Feb 20, 2017

Hola.  A lot more news this week! including investigators!  They all got a lot of potential too, which is great. We had divisions in Atalaya the other week with Elder Cortez and Elder Mayorga.  I was able to make a deal with him and I got to sleep in his bed instead of the floor in their apartment that night.  That night he said at around 11pm just after I had fallen asleep, he was awake on the ground next to me and I apparently rolled over and started preaching to him in my sleep hahaha.  He said I shared a scripture and testified to him that these things are true and will bless his life hahah.  Right after that I said amen and my head just hit the pillow and I fell back to sleep hahaha.  The best part about this is that I was preaching to him in Spanish!!!!!  So idk but I think that counts as the dream!! (they say once you dream in Spanish on the mission then you got the language) Elder Mayorga even said that I didn’t have an accent or anything and that I was probably speaking it better in my sleep than while I’m awake hahah.  That got me pretty happy and hyped for the rest of the day.  I was also offered this week by two mothers to marry their daughters after the mission, it was even weirder cause they were in the room at the time, haha one of the mothers was a bondista to haha.  I couldn’t imagine having bondista in-laws and I don’t want to either. Transfers are also coming up this week. Elder Udall is gonna likely leave with 6 month in Los Pinos!!  What a trooper he still going strong too; great guy.  I was reading in Jacob 5 a few days ago and I felt something really special as I read.  I especially loved verses 21-23. Hope everything back home is good and that the weather is starting to warm up for you guys love ya. 

Feb 13, 2017

Hola.  Not much to say about this week.  We did get caught in the rain though, wasn’t that bad.  We had interviews with president also and it’s pretty likely that I’ll stay in the Los Pinos area and maybe with a Latin companion, who knows eh.  We also found a Walmart today and there’s a mall right beside it that is so American, it felt pretty weird being there.  All I’m thinking about right now is General Conference.  Elder Udall downloaded a ton that we listen to every night, man they are so much more meaningful to me.  Was recently reading in 2 Nephi 26, there’s a great verse 24 and 25 I’ve realized more and more that as we extend commitments and promise blessings how really important that is.  There isn’t one thing we do in this church that is not necessary.  It all is important, God wouldn’t ask us to do anything that doesn’t have any significance. The trick is to just keep helping others to realize this.  Eh if you guys want to look up the villa called the Fuerte Apache, it’s the second poorest villa in Argentina and it’s in the mission, Elder Udall has been there, apparently its nuts. Love y’all chow.

Feb 6, 2017

Pretty good week, we’ve been finding a bunch of new investigators lately.  Not sure if it has anything to do with the changes, but that seem to be the focus in this mission right now, which is to just find find find. On Friday we had divisions with the zone leaders Elder Dye and Elder Oyarce.  I went with Elder Dye and man, we have all the same likes.  He’s from Idaho, but we did the exact same stuff before the mission.  Together we went into what’s called a villa.  I never thought anything like this existed.  It’s nuts just look it up, it’s like a maze of poverty with dogs and garbage everywhere and it smells bad to.  We spent a lot of time there and the people are really nice though they would just listen to everything we had to say and they accepted it all.  They would ask really good questions too.  That area (La Tablada) does pretty well cause almost the whole area is a villa.  It was really humbling to be there.  I thought a lot about them and their situation.  They don’t have much to be happy but they just carry on.  Saturday we got caught in the rain but kind-of a blessing cause it’s a lot cooler out right now.  Hope everything is great back home love yalll

Elder Maller

Jan 30, 2107

Hey, from the words of President Robertson, we no longer live under the law of Moses but the law of Jesus Christ haha.  I don’t know if you guys heard, but they changed the mission schedule and its super different.  We get an extra 2.5 hours for p-day, plus we are given a lot more time in the morning and a nigh to relax.  I’m sure you can check it out on the church website. If you look there are some missions that wake up at 7:30!!!! Crazy stuff. They also changed around some of our key indicators.  It was a pretty sweet broadcast, I’m not sure if you guys are able to watch it but everything Elder Bednar said - he just killed it!  I wrote down like 5 pages of stuff from it.   It was actually really great.

This week again was pretty fast we are finding a lot more people but everything seems to slows down right after new year’s and Christmas; not sure why.  Today we went to a pizza place, which has all you can eat pizza for 85 pesos and its goooooood too.  There’s a record in the mission and our zone leader holds it with 22 pieces of pizza hahah crazy eh.  I had like 7 and felt like dying.   Nothing really new, I mentioned our new district leader Elder Cortez, he’s pretty funny.  I miss Elder Salmon though, I learned a lot of great things from him.  I also forgot to mention that his grandpa is President Salmon from our old stake presidency.  It’s still super-hot here, its 35 degrees all day.....missing the mountains hahaha, but its supposed to rain all this week so can’t wait (not being sarcastic seriously it cools down a bunch) other than that it’s still the best of times in Los Pinos.  We might have a baptism in the later month will see!

Love you - Elder Maller  

Jan 23, 2017

Jan 23, 2017 - Hey, Things are going good in the Los Pinos ward.  The work is going slowish right now.  We got a ton of eternal investigators that we just can’t seem to baptize, so right now we are focusing a lot on finding new people.  We have found some awesome people, so were working with them and we could hopefully have a few baptisms in February; but we’ll see.  I’ve learned a lot about this area and it’s kinda nuts.  There’s a lot of bondistas (people who worship the devil) and bondista temples.  I never knew about that before and the scarey part is when we go contacting, cause it’s hard to tell who they are, but there’s a bunch.  Everybody here either knows one or is related to one hahah, oh well.

The ankle is getting much better, I sent a photo of how its doing.  It’s just pretty bruised and a little bit swollen but not much.  I wish I took a photo of it initially, it was soooo bad but its good now.  Today is the best.  We found a new Wendy’s restaurant in Ramos wooooo hoooo!! It tastes just like home, but the ice-cream is waaayyy better and super cheap.  The weather is awful, it’s just soooo hot.  The other day it was 35 degrees at 9 o’clock at night.  In a week or so were moving apartments to this brand new one that a member just built and it has AC!!!!!  It’s cheap to, it’s like 4000 pesos a month.  This member who built the complex, it cost him about 45,000 dollars to build 3 apartments and 1 penthouse!! Seriously, living here is super cheap I’m kinda starting to think about staying here for school cause that’s also free idk.  Anyways how is home and the ward? It’s hard to believe that they created our ward like almost a year ago.

luv ya’ll - Elder Maller  

Jan 16, 2017

Well this was just the most unlucky week of my life I think hahah.  It all started last Monday when the power went out because of a huge wind storm that hit us and blew over 6 electrical poles like a block away from our pench (apartment). So the power was out for two days and on the second night we got permission to spend the night with the other Elders, unfortunately they got locked out of their pench (apartment) so they had to call the office Elders to get the spare kays and it was just awful we didn’t get to bed till like almost 12.  We still decided that we would go play soccer in the morning, which we did, and as I was walking, and idk how it happened, but I stepped wrong and sprained my ankle really bad, like never this bad before.  I think it was because my calf’s got so tight because we just started running in the morning, which was the first time running since being home and I think I’m actually starting to gain some weight.  Anyways it was soooo bad that my toes got swollen and a couldn’t wiggle them.  In the beginning they even though I would have to go home and that was the worst to hear, I wanted to cry.  So that day was hard, I had nothing else to do so I just prayed all day and most of the next day and now I’m able to walk on it with a air-boot.  I should be able to work a bit tomorrow.  They say that I should be good by end of next week so that has been quite a miracle.  I didn’t think I’d be able to walk on it for a while and I’ll be staying in the mission if all continues to go well.  Oh and they shut off our water that day too, but we got it fixed so everything is mostly back to normal.  In a few weeks were moving penchs (apartments) to a brand new one with AC, soooooooo happy about that.  We also had transfers today and me and Elder Udall are still together, so no changes for us.  All is well, we have a Columbian family that is progressing very well.   There whole family came to church and we did a family home evening with them and another group of members. It’s still stinking hot here and the humidity is wrecking our books, like all our planners are wavy, is pretty funny.   Love y’all cha chooooooow

Jan 9, 2017

Wow, this week just flew by I don’t remember much of last week cause were in the grind.  Transfers are next week so we have been working hard with some of our long-term investigators.  Last week I almost got chewed out by a dog; a big one to.  I was on divisions with Elder Mayorga, he’s a short Mexican, so he walked by the dog and nothing - no response, I walk by the dog and it got crazy, it showed its teeth and just started barking like soooo loud.  I pretty much froze, I didn’t really move until I just started kinda walking away.  Elder Mayorga was like “man you are seriously lucky cause that dog could have like maimed you, like really bad”.  Other than that things are pretty good, I can see the spirit guiding us every day.  Things are coming along with the language, which is getting better every week almost every day.  It’s now about getting faster and speaking more smoothly but I have no problems understanding my companion.  Some people I can understand almost completely.  So right now the focus is about feeling more confident, so if there’s anything you wanna pray for specifically, there you go.  Love you guys, Elder Maller