January 24, 2011

We taught a lot of lessons this week. Don’t have space to talk about them all. I think all in all we taught 19 lessons. That number will probably keep rising too. There are a lot of people to teach, it’s just none of them can go to church. It makes things difficult. We are working hard in Fernley, and might go from 0 members there to having a Spanish group by the end of next transfer. It’s just a possibility, but at least 4 people have expressed interest in getting baptized and there are others we are teaching there. They are all way cool too. One of them is named Louis. He is super funny and is already doing missionary work even though he isn’t baptized. His sister is a relief society prez in a Spanish ward in Salt Lake, so both he and his sister want to get baptized, but learn more first. We can definitely do that. We are also continuing to teach a large group of kids, a few of which are less active members and the other couple aren’t members. They range in ages from about 13-17. They are all related to members. They are super cool kids and we challenged them all to read 5 pages in the Book of Mormon every day for 100 days. They have started strong and read together, so we will see how that goes.

Zone conference was good as always. Of course President and Sister Black came up, and the Assistants to the President, too. They told me they forgot to tell Sarah that they were coming though, so I didn’t get anything from her this time. Hopefully next month. We talked about using the Book of Mormon in teaching and working with members better. They had the ward mission leader from the student ward in Reno talk to us. He was solid; created some good discussion and had some solid ideas.

I got a package from Logan and Richard! It was pretty sick. I got a picture frame that says “Love” on it, hahaha, a bunch of sweet pictures of us, and a huge bag of Skittles, just like I like it. I miss good old Smash Bros and game nights with unlimited skittles. Those were such good times. Always miss the Jacks. They are da best.

Check out the video of Paris – person, not place.

January 18, 2011

On P-day yesterday we just hung out. It was super warm here – like 60º. Pretty sweet. It is soooo nice! I love it. We went grocery shopping, I made food for the whole apartment (fajitas...chicken, bean, guacamole, onion, green pepper, Tapatios hot sauce, and hot tortillas), we played Guestures, opened up the balcony door and hung out there a bit, just had a chill day.

This week, in Fernley we taught Chayo and Leo and Chayo's sister Lupe. Chayo and Lupe are very accepting and may want to get baptized. Leo (Chayo's husband) is a little more reserved. We brought a member to that, and he did a good job at working to include Leo. We also taught Alma, who does want to get baptized, but can’t come to church, so that’s a problem. She babysits 5 kids on Sundays. We are trying to get her to just bring all of them, but often kids are sick, so it’s hard. Plus she has to get permission from the parents to bring them all to the Mormon church in Fallon...not helpful. We also kind of taught a lady named Bertha. She is very interested and I think we should be able to get her to church and get baptized, but we really need to meet with her sons and teach them, because apparently they are very influential in the community with the kids because they are both very good soccer players.

We also met this lady named Mimi who speaks English, so we are going to have to hand her off to the sisters, but we had a cool experience. She is super nice. We met her while we were at a part member family’s house and she came in and talked to us for a bit. We went to her house on Sunday to see her and had an interesting experience. She talked for most of the time. At the end we asked if we could pray with her. She said of course and we were about to pray when she had a super spiritual experience looking into our eyes. She said she could really see our souls and how pure they were. She said she just felt something, some kind of energy, and she said that there was a light with our faces. It was really cool. We are going to introduce her to the sisters and I have faith she will see the same things in them, so it should be really good for her. She will be going to church with them next week I think. It was a really, really cool experience.

We didn’t speak in sacrament meeting yesterday. They told us the wrong day; we will be talking the 5th Sunday.

January 10, 2011

The week was a little hectic but pretty good. We had a lot to do and very little time to do it in. We are starting to get adjusted to when people are around and stuff, so that is super helpful. We got all unpacked and everything. It’s a good time. It’s still a work in progress, but it really is coming along.

We spent some time in Fernley. Fernley is technically about 1000 people bigger than Fallon, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t take the navy base into account. Really they are about the same size, Fallon is probably slightly bigger. It is about half way to Reno, so it becomes a little bit of a suburb for it. There are a lot of Hispanics, but it is hard to find them home. Really we just need referrals from there. We stay at the English elders appt. It is a 4 man appt because there used to be SpanAms there too, but now it just has 2. Yerington used to be covered by Fernley. It has 2 Wards, and then they cover the ward in Silver Springs too. It is not quite the Mormon town that Fallon is, but its still Nevada.

On Sunday, the speakers were easier to understand, especially since it wasn’t testimony meeting. I got just about as much as I do in English, haha. I had a libreta (like a small flip notebook...I don’t know what you'd call that in English other than that) out the whole time and wrote down words that I heard that I don’t know so that I can look them up later. It was a pretty good meeting, but next week will be better...we are speaking. Hahaha. That is going to be quite a challenge for us, but at least we get to write out talks out before hand. Speaking in Spanish off the top of my head is still a little rough for me, though it is getting better fast because it has to.

The best part of the week was probably when we had a lesson with the lady named Claudia. She lives in a trailer park where a couple of members live (kids who converted without their parents actually) who are about 14, 15, and 16, and the 16 (Junior) year old’s best friend (Kevin) is always around. We were in the lesson when Kevin and Junior came in and joined the lesson because Claudia is Junior’s aunt, but everyone there is just one big family anyway. We finished teaching the lesson and started asking who was going to give the closing prayer. I said, "alright, everybody say a metal in Spanish. Plata!" And then Junior said "Oro!" And me and Elder Bowe said oh, ok, and bowed our heads. “Oro” in Spanish both means gold and I pray. What was cool in the end was that Junior was like...”nah, I think Kevin should pray.” Kevin kind of wants to be baptized, but doesn’t have his parents’ permission. Kevin said, "I don’t know how." So Junior taught him how right there! It was great. It was exactly how missionary work should be. Somebody teaching their best friend how to pray. Then Kevin did exactly what Junior told him, which was exactly how we teach it. It was way good. (Look here for more about prayer.)

January 3, 2011

The most interesting thing of the first week in Fallon? Probably that it snowed and melted snowed and melted the entire week. The toughest? Since both of the elders working with the Spanish branch here were transferred and we both came in new, trying to figure out where on earth to start when neither of us knows the area, the investigators, or anything about the area really at all. We are still kind of trying to figure out who the missionaries who left were teaching. We spent most of the week going over the area book, calling the elders who were transferred out, searching for places because we don’t know where anything is, and getting stood up by appointments. So, it was pretty interesting. We are really teaching the entire branch plus investigators.

Yesterday was our first Sunday here and we had one of the lowest attendances ever in the Spanish branch. It’s kind of nuts. I couldn’t really understand anything in Elders quorum. It’s hard. Sacrament and Sunday School I did pretty well, but not fantastic. We both have a long way to go. Elder Bowe hasn’t served in a real Spanish area in over 6 months.

My apartment is nice. I still haven’t really finished unpacking; I just got the last of my stuff from Yerington today. I live with Elder Bowe and 2 other missionaries. They are all cool guys. Elder Bowe, is from Pennsylvania; Elder Camp is from Henderson; and Elder Erwin is from Virginia. One of them I was kind of friends with before we came here, plus I was kind of friends with my comp before I came. Good group. So it’s a pretty sweet set up. We play a ton of Phase 10 and solve Rubiks Cubes ... which I can do now, by the way. It’s pretty chill. We also sometimes have double comp study which is super fun and you learn more, but we have to do it in English, so a bit of a trade off.

We leave for Fernley tomorrow where we will do some work, stay the night, drive to Reno Wed morning to exchange our ‘08 Fusion for an ‘11 Malibu, go back to Fernley, hopefully hit a couple of appointments, stay the night, do a little more work in Fernley then drive back to Fallon Thursday afternoon. That is going to be pretty crazy overall, but should be a good time.

December 20 -- last note from Yerington

Yerington in winter.

[Sorry for the delay -- Ben's parents have been traveling.]

We taught Tamara a couple more times, then had her baptism Saturday! It was very good. She is such a strong girl. She is a good example for her mom and grandma. We also got a couple of more really good appointments set up for this coming week along with the usual lessons with less actives and stuff. It was an ok week until it started raining. Cold, cold, cold rain. That’s no fun. It is supposed to continue this week, but it doesn’t matter because we have really good appts set up. We have a lesson tonight with a high school senior who is really interested. It will be at a member’s house so that will be cool. Hopefully we can answer some of his questions. It will be a good week leading up to Christmas, hopefully. We also shared “Joy to the World” with a couple of people which was pretty good. But one of the families we shared it with couldn’t get it into Spanish so it was a little hard for them to understand it really well, but they still could.

[Tuesday, Ben was transferred to Fallon. More next week.]

December 13

This week basically consisted of tracting, people not being home, and zone conference in Reno. Tracting was pretty good. We met about 6 possibles and got 4 return appts, but so far 3 punched. We'll see them at some point though. That’s really about all for the week I think. Oh, we taught Tamara the Plan of Salvation this week too. That girl is pretty dang smart. We taught it simply, but still it can be difficult for a 10-year-old to really understand and she had no problem. That was fun. Plus we got to teach it at Bobby's house. I love that guy.

Zone conference in Reno was pretty fun. We had a good time overall. I hung out with Ryan Matekal the whole time (from BYU) and we got to do a lot of reminiscing. We had some training in the morning from President and Sister Black and the APs. It was a pretty solid one. Not too boring at all. The stake relief society fed us ham and potatoes and rolls and everything. It was pretty good. That’s how you should feed missionaries. We are growing boys. We don’t want soup....that’s what we got the time before. We want hearty food and a lot of it. Then we watched Mr Krugers Christmas and had some people sing songs and some other stuff. President dressed up like Santa and took all of our transfer wishes. I said I just want to go south, which I doubt will happen, but I’ll probably leave here, so I am guessing that I’m headed up to Reno or to Tahoe. Either one would be pretty fun, though very snowy from what I hear. (Sister Black posted some Tahoe pics on her mission blog this week.) It was a pretty good time overall, as it always is hanging with other missionaries.

We are teaching about 5-6 people/families, some of them more so than others. We have 3 who are very likely to get baptized and everyone else is pretty unlikely. One of the 3, Tamara, will be baptized on Saturday, so that will be fun. We teach her again tomorrow night. We are teaching a guy tonight who is pretty sick and has a lot of problems, but is also very cool and already asked to get baptized, so we'll set him with a date tonight. Then we also have one more guy that is back in town named Dustin; he will get baptized soonish. He enjoyed attending priesthood meeting at church a couple of weeks ago and even though we'd been at church with him for a couple of hours, he actually turned to me and said that time was going pretty fast...which I completely disagreed with, but that’s good he thought so. Hopefully we'll do something with him today. He likes to chill with us on p-days sometimes.

Dec 6

I was sick all week. Good now though. We just didn't get alot done because we didn't want to get anyone else sick, and I lost my voice so I couldn't teach. So, instead of news, I'll tell you funny facts about the area that I have forgotten to tell you.  

So, Yerington is the capitol of PT cruisers. It is absolutely ridiculous. I'd say about 1/10 cars are a PT cruiser. Its pretty funny. I think Ive counted about 30 different ones in town. In a town of about 2000 people. Crazy. 
Yerington also has a "Y" on the mountain.  It trips me out every time I see it.  It is absolutely ridiculous that I get to think of BYU every time I look at that.  It is pretty funny.
Interesting fact about Fallon. Fallon is where Top Gun was filmed.  Everything there is top gun themed. Top Gun Gas Station. Top Gun Car Wash.  Top Gun Speedway. Top Gun everything. Its pretty funny. Its such a small town, but to us it seems like the city. Its super funny. Top Gun is everything to them.
Here's picture of the missionaries in the Fallon zone.  Can you find me?