Nerds Do Cool Things?

Answers to questions: 

1. No I haven`t cooked much here, a lot of the stuff is expensive like vanilla flavoring, and other things. We`re making snickerdoodles today though because one of the dying Elders in mi distrito wanted some. 

2. Besides the breakfast oatmeal, I don`t eat much. We have a very helpful ward that feeds us good meals on every day except for monday (p-day) and tuesday when we have district meetings. From them it`s usually un salada, which is rice and veggies with mayonasa, y jamon. I don`t usually eat a dinner because I putting weight just from those two. We excercise each day, but only within our apartments so it`s not much. I`m 72 kilos right now. Don`t think I`ll let myself get any bigger than that because I just don`t like the feeling, I feel physically limited, but there is no way to have energy and to not eat as much as they serve you. The awesome thing is we get U$250 ($15-ish US) reembursable of fruit and veggies each month because it will keep us healthy, so you better believe I take advantage of that and grab fresh fruit at the bigger markets once a week.

3. Package not here yet, it supposedly takes a couple of weeks, but I don`t know because we only get mail at district mettings on tuesday. 

4. Yeah, I was pretty shocked to hear that Steve Jobs died, especially considering that he asked to remain active on the board when he resigned. He truly was a vissionary, and I really hope that Apple can carry out his visions without him. Still a dream to work for them at some point in my life.

In other news, it seems I have the luck of getting to see stuff that som missionaries never see. We decided to pass by la Familia Cuña on saturday and their abuello was there along with two of her sons, so we knew something was going on. We wanted to just have a quick lesson when I heard a pig squealing and later it`s dead body being drug out of the barn. Ha. So I asked them and they said they sold two, and they were going to cook the rest. So we watched them catch and kill the next 4 in the barn and then watch them remove the hair in the hot water (they do it with their hand), and then gut it. It was pretty interesting haha. They wanted to kill some chickens too so they killed two. Their 7-8 year old kids killed one and ripped off the head, so it was running around with no head…. then the dog got a hold of the head and enjoyed it haha. So que suerte. 

This last week has been pretty busy, but suprisingly not in the way that we wanted it. A lot of our appointments fell through so we would go finding and find less active members, which is pretty sweet. We`ve been working really hard with the less actives because there are probably 200 people on our records if not more. We met an hermana yesterday with 8 kids who were baptized and one that wasn`t, but wasn`t active for 7 or so years. So we`ll work on that. I`ve really like having the opportunity to sing the hymns a lot as well. We sing probably 6-ish times a day, and probably more. Our bishop yesterday dropped cane yesterday saying that he likes to hear the hymns and he usually hears very people worshipping the Lord in song. So he told them that if they weren`t comfortable singing, the missionaries could come by and teach them. Haha. I`m accepting that challenge. I have a small hymn book I got in the CCM that will serve me well. 

We`ve been doing a lot of service lately as well to make the members feel comfortable helping us. I`ve cut lawns with un asada, painted walls, and washed dishes. Everyone here builds their houses themselves and I really want to help one at some point. It`s making me want to build my own home too, just for the fun of it. Yep. That`s all the ridiculousness going on in Uruguay, I hope everything is well in SB and I will try to send more letters. 

Till then,

-Elder Chamberlain

So I have lot`s to share. One of the first things is my new funny stories. First, (I guess this isn`t a story) but I have started collecting alfajores. An alfajore is a candy with two chocolate crackers and dulce de leche (caramel mas o menos) in the middle (and some times other creme like peanut butter, or the bon bon creme). But they regard them as much more here and there are more than 130 (that`s the highest any missionary has ever got). I keep the wrappers and am hoping to get a bunch by the end haha. I have 16 as of today because I found some really cheap but rare-er Argentinian ones. Second, is a story that happened while we were out tracting about three days ago. We knocked this ones guys house, he didn`t answer but I knew he was there because I saw him walk back and forth twice across his open door. His dogs wanted us to play fetch them for a bit, so I did while I patiently waited for him to come out. He didn`t however so we went to the next house. As we knocked a woman coming back from her job as a teacher pulled up so we talked to her and set up a day that she would be home. While Elder Shaw was talking to here I saw the man from the other house get up on his fence, unfurl a communist flag, shake it three times, make the “I`m watching you” sign (by pulling down the bottom eyelid with your finger), and then shake it 6 more times to ensure I understood. I just laughed, waved, and then focused back on the woman. It was pretty funny. The crazy people we meet. 

Second off, a piece of advice I want you to pass on to every youth who is even remotely considering a mission. I found out that some of the missions of the church require that you have you`re seminary diploma`s. Why? Because in order to get the travel VISA more easily, some countries want you to have proof that you are truly a trained and educated minister. Thus, having a seminary diploma says “yes, this Elder studied for four years the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. I`m pretty sure this is true because Presidente George said something about it, I`ve just forgot to mention it until now. So it would be wise to get the diploma because it will give them the opportunity to go to so many more diverse places. 

Second, I`m excited to let you know that one of the investigators we are currently teaching is getting married. His name is Sebastian and he was dating a less-active member of the church. In order to get baptized he needed to get married and we continued to emphasize this in our lessons, even asking him to pray about it. So today, they went down to the court to take out a date. Here, weddings aren`t a big deal, you just go and sign a paper at the court with witnesses that you want to get married. So I`m excited and hope that I`m around when he get`s baptized. Sadly however, we still have two other investigators that also need to get married and they are going to be more difficult. They just keep saying things like, I don`t want to get married because then it brings up the possibility of divorce, as if it isn`t possible they could split without being married. No se. All I can is to continue to teach and hope they make up their mind, realizing that this is the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ, that it can bless them not only in this life but in the eternities. 

Also, Elder Shaw and I should be moving houses soon. We have the contract signed and the key, but we`re waiting for a better time. Mostly it is just Elder Opie who lives with us in the same appartment right now. He is dieing this change (leaving) so he wants to make sure it is a fun last change and his companion has been sick a lot lately, so we keep him company a lot.

I can`t remember what else I planned on writing before, I left my planner at the casa because we went to the Salto Exhibition today as a district for p-day. I suppose I`ll just reconfirm that I`m in an awesome ward. Obelisco is a really good ward, of the 70-ish is fairly active members we do have, they all have strong testimonies. During this Sunday this was quite obvious and nearly 40 or so of them got up and bore their testimony, one right after another. There is however, a lot of old people that can`t make it to church or simply inactive members. Elder Shaw and I are working on it though, we find one or two inactive families each day that weren`t recorded in the Area Book. 

I`d just like to share my testimony of the divinity of this Gospel. As Christ taught in Matthew to the pharises and scribes that sat by, there is no way that he could cast out Devils in the name of the Devil, because then the kingdom would be divided against itself. In the same way, this Church brings forth many great and marvelous works that testify of this Gospel. This restored gospel could have come from none other than God himself because otherwise, like unto the story, the kingdom is divided against itself. It is either right or wrong, and there are millions of members that will all testify of the same thing, that this is the true and everlasting Gospel. There is no doubt who will win in the end and people simply need to decide where they want to lay up thir treasures, on the earth, or in heaven (3 Nephi 13). Decide now what this Gospel is, what side you are on, find out by reading The Book of Mormon and following it`s invitation at the end of the Introduction (or Moroni 10) to pray about it`s truthfullness. I know that doing this will bring the spirit so fully as a witness that it is true, that this gospel was restored by the hands of Joseph Smith and that Christ`s kingdom is now once again upon the Earth. I bear testimony of these things, as I bear to everyone I teach, that this is the only true and complete gospel on this earth, that it has eternal consequences for choosing to follow it. Yeah, even the recieving of Eternal Life, the greatest gift afforded to all the children of men. 

Thanks for everything, 

-Elder Chamberlain. 

P.S. I remembered I wanted to share real fast how much it has been raining. Ridiculousness! I keep letting my shoes dry, and as soon as both are dry, another pair gets wet, so I`m stuck with one all the time. It`s been great. I`m thankful for that jacket the Stewart`s gave me. Pass that along.Gracias.

Nice to hear from you. It takes a week to get back home and about two weeks to get here, so yep. I don´t know if american stamps will work once I leave the CCM, but I plan on using them up fast because there is absolutely no time to email people. 

Before I saw anything else, I must give thanks for a couple things, send my thanks to those whom they belong haha:

1. Vie (correct that) for her sewing kit everyone loves it because they just brought a needle and a spool of thread. It´s already fixed one of my ties, another tie, 2 pairs of other elders pants and a backpack. Pretty much everyone comes to me by now because they know that I have the legit tools. I only wish it had thicker thread in some cases, For the backpack I had to go over the strap several times for the sister. I´ll grab some at a shop here though, don´t worry.

2. To you for saving money. Over the course of the time here people have brought up how much they spent on clothes and by far we saved a lot. Most said they spent about $1,800-$2,200 for everything. So I´m really thankful that I can enjoy your wisdom in picking that father´s day sale haha. 

I´m sure there are others, but I have many other things to say so I´ll just have to jot them down at some other time. 

So the big news of this week is that I broke my nose playing basketball, but that everything is fine. My new companion Elder Nuffer got a really low pass off the ground and I was leaning over to try and get it as well. When he stood up his head hit straight into my nose and it immediately began bleeding. I got it all over my bike shirt, the court (the court is still stained) and my placa. I managed to use my mother skills and get the blood out of everything using cold water. No biggy. I didn´t think it was bad till after I bent over a few hours later and it started going again. On wednesday I eneded up going to the capital with one of my companions and the church doctor there had a feel. He said it was definately broken but that it wasn´t misplaced so I don´t need to have it rebroken or anything. It was funny because that night Hermano Gomez Paz (the CCM manager) was taking over for Presidente because they get their semi-annual vacation. We talked in the night with him on Monday and he offered us to have a midnight snack with him. We went and had a slice of the best cake I have ever had. It was a three layer chocolate cake with dulce de leche filling. Then on the top some real nice dark chocolate. We randomly played ping pong after hours with him and went to bed. I have pictures by the way of the hilariousness, but I´ll wait to send it since I don´t have much time. 

The related news is that yesterday night Hermano Gomez Paz led a raid of the kitchen from 10-10:10 PM. He made a bet with an Elder that they could raid the kitchen if he won at ping pong, so everyone was down there haha. We ate their equivalent of klondikes and alfahores. Note however: I have been very fervent about recognizing that because I have been blessed I have even better reason to serve with all my heart. Don´t worry about that. 

I’ve come to recognize the power of prayer because here in the CCM we litterally pray 12-15 times a day. (Wake up, breakfast, personal study begin, personal study end, comp study begin, comp study end, lunch, class begin, class end, lesson begin, lesson end, dinner, class begin, class end, family payer, and then personal prayer. Plus any that I have in my heart in between.) The power that comes through prayer and also alongside scripture study is unparralled. As you pray you will recieve many blessings.

Last thing on my list of things to talk about is this last prosiltismo on saturday. I was really excited for it because we actually met everyone of our goals that we set and actually have return appointments. Before that, each week was like starting off from day one. I´m really looking to the field where I get to teach actuall lessons and not just contact people all day. The couple citas that we do have are really interesting. One has to go down as the funniest Book of Mormon placement ever. She was up in her balcony and it had just begun to rain on us. She looked down on us and said something like “Hello there, are you selling something” We told her no, but we talk to people and tell them about our church. We talked for just a bit before she said “So do you have a book for me?” “Yeah, in fact we do.” “Ok, hold on a second, I´ll get my bag.” She came back out with a basket tied to a piece of flower fabric and tossed it over to us. My companion was like “listo!”. We placed it in and she drew it back up. We we´re about to challenge her to read it when she said “great, I´ll read it.” We laughed and said great, then she said “I suppose you want to come by next week.” “Yes, can we?” “Sure, at the same time.” It was funny. We didn´t really have to try at all, and for some reason I truly feel that she´ll have read it haha. 

That is all for now I guess. Have a good week you guys. 

-Elder Chamberlain

Thanks for sending me tons of emails. My p day is today, thursday. We don´t have a regular time that we email and we only have thirty minutes, so i´ll try my best to respond to everyone but who knows. Most of the other elders already wrote there emails and are just typing it, but I didn´t have time to do that, so I´m just going off the top of my cranium here. 

IIt´s been great in el CCM (Centro Capatacion Misional). It´s a really busy schedule that is meant for only those that can handle it. The weather truly is around 50 tops, but it´s not bad at all, just a little on the cold side.The most interesting thing about the new program that were going through is that we actually aren´t directly learning spanish in our classrooms. Instead, we are to dillegently study the gospel and then as we feel inspired, find out how to say certain phrases or words that will help us teach those principles of the gospel to people. 

Total side note: I´m typing on a spanish keyboard and the language is set to spanish as well, so every words I type is listed as spelled incorrectly, thus forgive me for mispellings, I won´t know if I did or not. 

The  rooms arrangements are interesting to say the least. There are 3 bunks in a small room. As of right now, there are only two companionships in the room. Elder Sanchez (Peru), Elder Caruzco (Brazil), Elder Smith (Cali/Utah), and I. Elder Sanchez speaks pretty good english, so we help each other work each others languages. As for Elder Caruzco, he speaks portugese and it´s pretty hard to understand him. Just yesterday he asked in his language “what do we do now” and I understood everything except for the verb “hacer” which he was pronouncing like “fazir”. I guess I´ll try to get that down.

The spanish is going well, I´ve been praying in spanish since day two bassically and I know quite a bit more in just a bit of time. It´s great to see how the holy ghost blesses missionaries with the gift of tongues when there is a message to communicate. My only small compaint is that because of the program´s orientation,  the teachers sometimes won´t answer my questions and it really slowed my progression once I hit the “wall” of what they wanted me to know. For instance, I took note that I wanted to say something like “thou hast given us” in my prayers, and they wouldn´t answer me, so I just took the verb and tossed the preterite ending on it. I have no clue if it´s right or not… 

The food is good, pretty traditional. My favorite thing is honestly the juice, it´s a million times bhetter than any opf the juice back in the US. I have at least two small cups at each meal. 

I won´t be able to send pictures until the third sunday because we aren´t allowed to take pictures until that day. So I´ll see. That mildly upset me because there were some great opportunities to take photos of the temple in the morning. The Buenos Aires temple is litterally outside the window and across the street. from us. After one of the classes in the afternoon we even got to see them put the new angel Moroni on it. I´m hping I get to go in on my way back, because it doesn´t reopen until July of next year.

That´s really funny that you mentioned Toby. I almost forgot about him. Thqat´ll be funny to see him again, he probably misses my pettings the most.  

Send my best wishes to Amanda because I won´t have time to email her in my thirty minutes, maybe next week. 

It would be awesome if you could send me a list of adresses in case I want to write letters to people. Those go out and come in on Mondays and supposedly take upwards of three weeks. If you can find a way to grab them I would appreciate Senda´s and Elaine´s address included on the list. I will type faster I guess next time to get in the main post to everyone and the email to you guys. 

As for my scripture reading it´s going great. I started off attempting to read the Doctrine and covenants, but it quickly became evident I needed to study my scriptures for the lessons. We teach 2 mock lessons a day, so learning the scriptures for the lesson is extremely important. 

The lessons are good, they weer in english up to yesterday. It was quite funny. Elder Smith doesn´t speak Spanish at all and we got paired up with a companionsip early to practice the first lesson. I spoke most of the time, just reading scriptures, saying two or three simple sentences about the mesage, then bearing my testimony. 

Love you,

Aaron

The food is traditional as in lots of meat. I swear I´m living D&C 89:10-11 when I get home (I think the verses are right). With only an hour to exercise each day, it´s not enough to make up for the huge amounts of meat they eat. For breakfast we get cereal and bread, which I usually eat with dulce de leche (a caramel spread). As for the juice, it changes every day. It´s bassically a machine with two different flavors for each day. They have orange juice, pineapple (jugo de pina), and a couple others. No lie the best juice I´ve ever had. 

Ha, yes I found the iron, theres one in every room. The cord for the iron is really short though, it can get pretty annoying. I´ll be in the MTC (CCM) for 9 weeks. Presidente George gave me the option of moving up to the next group in my interview after speaking spanish with him, but I decided it would be best to learn as much of the gospel in spanish as I could, as well as to be able to help those that are just barely picking up on Spanish. 

That would be awesome if I do end up getting a bike, I would be very excited to ride again. I´m missing it already because during my actividad fisica I´ve just been running and it´s starting to bore me on the tiny field that they have out in front. The other sports like volleyball weren´t that much exercise so I stopped playing them. 

Now onto the present. I adressed this in my letter as well, so you´ll here it twice. In the Argentina CCM we have the unique expereince of going out on saturdays on prosiletismo (prosolyting). We are litterqally the only MTC that does that. It was a great expereince but difficult for me. I did farely well at speaking the language, but it was much more difficult when thinking about my companion and figuring out ways to give the conversation over to him. Since he doesn´t speak spanish I really have to think and know if he has the ability to speak the things which he needs or wants to say. We get one small area for three weeks before rating onto another. The area we got is in the middle of the city of Hurlingham, and was mostly houses. We only ran into 6 or so people on the streets and several of them just didn´t want to talk to us. So the rest of the day we ended up clapping doors (that is, instead of knocking on a door people have fences around the house with a dog protecting it, so you clap three times and they asnwer). 

While doing that we had an amazing situation. We weren´t having much luck around lunch time, so we decided to pray on a street corner and see follow the spirit. We ended up going down a street we didn´t plan on going down that week. We clapped a door and someone came out, didn´t seem to understand us, and wen´t back in. I thought they were just going to leave but another woman came out. Amazingly she spoke english. She was their 25-ish year old daughter that was visiting for only a week. As we spoke to her we found out that she knew a freind that is serving his mission from Mexico. He had challenged her to attend a sunday meeting and she hadn´t done so yet. We gave her the adress and of the building and the time. In addition to that we read with her the introduction to Book of Mormon, and invited her to pary of it´s truthfullness after reading 2 Nephi 31. I know that she was prepared by the Lord to hear our message. We set up a return appointment, so hopefully we will get to teach the first lesson in Spanish to her.

Hope everything is well.

-Elder Chamberlain

Second off, as of tuesday Hermana Shaw, Elder Davis, and I (all in my distrito) started something that had been suggested earlier but we didn`t get around to. I plan on memorizing a scripture a day for the rest of my mission. Supposedly (I wish I could go on LDS.org to look these things up) President Hunter said that if you do so by the end of your mission you will have photographic memory. For me, I`m just more interested in being a knoledgable missionary. I`m getting really in depth with my scripture study this time. I have some amazing amount of research that I put into the topic of prophesy in the scriptures this time around and I also began to study the miracles of Jesus and annotate those as I made my way through 3 Nephi. I think I`ll probably the BOM done this saturday. One of the coolest miracles to look at is how he heals the blind. Of all the miracles he performed, this has the coolest symbolism to it, in that a testimony or knowledge of him can litterally allow someone to spiritually see. I`ll make sure to compund all my studying in a letter for you to study haha. 

 On this last prosilitismo, it was going well, but we didn`t really have anything truly amazing except that because we were being friendlier with people they kept telling us, “oh, you should go visit my mom and tell her I said “hi” .”and give us their adress. It was good to finally get referrences. At the last minute, we were knocking doors on the way back to the bus stop and I got to have one of my first “go there” moments. Not in that it was a voice of the spirit, but more of a truly quiet thought in my mind. We crossed the street (which techically wasn`t in our area anymore, but there wasn`t any missionaries there that week anyways….). We rang the top-most bell and someone came out. Her name was Marinela and she was one of the coolest people we have met so far. As we have learned to do, we talk to them as friends first before saying a word about the gospel. She had a two year old daughter that had chocolate all over her face and was the cutest thing ever. She taught spanish to little kids for work and spoke a little. Once we talked about the gospel she just brightened up and had so many great questions. We taught her briefly, and then asked her to read the BOM. I`m pretty sure she will because of how we taught that it had importance in her life. We have a new area next week, but we filled out the reference sheet and I hope that the missionaries that are actually serving here get to talk to her, she`ll be gold. 

Thanks for everything, 

-Elder Chamberlain

I haven´t been having withdrawls from the computer or anything,l I´ve just been most ancy about Apple rumors because I usually follow it like the plague. So it´s good that you let me in on that. Who is going to replace him? Steve Wazniak or George Romero? If you don´t know, go to mac rumors, I absolutely need to know. hahah.

 It´s great to hear that you´re keeping up with your goals and that you´ve followed through, enduring to the end is what it´s all about ha. 

And as for pictures, nope. You´re only supposed to take them on the third sunday during transfers for an hour. Somehow though, I was in a meeting so I only got a few pictures with other people on their cameras. Entonces, yo no se. The other elders are too busy typing their emails top send me the ones we got from airport as well, so I guess it´ll wait. I´ll find a picture for the wall soon enough I suppose, next rotation. 

And no, President George is not from Vegas. I was talking to his wife during a meal and she said he worked for CES (Church Educational Service) soooo. 

As for new things, today was interesting. Side note, just heard from another elder typing next to me that the VA earthquake was so strong it broke off two of the spires on the DC temple. Since we have a trio in our district the president wanted to rotate them around so they can experience a normal companionship, so Elder Smith and I got added to with Elder Nuffer. It´ll be interesting to see how that one works out. 

I´m progressing pretty fast in my spanish since it´s mostly just remembering all the things I was taught before in IB but didn´t care for at the time. I forced my companion to start giving the lessons with me in only spanish as of lsat thursday, so we´ve been going since then. I usually do most of the explination, but he has some good times where he´ll bear simple testimony during lessons. 

In addition to that, on our last last prosilitismo, we got switched areas a week early. We were planning on visiting with the two women I talked about last week and had prepared lessons specifically for them, but an hour before we left, everyone switched areas to a new city. It was good being able to just follow the spirit, but was interesting. There weren´t that many people in the streets to contact so we ended up clapping a lot of houses and praying at every street to find people to teach. The coolest guy we ran into was a man named Fernando who was helping his sobrinos (nephews) to fix a bike. So we talked to him for a bit and he talked about how he thought it was important to share the gospel with young kids because they needed it for their salvation. We left him with a Book of Mormon and 3 Nephi 11, so we´re hoping we get to teach him this week. It was kinda funny too because apparently that area is really sketchy and dangerous and everyone was scared because of it, but I just kept talking to people. It was no worse than SB, soooo, don´t know what that says. 

As for what I´m studying, next week I´ll probably have something interesting to share. I decided that as I go through the BOM each time I´ll pick something new that I want to research more into. I just finished the D&C last week, so I thought it would be cool to see how the Book of Mormon testifies of different things through prophesy. So i´ve been jotting down charts of how each scripture testifies of another. It´s a good way to go about it, because honestly this way I´m even understanding what the book of Revalation means (like 5:5). I started the BOM on Monday and I´m in 2 Nephi 27 right now. Somehow I´ve been blessed to study fast and thoroughly. Even during free time I´m finding something new and amazing to talk about. I think I´m going to attempt to finish all but the Bible before I leave the CCM. Seems fairly easy. 

Our scedule is mostly just a lot of studying. Wake up at 6;30, shower and dress before breakfast at 7, then personal study at 8, comp. study at 9, then either learning spanish, or a new way of teaching, and we teach “progressive investigators” usually twice a day. It´s like a role playing of an investigator but I would say it´s pretty realistic because we have orient our lessons to their person. 

Well, say hi to everyone for me, I didn´t get time to write anyone else yet again.

Love and hard-work from the CCM. 

-Elder Chamberlain