December 2015

Andrews mom here...I have not been very good at keeping this blog updated as regularly as I want to, but I have gone back and updated the past few months.  We were able to skype with Andrew today-it was great to see him and hear his voice!  He is doing great! He is enjoying the mission, the people and the food of Argentina. ~ Sara 12/25/2015

12/07/2015 6 months
Hola como están? My week was very crazy and long but also good. Im super tired! We had a christmas musical program of missionaries this pass sunday. Consited of a choir and narrationes and some solos. Was super awesome experience. We practice for 4 week every sunday. And a few days here and there. It end out bieng incredible. A ton of people showed the whole chapel, cultural hall, and stage were jammed packed. Lots of members and investigadores. The spirit and the message was so strong. We sang great! We have the christmas conference of the mission coming up this next monday so im not sure if ill email then or tuesday, well see. Today we went to carlos paz. great area and very beautiful. A little toursity but lots of  cool stuff there. prayer for G that he will be able to stop smoking

12/15/2015
Sorry im a few days late, but Happy Birthday mom! :) Te amo muchísimo

Skype call 25 de diciembre! Send me your skype name that you all will be using the 25.  

12/21/2015

thank you for the information. Cant wait to talk to you guys too! Glad to hear thr funeral was good, i hope the family is doing okay especially grandpa. 

Well i was illegal or the past two weeks or so. So i had to go to tucuman from wednesday till friday night. which is en Argentina norte. Went with thirty other missionaries. We did paperwork and legal work for our DNIs. Now im legal again, i think... hahaha

Tucuman is outside of our mission so that was wierd. was very hot, 40 C  with lots of humdity one day and the other day it rained alll day. durning the storm the power went out  and i got stuck in the elevator for 10 minutes with 5 elderes, and the whole hotel sweated all night without airconditioner the power finally came on 3 in the morning. Ate some really good food there, had lots of fun, and did some long and boring paperwork, made some expercences and didnt get much sleep with 2 super long buse drives. 

photos:

-american candy poker

-Asado ( there is some intestine and stomach in there , but its not bad especailly the intestine) 

-trying to teach a statue in tucuman

~FELIZ NAVIDAD~

los quiero mucho! Espero que todo ustedes tienen una navidad buenísima. Estoy muy agradecido por cada ustedes en mi vida. Recodar el verdadero espíritu de Navidad, ha nacido un salvador.

November 2015

11/02/2015 5 months
That sounds delicious! Its rained here for the past two days straight so lots of humidity, mud, and flooded streets. My week was crazy but really good, we had two conferences a ward activity and meeting with our ward mission leader. The activity was great it was the "halloween fiesta" was a talent show with really cool native latin dancing and we did skit for the ward it was hilarious and the ward loved it and some of our investigadores came as well. Dont be afraid to share your testimony or talk abou the gospel, missionaries love referencias. Miss you guys so much! How was the 31? Cant believe that i have 5 moths in the mission, time is flying by!

Mission Zone-2nd row from the back 5th in from the right

11/09/2015

Im very good! we had a had bautismo this past weekend, i baptized M. super spiritualy defintley my favorite part of the week. It is super hot now and very humid some days. Today we played paintball with our zone and another today, was a ton fun. The rain storms are crazy here, lots of hail and rain. Thats makes sense, not very big here either but there are some tricker treaters. Yeah takes a little while to get ajusted, a little less for missionaries, feel super ajusted now.

Fotos: when i gave blood a while back, paitnball, bautismo, giant spider in our pension, etc.

11/16/2015

Been a super hot week, getting a really good farmers tan haha. Tranfers this past weekedn im still in Arguello haha, with Elder Escobar from last transfer. im pretty sure ill leave next month after christmas. We did a lot of service this week. Gaston "nano" and Yohana are getting married next month so we have there buatisms next month which is super excited, We are teaching a family of Jehovah wistnesses which is a little difficult but they want to get baptized they just need to know the restortion of the church and the book of mormon are true. They said either their church or our church is the true church of christ.  

11/23/2015

I miss snow and skiing haha And yes getting really toasty here! No my allergies havent been bothering me, havent had that many bloody noses either! I am enjoying it here Argentina, much life time experiences, learning, and fun! Not sure how exactly the celebrate christmas here. im not sure if there into the whole santa thing. But it is a big thing here. Think big parties both the good kind and bad kind 

11/30/2015

Its been a really good week. we had a wedding this past friday and we have baptisms coming up really soon and another wedding! Got my scripture cases the other day!!! and a package full of food from grandma and grandpa smith!! We also have a missionary choir doing a christmas musical program the 6th of dec. spreading the news like wildfire. trying to get lots of members and thier friends who arent members to come as well as nuestro investigadores. 

October 2015

10/5/2015 4 months
Conference week was great.We had a baptism inbetween the sessions sunday. Conference was amazing and it has different incredible light when watching it on the mission. Every talk applies to one of our investagadores or yourself in a way. Yes the prophet does seem pretty frail but it was good to hear what he had to say. Got a new comp. still in the Arguello area tho. Elder escobar from Chile. 

I really liked the talk by larry Lawerence

Speaking spanish is great, i love it. however my english is fading at the same timea little bit, especially with spelling and sentence strcucture.

Wrote lots of notes during the conference

Had my first big thunderstorm here the other day lots of rain, hail, thunder and lighting. was so hard to sleep that night. Its starting to get really hot, so summer is just around the corner for us.

Went to the temple again, got a lot of garden pictures.

My old zone

10/12/2015

Lots of motos and mopads, lots of trash on the side of the road. Sadly you kinda get use to it. The driving is crazy here also but also something ive gotten use to. What kinds of foods did you eat there. I hope learn more language after the mission. Thats awesome, think owen really could go somewhere with swimming!! My week has been very stressful, long, and also good. First week of new transfers are always crazy. Aesome having a latin comp. 

Me and my comp set a baptism date for a lady when i first starting teaching two months go said she wouldnt change her religion. 

10/19/2015

How was this past week? We did some servive on saturday morning at a member's house when we got a call that we needed to go to the church to donante blood, so i donated blood this past saturday. Been keeping up with the Rugby World Cup a little bit here with the members. Los Pumas de Argentina are doing pretty good so far. Been working with a lot with three people to help them live the word of wisdom before baptism, lots of people smoke here. Also been busy getting people on their way with all the marriage paperwork and stuff. Hoping that we can get three baptisms this transfer. we got M set for this weekend, pray that she can quit smoking by wednesday.

Oh and news about sending packages, send them by the government postal serivices, nothing private like fed-ex or similar.

I miss you guys a ton! 

10/28/2015

Next week i should be at a cyber that doesnt take forever to download fotos so look foward to recieving a bunch. Investigators are doing good, fasting and praying alot for M, Hopefully she will be able to get baptized this weekend. dang cigarrillos! We have a conference tomorrow with president looking foward to that alot also an activity this weekend in the church. That sounds really good!! Miss lots of food, not much variety here when it comes to food. 

Learn over the past week or i noticed, that when you have or strive to have (do your best) the spirt changes really happen and bendiciones come with out us really noticing.   

September 2015

9/14/2015

we had a batismal servivico this saturday for girl of 9 years. We also had ward conference this sunday and we also had a lot about keeping the sabadath day holy and how to better our selfs with the commandments of god. little a little and personally assessing. Been super busy and lots work! but i love it. Teaching alot of investagordes. will have to tell me how the german is because i might want to learn a little when i get back. I hope the unpacking goes well!

Con amor,

Elder Mendenhall

9/28/2015

Im doing great woeking hard to get people married and also working hard preaching the gospel. Yeah transfers are on the 3rd of Oct. No didnt feel the earthquake. No dont think its from the water and if it is im use to the water now. There was a lunar eclipse last night which was cool to see here.

Thank you for all your prayers. I hope noah likes it.(hockey)

And thats good, kinda want to learn german when i get back! isnt that the truth about packing and unpacking, but you have a little less to unpack with my stuff.

It the big issue here, very few people are legally married. No i will be staying in the same area. The best part was going to the temple gardens with one of our investigadores and after eating a candle light dinner with them because the power went out. The dinner was delicious and she is very close to being baptized.

no i will have a differnt comp.

i dont know why the power went out, but the power likes to go out in our pension easily, can barely have anything plugged in and if you plug one to much then it goes out.  they have 2 differnt plugs and our pension has both which is annoying sometime cuz you have to use that plug for one thing. but we have to use adaoter for american things

August 2015

Monday August 3, 2015
I can recieve packages here as long as they are sent to the mission president home. Been a busy and long week of contacting, teaching, reactivatihng, and planning. Big problem in argetina is people getting legally married because the cost and paper work, working on this issue with three couple/family investagators. So our baptizm dates are set pretty far like a month or so if they get the things done ASAP. Did alot of service this week too, cleaned out this room that had all the constructuion materials in it from when being completed, looks great now. also for a couple who just moved we helped them move and also cleaned up and cut their lawn an other day. looks really great as well. Not to much to new or excting this week but if you have any questions or anything just let me know



Monday August 10, 2015
I dont think the size matters. Should send some peanut butter and syrup Also you should me a picture album of the fam and stuff. And the weather has been kinda chilly some days and other days it remains me of a AK summer. Yestarday it rained for the first, not fun when it rains here because they really dont have storm drainage, plus the dirt streets either flood or get extremely muddy. Oh dang, but hey bats keep away the bugs so you all should make a bat house outside and also to keep the bats out of the house haha. Language is coming along great; understanding like 80%, still alittle diffucult to contstuct sentences. Yeah the peoeple are pretty receptive to the gospel.

They Have a icecream place here called Grido and it is delcious and pretty cheap 70 pesos for a kilo. Some things are really expensive, but yet again we dont get to much money either, food is pretty cheap here. We get about 1700 pesos, equivalnet to like 190 dollars, every month. The area im in is Arguello in Cordoba and its about 20-30 minutes away from central. Our area is has 4 elders and we split the area in half. There is 2 wards in our church building which is the stake center. so the mission presdinet and his assitneces attend the other ward. On a good day we have about 130 but yestarday was 93 ;(  Yes i can see the mountains, they are kind of in the distance though 

Cordoba Temple

Monday August 17, 2015

Been a crazy and awesome week. In the beging of the week we had Zone P-Day and we played all kinds of fun games and watched libro de vida. We are allowed to watch animated movies on P-days here, like disney, dreamworks, etc. At the end of the P-day we did a zone companionship exchange for a day, I got Elder Souza who is from Brazil. He speaks zero english, but it was a really awesome 2 days with him and speking total espanol. Me and my Comp gave several blessing of healing this week, a little difficult with the language but everything takes practice. We had a batptizm this past Saturday for C, Which was great! At at Cyber where the computers doent have a spot for my sd or usb port so i apoligize for no pictures this week. I love the smell of the panaderias (bakeries) here when you walk past them or go inside to get some delcious bread or facturas. Also i love the kioskos here, which is just a window of some ones house, and the have literally a little store inside of food, cleaning stuff, etc. knock on the glass or clap and the you tell them what you want. We have right across the street from the street from us and another two houses down the street that also has spot to buy fruit, veggies, and eggs.

Ether 12 and Moroni 7 are amazing chapters that i read this week in my personal studies.

Foto de la conferencias de zonas

Monday August 24, 2015

Everything has been great, cant believe i finished my first transfer. I did my first spanish session in the Cordoba temple last thursday! Was great and a little difficult but it was very spirtual, the cordoba temple is so gorgeous. Working with lots of inactive members and and some awesome investigadores. We found the this amazing family last friday and we taught the first lesson last night! Got really sick last monday night throwing up all night and direaha, and both at the same time once. So just rested all last tuesday. All good and healthy now! Me and my comp have been giving a lot of blessings and doing alot a service latlely. Also last sunday the bishop ask me to set someone apart, lots of preisthood opurtunities, a little difficult with the spanish but its great practice and i get better each time. Miss you all!

 

Baptism

Cordoba Temple

Homeslice the Pizza Man

Monday August 31, 2015

Getting super hot here! No didnt transfer or get a new comp nothing actuaually changed in our zone, only a mini missionary went back and we got a one elder in place of the mini. How was thier first day of school? We had a church confernece(transmisión) for the the countries of Argentina, Uruguay and paraguaya. Elder cook and Hales spoke, it was a really good conference! we had three of our investigadores come as well! We downtown today very cool sightseeing places and lots of cool shops! 

 

Week 8 Argentina

Monday July 27, 2015 

In Argentina after much travel. From the MTC 22 missionaries headed to argentina got on a bus that took us to the train station, the train took us to the airport. We flew from salt lake to Atlanta Georgia then we got on a 11 hour flight to Buenos Aires Argentina. I slept practically the whole flight. we then went through customs and took vans to another airport to go to assigned areas, we said goodbye to all the missionaries we traveled with. We did some teaching during our travels which was great. We met this one girl named olivia in argentina who spoke english and was going to cordoba to do community service projects for a month. We met some native south americans that were going to our same mission. I love my mission president and his wife! my companion is Elder price who is  from utah, he has been a great trainer. He just hit his one year mark. There four Elders living in our pension, Elder Clayburn, Elder Hanson, my companion, y myself.  Its definitely a different way of living here. Houses are made out of practically all concrete. Pretty simple living and small basic kitchen in our pension. A room with 2 bunk beds and me and my companion's table and makeshift bookshelf made out of cinder blocks and a stand up long bookshelf on its side. Then we have the closet which has four closet shelf things, that rooms light doesn't work and its cold in there every morning. We then having the living room which has elder hanson and elder clayborns table and bookshelf. there is also another bookshelf with all our passalong cards and BOM, pamphlets and stuff of that nature. We have a washing a small washing machine in our pension which is nice to have and then we just air dry. You rarely use toilet paper here and if you do you throw it away, usually use a bidet. we have a bidet ( sit on it and you turn the nobs to mess with the pressure to spray your bum) took a while to get use to but i actually like it! Everything is or gets covered in dust and dirt because there are a lot of dirt roads besides the main roads. There are some poor areas and houses, alright, and well off, and the really rich places. interesting to see the combination on just a single street. lots of walking in general especially on dirt roads. Lots of dogs and some trash on the side of the roads. I love the members and people of Argentina so much. There isn't much variety of food here but its really good! Had el asado the other day for lunch which was so delicious and i should've brought my camera. el asado is a huge barbeque of grilled cow meat  all they do is put salt on it but the meat is so juicy  and good! Eat lots of noodles with sauce and with meat. We normal eat lunch with members and lunches are HUGE! dinner is really late here at like 9ish. I love the empanadas here. we actually made home made ones for lunch the other day when we didnt have a lunch cita, and they turned out great! there are two rules to the road.  Stop when there is a red light and dont hit a pedestrian.  That´s it. Mostly everyones houses are gated, you clap loudly outside of the house. The pizza is pretty crappy ( bread with tomato sauce ham, if you have the money for ham, Mozzarella and green olives). facturas (wich is a cresant will sugar or dulce de leche on it. sometimes a fruit jam called  membrilla. and other kinds with different toppings) these things are the bomb. I love the bakeries here, super good bread. mate is a herbal custom drink its like hot tea. There is different ways to drink it but i prefer it with a little sugar cuz just straight is really strong and bitter. Two favorite candies here and bon o bons and alfajors soooo good! Really good drink here pritty. argentina lacks in sanitation and living standards but i've become really use to the way of living already and it doesn't bother that much anymore. Been doing alot of work; reactivation and working with investagadors. We baptized G and elderly women last week, she was baptized by here son. We cleaned the pensioin today, looks so good!

Love Elder Mendenhall

Week 7 Argentina

Monday July 20, 2015
hola not a lot of time to talk today because had computer problems and had alot of emails to read. learned that i need to prepare a basic outline of what to say before pday haha. Well Argentina is so awesome  and different. was in a culture shock the first three days and couldnt understand anything. i can understand what people are saying noe however the language is tough to speak. My companion is elder price from Utah, he is close to a year into his mission and is a awesome trainer. Love the members and people in our district. Lots of delicious food here and definitely have been humbled and seen a different way of life and how some people live. 

ALARM CLOCKS

PDAY Hanging out my laundry to dry

Our apartment

Week 6 Off to Argentina

This is Sara, Andrews mom...this week was a crazy one all the way around as Andrew headed off to Argentina the rest of our family moved to Germany the same week!

Monday July 13, 2015
We got this picture from a passenger who was on the train.  The missionaries were traveling by train from the Provo MTC to the Salt Lake City Airport.  I got to talk to Andrew twice on Monday once from the Salt Lake City Airport and then he called from the Atlanta airport-it was great to hear his voice!  

The letter below and picture in front of the new Cordoba Argentina temple was sent to us by the mission president and we used google translate to read it :)

Friday July 17, 2015 Queridos padres:

                        Nos complace comunicarles que su hijo(a) ha
llegado a la Misión Argentina Córdoba perfectamente bien. Los recogimos en
el aeropuerto y vinimos directamente a la casa de la misión donde tuvimos
una reunión de bienvenida y una cena con comida típica de esta región.
Pasaron la noche en un hotel muy agradable que está a pocos metros de
nuestra casa y al día siguiente su compañero(a) le pasaron a buscar para ir
a su área.

Estamos extremadamente agradecidos por recibir hoy a un espíritu noble y
consagrado al Señor como el de su hijo(a). Muchas gracias por todo lo que
han hecho para su preparación. Cuidaremos de él como de nuestros propios
hijos.

Con amor,

              Pte. y Hna. Alliaud

MTC Week 5

Tuesday July 7th

Last week at the CCM. Have 20 horas of travel going to be loco y muy largo trip. The idioma is coming along very well. It was sad having to say adiós a un distrito en nuestro zona Hoy. Ahora my distrito es the top dogs y me and mi companion son líderes de la zona. We get a nuevo districto on miércoles of 9 nuevo elders. Feel bad for the 2 hermanas in a zona with 19 Elders. 

Por cuatro de julio nosotros had a devotional primarily to keep us from hearing Journey playing at stadium of fire located at the BYU football stadium. The devotional was good and after we got to watch some of the fireworks from stadium of fire after the journey  concert. Trees and buildings were in the way because we were in the parking lot, but still got to see some cool fireworks.  Oh my gosh mi Inglés sentence estructura is getting mal... Lo siento. Thought I would have some fun using espanol in my email. English spelling is getting hard for me now hahah. It's amazing how much I've learned with Spanish and the gospel because of the Lord and being in the MTC. feel very blessed! Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts. Love you!

You'll have to show me the picture. And yes I was in the back row second from the end. 

We are off to the temple today to help clean it! We also get to watch Elders Packers funeral this Friday.

Elder Mendenhall