April 11, 2015

Hello Family! How are you all?? :) Wow it has been such a jam packed week here in the offices!!! It is so nice to just sit down and write you guys! almost every day this week we were getting up around 6:00 instead of 6:30 because of all the stuff we had going on!

Well to start off... wasn't Conference the bomb??? I loved it!!! So many great talks! 2 talks that really stuck out to me:

Larry M. Gibson (Priesthood session)- Talked about how we need to lay the foundation for the next generation and to lead our families. He also shared an awesome experience where he walked 50 miles with his sons in 20 hours... and one of his sons said he would never do it again, but then his other son said "I will never do that again... unless my son wants me to." and that just totally made me feel the spirit when he said that and he helped me realize how I need to be such a good example for my children how dad is for me and Bryson and Kamrie and Ethan!

other talk I liked a lot:

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (Sunday morning session)- He shared the story of the 2 brothers canyon climbing in Snow Canyon and how the brother wasn't going to be able to make it all the way to the top because of how hard it was, and there was no way back, so he helped his brother to the top, and then he just jumped upwards hoping to grab the top, and his brother was right there to help him up! He compared this experience to The Fall of Adam and Eve. he asked the question "are we all just hanging from a cold canyon?? waiting to fall?" and then he basically shouted "NO!!!" He told of how the fall is part of our happiness! I loved this talk and it sure was a testimony strengthener!

Everything was really good this week! Oh! something else crazy happened.,, Elder Trelease is getting special transferred out of the offices 2 weeks early!!! yep I have his tickets all bought and he leave for San Juan TONIGHT!!! I am way sad I am like such good friends with him!! :( I will send you a picture of the tie he gave me! it is way nice. Also something cool, his parents are coming to pick him up, so I will be the one to go to the airport and find his parents and get them to the mission offices and make sure everything goes smoothly for them! I can't wait!

Oh speaking of driving, my International Drivers Licence still hasn't come... I imagine it will come this week but if it doesn't I will email you Saturday and you might have to send one again... because I HAVE to be driving soon, once Elder Willard is gone I will be the one who needs to drive for sure.. I have been learning stick a little bit already! just in parking lots and stuff like that... haha its pretty legit. :)

To answer some of your questions... Transfers are on the 22nd of this month! and yes Elder Mortenson will be my companion! I am excited because we are from the same group and he is a total boss! We actually, as of tonight, are companions! We will be in a tri-companionship till the end of this transfer!

Also I totally love the Yo-Yo that Elder Trelease's mother sent! It is the best stress reliever! haha I have gotten pretty good at it too. :)

That's awesome that Zach stopped by our house! That makes me way happy! we email every once and a while and he is doing really good!

It looked like you guys had a way fun Easter Week! We ended up not having time to decorate Easter eggs, but hey maybe next Easter!:) I hope you guys remembered the true reason why we celebrate Easter! Everything that we have or will ever have is because of what happened on that Easter Sunday over 2000 years ago!

I love you guys so much and I hope you know how happy I am here in the offices and how much I am growing here and learning and just everything! Its great hearing from you guys too I always look forward to your emails and pictures! :) Have a great week and pray always!

Love, 

Elder Lawrence

Secretario

Misión Argentina Mendoza

 The General Conference Crew!

 Just our best buds from our group! 

 Just sitting here trying to guess where Elder Willard is going! Where do you think?? All the zone names are up top.

 Chau chau Elder Trelease! Oh also the tie I am wearing is the one he gave me! I gave him the gold and light blue skinny tie I had.

The whole office crew right before we said chau to Elder Trelease!

9 Months!!!!

Hey Hey Family! How are you all doing?? I am doing really good! Happy Easter Weekend and General Conference Weekend!!! I can't believe this is my second General Conference in the mission! The time is for sure flying! I feel like I just told you I had 8 months and now I already have 9!!!

Yes we will get to watch General Conference! and I think we are going to watch it in the church that is right next to our mission offices. We will watch the priesthood session at 1:00 today so just in a couple hours! We kinda don't get P-day today because of General Conference, we are just going to write our families and then watch Conference!

Wow it does sound like you guys were busy this week! Sounds just like a normal week for me to be busy haha. Ethan could of gone and visited my companions family when he was playing baseball in Mesquite this weekend!;) They are like a 15 minute drive from there! He is actually from Moapa Valley, not Vegas.

Haha that is crazy that Sera is totally engaged! I feel like my grade is way too young for all that but whatever!

The package will probably cost around 10 dollars to get out of shipping... it's just all that money adds up when every missionary is trying to get packages, so that's why we have to pay for it ourselves now.

So for my spiritual thing I wanted to tell you guys about...

So just the other day I was studying my Patriarchal blessing because it had been a while since I had read it, and as I was going through it something from it stuck out A LOT to me! it says "You will be blessed with callings throughout your life. You will have callings in the mission field which will help you help other missionaries progress"... and I had never really thought about it, but that is exactly what I am doing... all day my main job is to help other missionaries progress! If it's by making them become legal citizens here in Argentina or if its just making sure they have a plane in here or out of here! Even when I am putting missionaries onto planes after they have served here for two years, I am helping them progress to the next point of their life!!!  Also this past week we had interviews with President Goates because that is what we do every 3 months, and I shared that with him, and we had a way spiritual talk about it and the power of revelation! I felt the spirit way strong that day! So amazing!!! 

To answer your questions... Yes I feel like I am catching onto everything here in the offices! No I am not to nervous to be alone doing tramites (transfers)... I should be fine. :)

We do have a solid investigator! He has attended church a lot but his thing is that he is not divorced but he has a girlfriend but they don't live together.  There is a lot to it and it is way confusing and he doesn't understand why he cant be baptized but yeah one day he will understand.

Well... I hope you guys enjoy your Conference Weekend and have a good Easter!!! Remember the true reason we have Easter! Pray for the spirit so that you can hear what you need to hear this Conference! I know the spirit will let you hear what you need to hear!!! I love you guys sooooo much! have a great week! Be safe always! :)

Love,

Elder Lawrence
Secretario

Misión Argentina Mendoza

 Fun fact about Argentina: All milk is in bags! And how you keep it from spilling is cutting a bottle in half and putting it in that.

 Me and Elder Trelease wearing our jerseys and taking a picture in our broken mirror.

 We call this the Harry Potter closet... because it is soo tiny! haha you can go to the bathroom and shower and shave all at the same time!

They have quite the collection of cereal in the office pench! It has another layer behind all of it that you can't see! Its about 6 months of cereal for 8 Elders! haha

March 28, 2015

Hey Hey family! how are you all doing?? This was for sure a crazy fast week! I am doing really good here! It is finally getting cold here! we had 2 big thunderstorms this week, and ever since it has been pretty cold! We have had our sweaters on everyday! 

Sounds like Ethan is busy with baseball right now! That's awesome they won a game yesterday! hopefully they can win again today!! and wow Ethan is official 13! that's way old! I feel like when I come home he is going to have a deep voice and like facial hair!! haha

Wow I wish I could help you with your work with talking to the new student from Mexico! It wouldn't be hard for me to communicate with her. That's awesome you guys help her a bunch though to learn English! I can imagine how tough that would be to teach math to someone who doesn't speak your language.

Wow Ethan is such a little missionary! that is an awesome story! and that is way cool how Bro Wiley shared it in Sacrament meeting! Ethan is a boss!

Thank you for sending my International drivers license! I will be driving a truck so I have to learn stick! I am pretty excited! Elder Willard learned stick in the mission so I feel like I will be fine.

That's awesome that Thomas Christiansen is the new student body president!!! I swear he is way too young but wow! I remember playing second base with him my sophomore year! he is an awesome kid!

Man I swear Bryson comes home every week? haha that is awesome! How has he been liking UVU?? He needs to fill me in about it?? Like how are the classes and teachers and girls! haha!

That is so cool about the Arvig's getting their mission call to the Dominican Republic!!! that is awesome! We have an Senior couple coming in soon and they will be the new historians of our mission! it will be different then just having all of us young Elders here in the offices!

Hey would you happen to have the email address for Jacey Schimbeck?? I totally thought about emailing her the other day but yeah I don't have her email!

No I don't need a new memory card, because I have a memory card and I have all my pictures backed up on that and on my computer, so I should be fine, but thanks though. :)

This was a pretty busy week! I have been working a lot with President because I have been working and setting up buses for all the zone leaders to come to a conference in about a week... Well the day they are all supposed to come into Mendoza, there is going to be a national strike on all the bus companies so there will be no way to get them here... well with a lot of re-scheduling and working with the Assistants to the President, we got it all worked out for them to come and have the conference! :)

Sorry we are leaving right now to go do some shopping in Mendoza Centro, but I have something spiritual I will email to you guys tonight that I am way excited to tell you about! I love you guys so much and I know I am blessed with the perfect family for me! Thank you for always making my day with all the emails and pictures! you guys are the best and you are always in my prayers and I hope you guys have a really good week! :)

Love,

Elder Lawrence
Secretario

Misión Argentina Mendoza

 Awesome sunrise looked like the ocean!!!

 Card pick up day! I got your guys cards for Valentines Day! I loved the cards and the candy! :)

...Hey so if you want to send me a package... you should make it within the next 6 months, because we can go pick them up ASAP! The only thing I really really really want is the gel that I used to always use back home (the "got to be glued" one). By the way those are just random cards I'm holding haha they aren't for me.

Today for lunch we had Asado with some members! It was way good and I really love all the members here in my new area! Everyone is so nice!

March 21, 2015

Hey Hey Fam bam! how are you guys doing?? I hope you are all doing good! and from what it sounds like is that you all had a good week! I had a really good week too! super jammed pack week, but it was still really good!

That's awesome Kamrie made cheer team! I totally knew she would, but still that is awesome! and wow I am really glad I don't have to go through running for Exec ever again!  It was way fun but way stressful too. I cant believe that was 2 years ago! wow!

That's awesome that Jayden is going to Korea! That is going to be a hard language to learn! haha because you have to re-learn the alphabet first!!! yikes!

Wow Kristine Cram is already home!? that was way fast and I cant believe Stetson is home in just a few weeks too! that is way crazy to me... it's also good to hear that Seiver is doing really good!

Haha Kody sent me a bunch of pictures from inside our house! that's funny that they came over for a little! I will tell them they can do that when ever. :)

Wow E-dog is almost 13!!!! that's crazy!!!! He is getting way old! Tell him I say Happy Birthday!!!

Sounds like you guys are doing good! We had a good week here in the offices! This week was the week of all the Zone Conferences, so we had to pre-plan all the bus rides for everyone to get to their Zone Conference. It wasn't too stressful because everyone ended up getting on their right buses! 

So with my job as Secretary, we work with people who live in Buenos Aires, they help us if we have problems with missionaries not being legal in Argentina, they also help us get a lot of the paper work for missionaries to become legal... Well this past Thursday and Friday they flew into Mendoza and stayed with us all day to make sure we were doing our job right and make sure we had all the paperwork organized for the missionaries... well we found out this past Monday that they were coming and we were both pretty super nervous about them coming!  We talk to them at least once a day on the phone, but my companion had never met them once in all of his time in the offices... Well it turns out that they are SUPER nice! they came here and were just super happy to be able to be with us! They helped us figure out some stuff that we were confused about, so that was good! They also took us to a way fancy restaurant on Thursday and they bought us a treat before they flew back to Buenos Aires. Over all, it was a way good experience!!!

So yesterday Elder Willard wasn't feeling good (he thinks it was from the fancy restaurant) and so was Abel (one of our main boss people from Buenos Aires) and Elder Willard didn't think he felt good enough to go to Migrations (this building we go to that makes missionaries legal) So what ended up happening was that me and Elder Castillo went to Migrations by ourselves and I did his paper work without Elder Willard! It was only my 3rd time ever going to Migrations so I was pretty nervous! but it turned out really good! I had no problems and I felt comfortable with all the Spanish people were speaking to me!

Also something cool about Migrations is that all the people there are foreigners... so there are tons of people there from Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, and even some people from the United States, all trying to become legal in Argentina... Well we were sitting there waiting in line waiting for our turn and there are 2 girls sitting pretty close to me that look kinda European and I listen to their Spanish and it was super gringa!  I could tell it wasn't their first language... well I built up all the courage I have and I ask them (in Spanish) "where are you both from?" and they reply (in Spanish) "the United States" and i was like (in English) "hey me too! haha" well it turns out they are from Ohio and they are here for 6 months just to learn Spanish! they had only been here for a month so their Spanish wasn't the best but they were way cool and they asked me tons of questions, why I was here and stuff so I gave them a big spill about the church and our purpose and all of that! It was way cool and afterwords I gave them a pass along card with our number on it so it was a cool experience for sure! way different talking about the gospel in English!!! 

Well that's all I got for today, busy week but super good. I love you guys tons and I am grateful for all the love and support you have for me! I am way happy here in the offices! such an awesome experience! Have a good week in Hurricane!! :)

Love, 

Elder Lawrence

Secretario

Misión Argentina Mendoza

 Just driving in the car to the airport this past Wednesday, we had to go pick up the new Senior couple! Elder Trelease is from Salt Lake Valley and Elder Mortensen (his companion/new financiaro) is from Willard, Utah.

 These are our bosses from Buenos Aires! He kinda looks like the teacher Boyd Prince from high school! haha

The present that we got from our bosses!

March 14, 2015

Hello family! Its been awesome here in the offices!!!! Such a different type of missionary work!! but hey I have been loving it so that's good. :)

Wow that is a million questions mom haha but here it goes...

So my responsibilities as Secretary are that I am over all of Trámites (paperwork) and travels. We send all the missionaries home from the mission and we bring all the new missionaries in. We also make sure everyone has a ticket to their new area and everyone gets on their bus... That is basically what I have been doing all this week! and I have liked it a lot. :) its not too overwhelming but Elder Willard said this was a pretty chill week of transfers.

So there is 8 office elders in our mission and we all have different callings... There is a 1 pensionista (over our housing),1 historiador (over baptisimal records), 2 assistants to the President, 2 financieros (which is Elder Trelease, who happens to be sitting right behind me right now, and his companion who he is training right now is Elder Mortensen who is from my group too!) so 8 months is a pretty common amount of time to go into the offices, I think. And then there is me and my companion and we are just specifically the Secretary! 

Yes we work pretty close to President Goates... I have seen him everyday this week but it might be a little different now that transfers and stuff are over.

Elder Willard is awesome! He is from the group right before me (so he has 10 months in the mission right now) I actually knew him before the mission from instagram! haha! but yeah he is a way good guy and I have already learned a ton from him.

So we probably have the coolest pench in the mission... It can sleep like a million extra missionaries haha but yeah its really nice and all 8 of us sleep in it! there are three bathrooms in it and its 3 stories tall! 

We have been eating really good here recently because of the new missionaries coming and things like that, they feed them and we get everything left over.

Yes we still go tracting and stuff like that. We always try to leave the office by 4:00 and then anything after that is for investigators and normal missionary work.

That's funny that you ask if I will use my spanish much here in the offices and if I might forget it.... I answer sooooooooooo many calls from all the Zone Leaders and tons of missionaries and people with buses and things like that and all of it is in Spanish... if anything, I feel like I will learn so much more here in the Offices!

Yes I will be in the offices for the next 6 months! I will be trained for the next month and a half, and then be alone for 3 months, and then train someone new for my last month and a half!

And for your final question... Yes I will be driving now! And yes I will need and international driving permit and some things to do that... Elder Willard will call you sometime this week and will help you get that all figured out!

Its great to see that you guys had a awesome time in Las Vegas!!! That sure does look like fun! :) That's crazy that Jeff Last is married now. 

I wonder where Jayden will go on his mission?!?! probably somewhere crazy! 

Well family, everything is great here!!! I have been loving it here in the offices!!! It has been pretty intense but hey it really is great! If I missed anything just let me know! I will definitely have more time to write you next Saturday! We are going to get some peruvian food and go bowling! It's great to see that you are all doing so well! I love you guys soo much! :) 

Love, 

Elder Lawrence

Secretario

 One of my last days in San Juan! I learned to make empanadas with some members! 

Only got to say bye to half of the family Flores but I sure do miss them a lot! I really think someday soon they will be baptized. :)

Chau chau Elder Perez take care of Albardon!!! haha

 Something cool that happened! everyone and their trainer in the offices (except the assistant's to the President) happened to be in the offices all at the same time!  

  

We played some soccer this morning! and also I got a new Jersey!

So part of my job is making sure all the old missionaries get on the plane... so here is me and my companion with Elder Wengert right before he went home!

Wayyyy good Peruvian food we had for lunch today! 

Some exciting News!!!!!!

Hey Family!!!

How are you all doing?? I am doing really good! sorry I am writing so late but I have some way big news to tell you guys!!!!  So Saturday night me and Elder Perez are just getting ready for bed around 10:30 and then we get a call from the office Elders, and Elder Perez answers it and then they asked if they could speak to me..... well he asked me if I was sitting, and if I wasn't that I should go sit down, so I go sit down and I am kinda freaking out because I didn't know what was going on... Well then he says "....Elder Lawrence...... CONGRATULATIONS you are the new Secretary of the Argentina Mendoza Mission!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

....CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!?!... as of today, I am the Secretary of the mission!!! I am an office Elder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They told me that I had to pack Sunday and leave Monday morning! So here I am right now, sitting in my new office, writing you guys on my own computer! haha isn't that crazy??

My companion is Elder Willard from Las Vegas! He has 10 months in the mission right now! He is a way cool dude and I am pretty sure I have played him in baseball before!  He will be training me for the next 6 weeks here in the offices and then after that I am on my own!

Today has been pretty awesome here in the offices! Its so crazy to me, because all these Elder's I have looked up to so much (like assistants to the president and the other office elders) I now just hang out with them all day! It is way cool. :)

They had me leave today from my area instead of Thursday because a lot of my job is helping the missionaries during transfers and getting on the right buses and everything!

Next week I will explain a little better all of my duties as Secretary but today I don't really have too much time too write!

Also I got some letters from you guys today!!! They come straight to us so I get them right away. Thank you so much for those. :)

Sorry I am just talking all about me but I really hope you guys have fun in Las Vegas!!! It probably wont be as fun without me there but hey that's alright. ;)

If you had any questions for me today just ask again next week! 

Well I am really excited for this next point of my mission. I am excited for the different mission work I am going to have now, because I know this mission work is just as important as the other mission work.

I love you guys with all of my heart and I am so grateful for such an awesome family! Be safe in Vegas! Don't have too much fun without me! :)

Love, The Secretary, Elder Lawrence

PS... Office Elders have a different P-day than the other Elders... So now I will be emailing every Saturday! Saturdays are my p-days now... so hey just email before this Saturday because that's my next p-day! Love you guys!!! :)

8 Months!!!!!!

Hello family!!!
I am doing really good! We had another really awesome week and we got 14 lessons with member again!! It really is crazy to me how fast the time is flying! I cant believe its almost the 4th semester for Kamrie and them! Because I left in the summer before school even started! Yeah the mission life sure is flying by!

That's good you got your Relief Society lesson over with! haha It stresses me out sometimes when I have to teach in the gospel principals class! but yesterday we had a cool experience teaching the class! at the very end of class we asked everyone if any of them would like to share their testimony of prayer and we had this sister share an experience of this time when her and her son were driving on her moped (her son was like 8) and she was going to fast on a turn and she slid out on the moped and crashed really hard... right after it happened she felt fine and only had some scratches on her but when she looked over at her son, he was unconscious laying on the ground, and she freaked out and didn't know what to do! but then she thought to pray. so she said she knelt down and put her face to the road right next to her son and prayed that everything would be alright and that her son would be alright, and right after she ended her prayer, she heard the ambulances coming and when they got to the hospital the son gained consciousness and everything was alright with him! It was such a spiritual class and we had 4 investigators in the class and 2 of them cried! it was amazing for our investigators to be there! (we had 5 investigators come to church this week! 3 from the family Flores!)

I am glad Hurricane finally got some rain and snow! I have been praying that you guys would get some! and wow Krushurz didn't do too good this week! haha that's funny but hey they just need to practice a lot more!

Bryson got a new car?!? that is a wayyy sick car! it looks way nice so I hope it last a long time! Bryson is throwing out the big bucks! 

To answer some of your questions... Yes we are still working with the young men! this past Saturday we played tennis and ping-pong with them but that means this Saturday we are going to do service probably. 

So yep 3 of the sisters in the family Flores have attended church twice! we are going to start talking more about baptism with them this week and see what they think! We also had lunch again with them yesterday! sooo good!!!

I think on my mission I have been doing alot of the planting of seeds! Baptisms would be awesome but I am way happy when I find new people to teach and find people who are actually really interested in the gospel! This mission has changed a lot, we are focused a lot on reactivating, baptizing, and retaining!

We aren't doing anything today for P-day!  We just got payed today so I think we are going to go do a lot of shopping! This past week I have lived off of noodles with no butter haha because I cant afford it! but hey now I can. :)

I can't tell the weather is starting to change here! The trees aren't really changing colors yet, but the mornings are colder now and at night its getting cold! I am really looking forward to winter! Its easier for me to get warm when its cold than it is for me to get cold when I am hot!

We just know that everything is going great here! I am loving this area and all the people here! I think I might get transferred this Sunday just because I love the area so much! haha but thank you guys for all of the love and support always! I always look forward to your emails first. :) I love you all sooooo much!!!! Chau!

Love, Elder Lawrence

 Last picture of the District before Elder Wengert (top left) and Elder Rivera (far right) go home!

 Chau 1 year for Elder Perez!

 We performed surgery on Elder Perez foot last night! haha he has a way hard core ingrown toenail. He doesn't think we got it all so we might call the nurse (Hermana Ashby) tonight and have to go to Mendoza Centro tomorrow or somethin for surgery!

Getting a ride home last night from some members! This is Milagros. I always tell her that Ethan is her boyfriend haha they all think E-dog is way cute from the picture book I have! (also check out how the car is falling apart)