture study. And I´d recommend you start before Saturday because even though you work "harder" under stress, I don´t know if you´ll be able to work "better" under the stress by recognizing the spiritual promptings through all that emotion, ha ha. It´s like what Elder Holland said in General Conference, the speakers spend a month at least sweating, praying, and searching for the topic they should speak about. You already have the topic, you just need to find the direction the Lord wants you to take. I´d also suggest reading the atonement in lesson 2 in Preach My Gospel. There´s a guide in that lesson to scriptures that talk about the Savior.

So your asking me advice made me think of an experience Presidente Arnold (Area President for Sur America Sur) told us in a conference with him (because I realize i didn´t give you much material to write):

He said that when he was a mission president for Costa Rica there was a problem within the country and he had to figure out how to move all the missionaries to a certain spot in the mission for safety reasons. He said he had no idea how to do it because part of the mission was outside of Costa Rica and he would have to cross borders and they weren´t doing anything of the kind. So he called a member of the 12 (Elder Oaks I think) and asked him what he should do. Elder Oaks told him it sounds like he needs to pray and figure it out, and then he hung up. Eventually Presidente Arnold received the revelation he needed but that was a funny, yet true response. Ha ha, good luck on Sunday, you´ll do great.

Anyway, thanks for the Easter Basket, I haven´t even finished half of it. I´ve already given away quite a bit but this last week I got diarreah for a couple of days and still feel kinda quisy, so I didn´t eat much of it yet. The ferrero rocheros were also a nice touch. I gave Eduardo and Elder Ludwig the silly puddy and they are always playing with it.

This week´s been pretty rough, as in we just haven´t had much success. The cool thing about Elder Ludwig is that he´s learned how to keep happy in the mission even when things aren´t going too well. One thing that I realized is that I have almost a year in the mission and I STILL have no idea how to be a good missionary. It can be very frustrating not knowing what to do STILL. I do think I understand Spanish more, so that´s a plus. I think I´ve gotten to the point of understanding just about everyone, only not when they use words that I don´t already know. I know one way you can help me! So we are trying to organize family home evenings with our investigators and other members, but we don´t know any family home evening games... could you send some suggestions (and how to play)? Thanks.

Send greetings to Amanda and tell her thanks for all the letters and especially for the list of scriptures! Tell her that if she´s still going to institute when Jordan gets there she needs to get him incorporated and all that. I can´t believe the whole clan is going to have worked at Leisure World... the worst part is that I was there in the beginning too! Back at the old budget building! Oh my gosh... I´ve been with that company my whole life. Thanks for the pictures too, they were awesome, just too bad that Elder Martinez already went home to see them. Love you and good luck with the talk on Sunday, I´ll see how it went on Monday I guess, ha ha.

Con Amor,
Elder Arrowchis

April 11, 2011 Another Baptism

I´ve had some crazy experiences this week. This past weekend we had the baptism of Belinda Hurtado (she told us we couldn´t take photos or put them on facebook so you´ll have to look at the old fotos of the other baptism of her kids) and we had almost every test of faith pass. The first miracle, to be baptized you have to pass a baptismal interview. It just so happened that the President showed up that night in the church, without knowing why, and was able to help her in her interview so she could be baptized. He told us that when he was walking in the street he felt he should go to the church. SO he did. Elder Beatty came out saying he needed to call the president and lo and behold, he was there in the church to do the interview. Que accidente, no.

The next miracle. When we got to Belinda´s house to take her to the church for her baptism, she wouldn´t leave because one of her sons hadn´t arrived from school yet even though he should have. So knowing that she wasn´t going to leave unless someone was looking for her son, I left with Eduardo to go look for him while my companion and her family went to the church to prepare for the baptism. We spent a hour looking for him and finally decided we needed to go to reach the baptism. First of all you should know I left the house not knowing if we would find him or not, having little to no idea where to look, but having faith that we would find him and arrive. so what happened as we were walking to the bus stop to go to the church, up walks his brother. So we grab him and run to catch the bus right as it was arriving. We arrived in time to see one talk and the ordinance carried out.

So this week I´ve learned that this is really the Lord´s work and that he is guiding us even when we don´t realize it because the spiritual promptings are sooo soft. I´ve also gained more knowledge that being obedient and humble equals being happy. Finally, in Sunday i felt an even stronger love for everyone in the branch as I looked around. So strange since I´ve only been here 4 months and yet I feel such a strong attachment and devotion with every member in the branch. Write more next week and I´ll try to send some fotos now.

Con Amor,
Elder David Arrowchis

Do you want to hear from my convert Eduardo? Here he is:  hola mi nombre es Eduardo, hoy con elder arrowchis fuimos al glacial y nos divertimos mucho, de verdad, espero que su hijo se quede mas tiempo para seguir disfrutando del clima, jaja , un placer jeje, see you later.

Yeah, he knows quite a bit of English too, bits and phrases.

April 5, 2011 General Conference

Ha, thanks for the pictures! Yup, there´s snow here too, not nearly as much as Utah, but yesterday it started to snow some in the morning, so thus it starts. That´s cool that Jordan is finishing his first year of college. It´s actually really weird for me but well, it´s cool for him. When he goes to brother Greiner´s class ask him to pick up a list of memorized scriptures (that list I asked you for almost a year ago...) from brother greiner. It´s front and back filled with scriptures and what topic they are and I´d like a new copy that´s not all destroyed in case more companions want a copy.

General conference was sweet! That is one of the experiences that I enjoy most in the mission as well because it´s just 5 boys sitting in a room talking and making jokes about conference! We totally called the joke that Elder Bednar referred to before he got up "Uh-oh, Elder Bednar and then Have I Done Any Good In the World Today, get ready to repent." It was also cool because we were all interested in conference and all taking notes about what we learned. It was a good feeling. Also, whatever happened to Kelly People´s mom because I could have sworn I saw her in the MOTAB!

So yeah, I´m also trying to cook more with my companion, he´s taken a couple of clases and always watched his mom so he knows quite a bit. Today I tried making bread, but it came out kinda weird (I don´t know how to form it) and kinda salty. But it was the first time so I´ll get more practice before I get home. I want to learn how to make it like the Argentines do. My plan is to cook for you guys when I get home so I can spend more time practicing because I won´t get any at West Point. I have learned how to make a mean banana bread though, so that´s cool.

Another update on Delia is that recently she left to go visit her dad in Jujuy who had 4 operations and is 80 years old. We heard yesterday that her dad had a miraculous recovery and is doing just fine right now. That woman has a lot of faith. Also we talked with an investigator and her boyfriend about the law of chastity last night and about getting married. They promised to pray together and think about making plans to get married, so we´ll see how things go but they also felt good after that night. Well I have to go now, but thanks for the love and prayers! Tell Jordan to write me and to read the Book of Mormon everyday. Penguin Elder 5 out.

Con Amor,
Elder David Arrowchis