Friday, February 7, 2014

AIR CONDITIONING (February 3)

Hello all,

Well this past week was great! We had a great time here in Juncal 3 and are doing very well. If you can not tell by the subject of the email I am now able to enjoy one of the best inventions in the history of mankind, air conditioning. My apartment here is one of like 2 or 3 in the entire mission that has air conditioning. Haha it is absolutely amazing. It is extremely small and we have 4 elders in there but seriously the A/C is worth squeezing 4 more in there if we had to. The other night I woke up and was soooo confused at the weird feeling I had, I couldn´t figure out what it was as every other time I have woken up here I have been sweating and dying of heat. After a couple a seconds of pure confusion I realized I was actually cold.... COLD! Haha I honestly could not believe that I actually had to put a blanket on! Needless to say I have been sleeping great lately haha.
 
Well other than the air conditioning there was also other great things that happened this week. We had our first zone meeting this week of the Belgrano zone. They announced that this next Monday, the 10th, the entire mission will be going to the Buenos Aires temple! I am so extremely excited! I have literally been dreaming of a chance to go to the temple since I got here. Our mission is having great success right now and the President Ayre thought that it would be great to get everyone together at the temple as a reward and motivation to keep up the great work. The entire mission is buzzing with excitement now haha. I am not sure how Pday will work that day as we will be at the temple for most of the day, but I am sure that I will have some time to write at some point in that day or the next. 
 
Other than that we had the great opportunity to have President Ayre and his Dad come out and work with us for a night a few days ago! We have 4 Elders and 2 sisters in our ward so the Sisters had them for the first part of the day and then us and the other Elders that we live with had them for the rest of the day. It was a great experience and actually really funny. Pres. Ayre´s dad served two missions in Germany and so what little Spanish he knew was mixed with English and German, so I had to translate for him as those are the three languages that I know as well haha. The President also had an interesting experience haha. While on visits with us he got bit by a dog and stepped back to kick it and fell into a hole full of black, slimy water that smelled so bad hahaha. We felt so bad and helped clean him up so bad but we were all laughing too hard, including him! The visits went great that night though and I absolutely love working with the Pres. He is such a great guy. I can tell where he gets his success from though as his dad was an international lawyer and traveled all over the world. He was also the personal lawyer for Elder Dallin H. Oaks. Needless to say he has more than enough money to go around haha.
 
My first Sunday with my ward was great as well. Half my area here is really really rich and the other half is very poor. There are a few members here in the ward who are from the U.S and working with companies here in Buenos Aires. One of them is an accountant for one of the "Big 4" companies in the world. Another guy is from Holland and speaks 5 languages, but his English is better than his Spanish so we talk in English. His best language is German though so him and I speak in a mix of English, German, and Spanish haha. Needless to say it gets confusing talking to him! 
 
We did not have any baptisms this week but we had 8 investigators come to church so we are looking foward to a bunch coming up! The area here is great and so is my comp. We work very well together and we will be having some great success this transfer I can tell. Myself and the other Elders in our apartment are also having a great time together. We have started writing down all the funny stuff we say cause there are some really good ones! My comp is legit but also a little over direct with investigators sometimes haha. The funny thing is that he always says the truth, he just lacks the social tact sometimes haha. Like there is a grandma of one of our investigators who always always tells us that her grandson is not there, even if it is obvious he is. The other night we knocked on the door and her husband, the kids grandpa, answered and said that he wasnt there. We asked how he knew and he said that his wife told him that the kid wasn´t there. My comp frankly told him that his wife is a liar and not to trust her and like 2 minutes later the kid came out haha. I guess it worked cause we had a great lesson and he should be getting baptized this weekend!!
 
Anway I am doing really well. It has been switching between extremely hot and downpour rain here the last couple of days. It is all good though and I am loving it here. There really isn´t anything that I can ask for cause there really isn´t much that I need right now! Oh yeah we found a burger king the other day in our area and we each had a BK Stacker Quadruple with fries and drink. Needless to say our bodies were not adjusted to that kind of grease and meat and nobody slept at all that night haha. It was totally worth it though and we are already planning to go back soon haha. We also have like 3 subways in our area so we go there about every other day for "first lunch". Then we head to the members house for "second lunch" if we have it haha. We can get a 6 inch sub there for 20 pesos which is like 3 bucks or something like that. My comp from Chile is in love with subway and his mom sent him some money this month so that he can buy for both of us haha. Needless to say we are doing well together!
 
Anyway there isn´t much else going on around here. Just working our hardest in the work of the Lord. All I can really ask for is that everyone keeps up the prayers for our investigators and that we can find the Elect of the Lord who are ready to accept the Gospel and that we can help them come through the waters of baptism into the Church. The work is moving right along here in La Gran MisiĆ³n Buenos Aires Norte and the mission is seeing more more success now than ever before. We broke our mission´s baptismal goal of 120 last month by 28 baptisms! It is incredible to see the Lord hasten his work just as the scriptures as well as latter-day prophets and apostles said he would. It is such a blessing to be a part of this, the greatest generation of missionaries ever (sorry bros but Elder Holland said so a few months ago haha). I have learned so much about how personal of a relationship we can have with our Father in Heaven as well as our Savior Jesus Christ. If we truly want to know him then we need to serve him. I can testify that there is nothing more satisfying than the feeling that comes from helping bring souls, including your own, to Christ. I love this work and am so excited to go to the temple next week! I love each and every one of you and if there is anything I can say to you it is just to commit yourself to serve the Lord and never look back. As we do so we are promised more blessings than we can imagine! Once again I love you all and I hope you all have a great week!!!

Love Always,
Elder Zollinger

Transferred (January 28, 2014)

Friends and Fam,

Well if you can´t tell by the subject I indeed got transfered again! My new area is called Juncal and I am really excited to be here. I am back in the capital in the Belgrano Stake. My area is right around the train station Retiro if you want to look at a map. It is a really good area and has had quite a bit of success.

My companion is in the same group and great friends with my trainer Elder Pereira. His name is Elder Molina and he is from Chile. He speaks very little English but wants to learn so I will be helping him out with English while I learn more Spanish. Him and his old companion actually opened this area a few weeks ago and they have already had over 10 baptisms. I have been told that he is one of the highest baptizing missionaries in the mission so I am absolutely pumped to be here and work with him and learn from him. He has less than 8 months in the mission and he has been a Senior Companion for a while now.

 Unfortunately, my old area has been closed. They combined the 4 areas in my old ward into 2. I am a little sad that I was only able to spend 6 weeks there but I am way more pumped to be here.

Our apartment is tiny and has 4 Elders in it as they are searching for a new apartment for my companion and myself. Elder Pereira (my trainer) is in charge of all the apartments now though and I am his only trainee plus my comp is his best friend so I am sure he will hook us up with something good pretty quick haha.

This past week was good though. We received a referral to a very much inactive sister who we didn´t even know lived in the ward. We went to her house and she accepted us with open arms. We taught her and 2 of her sons and she accepted to come back to Church and her sons accepted an invitation to be baptized, so needless to say I made sure the new missionaries in that area know to get right on over there and keep working with them. Because my old comp is leaving to go home in 2 weeks we went to the farewell for departing missionaries this past Sunday at the mission offices. I was able to see some members from San Cristobal and talk to them as well as some friends here in the mission so it was great. My companion from the MTC, Elder Garrett, had 8 baptisms this past transfer so I am really proud of him, but now he is going to a somewhat slow area in the province while I come back to capital to one of the highest producing areas in the mission so its my turn now haha.

Other than that there really is not much else new going on around here, just getting to work in another new area with another new companion. I am certain that we are going to have great success here and I am going to learn a ton of stuff. He only has one transfer here so I think we will probably be together for 2 transfers or so.

I have heard it is really cold and dry there, which is too bad. I hope it warms up a bit and you all can get some moisture. Here it was really dry and extremely hot (46 degrees Celsius) but it cooled off this past few days a bit and today all that condensing moisture came down in a torment. Needless to say we all got a little wet but I was able to put my waterproof shoes to a good use! Like we said at West Point it doesn´t matter if you are soaked to the bone you are fine as long as your feet are dry!

Anyway I hope that all is going well there and everyone is staying warm. It sounds like the entire western U.S will be fasting for moisture this week so with some faith I am sure things will be fine. Things are good here so there is nothing to worry about on my end. I am definitely happy to be where I am now and I am going to learn a ton here. Don´t be surprised to see a picture of some people in all white along with next weeks email ;) !!!! Well anyways thanks for the love and support and I hope that you all have a great week!!!
Love,
Elder Zollinger