March 28, 2016

Hey Hey Family! Happy Easter weekend! Well it's kinda over now haha but yeah Happy Easter still! :) It sounds like you guys had a bunch of fun this past week! We had a pretty solid week this past week too! and yes I am loving the fall weather here! It has been soooo nice this past week!!! I got two big news things to tell you guys about! I will start with the less cool one of the two haha.

So we got our new pench!!! We have been trying to move into this new pench foreverrrrrrrrrr! But we finally got it all worked out and got the contract signed and everything is set in stone! We moved in this past Tuesday and it is sooo nice! It's right across the street from the church! They took our bikes away though because we live a lot closer to everything now, but I am ok with that! :) I will send you a bunch of photos of the pench today!

ok and for the second big news......................Transfers.................................... I'm staying here in Tunuyan!!! and I'm going to be TRAINING!!!!!!! AGAIN!!!!!!  I am wayyyyyy excited!!! I totally did not think I would be staying for my last two transfers! or training! But prayers get answered. :) So yeah I will be ending my mission here in Tunuyan because it takes two transfers to train someone! I am way excited though. :) Elder Peterson is going back to his first zone of San Luis! He was a great companion though!

Other than that we had a good week! We taught a super spiritual lesson this past week with this man that use to be less active, his story of how he re activated is really cool. One day we were walking down the side of the road in like the middle of nowhere looking for a reference we had and this guy pulls up and he is like "brothers!" haha and he asks us where we are going and we just tell him how we are looking for someone and he told us he could give us a ride... so we go and we are looking and looking but we cant find the person, but as we are looking we get talking to this guy about how he is less active and how he is struggling at the time... well we never end up being able to find the person we were looking for but then he turns to us and says "I think maybe it was me you guys were looking for" and ever since that day (which was about 3 weeks ago) he has came to church. So he came to this lesson with us and he bore super strong testimony and he offered them a ride to church and everything. This was a part member family and the part that were members were less active. Well the lesson was super spiritual and it ended with a lot of tears... Well we are driving home with him from the lesson and he tells us about how one of his friends the night before had challenged him to go visit a less active who needed his help. Well the thing is that he isn't from here and is really new here so he didn't know a single less active, but we just had the feeling that we should call him and invite him to come with us to this lesson that happened to be with some less actives. When he told us that he almost started to cry and thank us. The Lord has a way to do his work even when we don't know what way to go. :) He also told us that it was the best Saturday he has had in a year and a half (because that was how long ago he went inactive), and I think I would have to agree with him. :)

So yeah it was a great week! That is way sad to hear about those missionaries in Belgium. :( I actually sorta know the missionary from Santa Clara! He is friends with Ben's cousin Wade and so I had seen him once or twice in person. They are in my prayers for sure. Well I hope you guys have a great week! I am excited to work super hard these next 3 months and train this new Elder super good! I hope you guys have a great week! It always makes me happy to hear how good you are all doing! Thanks for sending the dance photos! They brought back tons of funny/awesome memories! I love you guys sooo much. :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

This is me pretending to get transfer calls already in the photo

 My comp taught me how to play chess and we like to play on our roof

Yeah I am in heaven with our new pench! haha

T-minus 3 Months

Hey Hey family! Sounds like you guys had a good week! It looks like a lot of fun with the exchange students!!! and that pizza looks dang good. But it's all good because we are making Asado today. :) oh and yeah 3 months from today is the day I leave Argentina! Mixed emotions for sure!!!!

Haha mom sorry I always say I don't have too much time to write! oh also I got my other SD card fixed so now I have all my photos back from my entire mission! super happy about that. :) That's good to hear that Kamrie made the cheer team! Totally knew she would. :) and Co-Captain that's awesome! and that's good to hear that E did good in their baseball tournament this past week!

Wow Ethan's birthday is totally in 2 days! HAPPY BIRTHDAY E DOG!!!!! haha hopefully he heard that. you should make him that ice-cream bar cake that I like a lot... on second thought just wait till I am home to make it. ;) That really is crazy that he will be 14!!!! wow he is getting big yo.

So this was a super solid week, one of the best weeks I have had here! We taught soooo many lessons! and we found a couple of sweet new people! Also one of our investigators assisted for the first time yesterday!!! I was sooo happy! It was a super solid week for her to go to church as well. there were some wayyy good talks! Javier (Lautaros dad) has now assisted 8 times in a row... man we just have to baptize him!!! Now he has to change some things first but he is way close to the waters if you know what I mean. :)

No too much new happening here other than the work is really moving forward! Barack Obama is coming to Argentina this week so that's pretty cool! I am not too sure whats going to be happening with this coming up transfer! I keep telling Elder Peterson that he is going to be my great grandson in the offices and be the next secretary so that I can stay in this area and train someone new! haha but it might not happen its a long shot. :) It would be cool to train again but my group is huge and there are a lot of people that should train in my group that never have before! but hey we will see!

Oh yeah! The Warner's came to our pench this past week! That's where the photo came from that they sent you! They are the best! They are the new pench inspectors!(it use to be the Masedas) but yeah they came and our pench was super clean (we got a 157/175, which beat the Hermanas score here in Tunuyan) and so Hermana Warner gave us some home made cookies! They were the bomb. They said our pench would be ranked as a celestial pench out of the three degrees of glory haha. :)

Welp yeah that's about it for this week! no one threw up on me this week so that's good! haha I am super happy to be here! The mission is going great! I cant believe it was three years ago that I tried out for exec... are you sure it wasn't 2??  Thanks for everything you guys do for me! Dad is in my prayers that his back will start feeling better! Have a good week! Be safe. Have fun. You know the drill. :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

  Big spider, probably shouldn't mess with it.

 Messed with it.

 My favorite place to short cut across our area but to also see the sunset.

  The district, in very weird drawing forms

 Dramatic walking away photos. Elder Peterson uses his brothers plaque and that's why it looks used, I have just been here a long time and that's why mine looks used haha!

March 14, 2016

Hey Hey Hey family!!!

How are you guys doing?? It looks like you guys had tons of fun in California!!! That new Harry Potter world stuff looks really awesome too! That's cool you guys got to take Taylee for her first time! and that is super funny that Kamrie locked her keys in her car in St. George! haha remember when I did that at Kodys house and I had Maren Butler stop by and then bring the spare key to me?? haha good times. :)

So yeah I am pretty happy because I got my SD card fixed! I took it to a cyber and the worker there fixed it for me! I didn't realize that I had taken so many photos on this SD card either! there was like 700 photos saved!

Hey so I have a funny really gross story I forgot to tell you guys about last week (if you don't want to read something gross then don't read this hahah)... So we had Zone Conference as of 2 Wednesday's ago and everything was going good there! Well there was an Elder there that wasn't feeling too good *cough cough Elder Toone. Yeah well everyone could tell that he was not feeling too good but he just stayed at the conference... well we are all eating lunch and he is talking to the mission nurse right across from me at the table and I am sitting by my companion and Elder Christensen and out of no where...... Super explosive throw up all the way across the table all over my food and suit coat all over Elder Christensen too and then he turns and gets it all over Elder Johnson and goes to run out the room but doesn't make it and just keeps throwing up in front of 50+ missionaries... so yeah Hermana Goates told us we could get our suits dry cleaned using the mission money! haha it was funny because we took a photo of all the missionaries afterwards and you can just see 3 of us in the crowd without our suit coats on! haha I thought it was pretty funny, lost my appetite pretty fast after that as well. but hey no hard feelings. :)

Hey sorry we don't have too much time left to write! This week was pretty normal though! I wish I had more time to write but we are going to church to make some stir fry! I have been eating way healthy recently! I think its because I have been also eating a lot of junk food and my body is telling me I need to eat healthy!

But yeah everything is going great here! This usually would be the last week of the transfer but we have 7 weeks in this transfer so yeah! Oh I don't know if this is true but me and Elder Mortensen were emailing today and he said someone told him we have exactly 100 days left... pretty crazy stuff if its true!!!

Well I love you guys TONS! I will try and take some good photos this week! Have a good week just like the last one!

 Love, Elder Lawrence

 PS. yeah I pulled out money for when we went to Aconcagua! but I didn't end up using basically any of it so yeah $200 bucks should be good until the end of my mission with that! Thanks Mommy dear! :)

Good news! I got the Virus removed from my SD card!!! whooo all my photos are back! Here are just a couple more photos from the baptism that I liked!

Aconcagua!

The last time I saw the Masedas before they went home! They are the coolest and I am going to miss them for sure!!!

March 7, 2016

Family!!!! 

I am writing so late but I also have zero time to write!!! We went to Aconcagua today and it was super pretty!!! It was super cold too!!!! You are not going to believe what happened... I went to send you guys photos of the baptism we had on Saturday and I got another fetching virus!!!! That literally happened the last time we had a baptism haha soooo yeah now I have to buy another SD card... it makes me sooooo frustrated when that happens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it's whatever. My comp is going to send me some photos from the baptism and from Aconcagua and I will just forward you guys them. It makes me sad because I had an awesome photo of us walking out of the baptismal font and we are still sorta in the water but it's only on my camera, but yeah, chau photos!!!

Other than that it was an amazing week! I forgot how stressful getting everything ready for a baptism can be! It was crazy because everything was going wrong but at the last minute everything just fell into place!!!! Like we couldn't get the water pump to work and the hot water wasn't working either so we had to wait foreverrrrr but in the end it all ending up working! a member came and fixed the pump and turned the hot water on! It really was an awesome baptism. you guys would have been proud if you were there haha :)

Well you guys are going to have tonsss of fun in California!!! I am a little jealous. You guys should really still try to go to the temple in San Diego.  It would be an awesome experience and it would be super peaceful I can promise you that. :) 

Well like I said I have like zero time, I am sorry!!! I hope you guys have a good trip! you are in my prayers so that you guys will travel safely. :) I love you guys sooo MUCH! 

Love, Elder Lawrence

PS. I am excited to make you guys Argentine food, but we will see if you like it. :)

PSS. Get me a present while you are in California. (only if you want to) ;)

PSSS. Love you guys tons! CTR erryday!

Photos from Aconcagua today!

Here is a photo from Lautaros baptism!!! It was super awesome! He is like the smartest kid I have ever met. Now we just have to work a little more with his dad and his baptism will be right around the corner. :)