T minus 2 months (this Friday haha)

Hey Hey Family!!! 
Everything is going great here! Nope I haven't heard anything about earthquakes here! That's pretty crazy that there have been a couple recently! Geez mom you don't need to yell at me via the internet hahah jk but no I didn't really have space to pack around my coat and my sleeping bag, so I chose the sleeping bag over the coat! I ended up buying one for really cheap though, it was like less than 20 bucks. 

Man I really don't miss the wind! For some reason almost all of my companions say they love the wind! I think they are crazy. That's pretty cool Adam is back in Hurricane! and that Hurricane is actually winning some baseball games!! and that is way crazy about all the stuff going on with the trees on our street! I can't believe everyone is freaking out about that! I have no idea which side I would take!! That's pretty crazy though that all the neighbors are mad at each other over that. I think they are making a big deal out of something that shouldn't be a big deal haha. Also that's pretty cool about Tyson giving his homecoming talk on fast Sunday! I didn't know you could do that! 

Everything is going pretty good here in Tunuyan! We haven't seen the sun in like 2 weeks straight! But yeah things are great. :) Elder Quist is doing way good! He is adjusting really well. I have seen major progress in his Spanish for sure! We have been doing a lot of cooking! We eat these things called milanesas like every night! haha I love it!

I just realized I never really tell you about District meetings! Well we have them every Tuesday morning at 10:30 and it goes till about 12:30 and then we eat lunch together as a District! We kinda invented that, not all districts do that. But yeah basically we start with a hymn and then a prayer and I pre-ask someone to share a spiritual thought and then afterwards we talk about the investigators that we all have and what we can do to help them, and then after that I give a little lesson on something from Preach my Gospel and do an activity or something and then we end with another hymn and prayer. It's pretty awesome! Just thought I should tell you that. haha :) We also made Milinesa tacos after district meeting this past week.... SOO GOOD! 

Man we think we are going to have to drop one of our investigators named Ayto. He was progressing wayyy good at first! It always makes me sad to drop people, but sometimes you just have to do it! We passed by on Saturday so that he could come with us to District Conference but he said he didn't want to because the church is far away and he is lazy... but the thing is that the church is like 5-6 blocks from his house!!! I know people who walk or ride bikes wayyyyy farther than that! Like it makes me way sad but yeah I think we are going to drop him this week.

Well That's basically all for now! I am wayyy excited to skype with you guys!!! It will be crazy because it will be the last skype before I come home! Crazy stuff right there. I am glad that you guys are doing good!  I will email Elder Landt about the package thing for sure. Yeah sign me up in some college classes with Bryson and Taylee! Well I hope you guys have a great week! I love you guys sooooooo MUCH and I love hearing from you! It always makes my week! You guys are always in my prayers too. :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

 Utah Jazz in the tiny town of Tunuyan, Mendoza, Argentina.

 We found a burnt bible, it made me sad. :(

 Cool lightening storm right behind the church!

 Power outage because of cool lighteneing storm right behind the church

  Next morning everything looked awesome though! Feels like I am serving in Portland or something.

 My companion took this photo at District meeting last week... Everytime I look at this photo the theme song from Full House plays in my head... the part thats like "everywhere you look, everywhere you go, theres a place, of somebody who needs you!" 

 Just on our morning jog!

 Just kidding haha The hermanas here were struggling to find news so we did a service project thing where we went around there area and asked people if we could rake the leaves off of their porches! It actually worked pretty well!

Me holding a little cat that looks like a tiny bear. I don't think I am allergic to cats anymore... I don't know what happened but yeah I can hold cats and stuff now! haha 

April 11, 2016

Hey Hey Family spamily!
It was a solid week here in Tunuyan, and when I say solid I mean freezing rainy week here in Tunuyan! haha

It was a good week over all though! It sounds like you guys had a good week too! A weekend full of weddings! You should have taken the life size cut out of me to BreAnn's wedding and then to Amberlee's wedding afterwards haha :) I loved all the photos though! and that's way cool that your high school friend from Sweden came and you got to see her for a little! That's way cool! :) 

Nothing too out of the normal this week! It's been really cold though for fall! I only have my sweater and my rain jacket, I left my big coat in the offices because I didn't think I would need it again. I was wrong. Terribly wrong. haha we are going back to the offices in a couple weeks for tramites for my son so I am going to try and find it then. :)

We had a way spiritual experience this past week! I think it was Tuesday night. So we were with the familia Cuello and their daughter Luna (I think she is 4 or 5) recently got chicken pox and so after the lesson the mom asked us if we could give Luna a blessing so that she would recover fast and everything. Well this was the first time my comp had to help in giving a blessing in Spanish, so he did the anointing and I did the blessing. Well Elder Quist did way good with saying the first part and then after wards I gave the blessing and I feel like it went really well! I really just had to depend on the spirit to tell me what to say. :) Well after the blessing it was just really calm and the spirit was strong. Afterwards I looked down and Luna was crying. But it wasn't like sad crying. It was totally the spirit! It was way spiritual! It made me want to cry. She ended up recovering in less than half the time that the doctors said it would take and they all came to church yesterday! Javier has 10 assistance's! ....It kinda gave me an idea for what I want to talk about when I get home. The language of the spirit... that's the title... that's about all I got so far! haha :) 

Well Sorry I don't have too much time to write today! We have to go catch a bus to La Consulta! We are going to make an asado! It will be the first one my hijo has ever had!!!  Well I love you you guys sooo much!!! Everything is going great here! Me and Elder Quist are like best buds! I want to go visit his fam when I get back!  Maybe I can take a package for him too for his fam! We will see! Well I hope you guys have a great week! I cant believe it's already time to skype again almost!!! whooo!!! :) I love you guys!

Love, Elder Lawrence

PS... Tell Ashlyn to rejoin the cheer team! That is way sad she quit! 

 My comp loves to take photos of me at the worst times... I hope you guys like it hahahaha.

21 Months!!! and Conference!!!

Hey Hey Family Pamily... 
Hows it going??? Sounds like you guys had a good week and a awesome weekend with General Conference! There were tonsss of good talks!! I really liked Elder Holland's right at the end, that was awesome.  I really liked the quotes you and Dad sent me! We watched it here in Tunuyan, just right across the street from the pench. :) I feel bad though for a couple peeps in our zone, because they just got here like 3 days ago and we listened to the entire thing in Spanish! haha it was fine for me but for others it had to have been tough to sit through for like 10 hours.

Oh hey I just realized you guys don't even know who my companion is! haha well.... his name is Elder Quist! He is from Layton, Utah!  This is my second companion from there! (Elder Benedict) But yeah he is wayyy awesome!!! He doesn't know too much Spanish but it's all good, it's a lot like training before! :) We have been doing this thing though where whenever we are outside of the pench we speak only in Spanish! I think it's helping a lot! It's weird because we will go back into the pench and I am just used to speaking in Spanish with him and so my mind just keeps thinking in Spanish and when I go to say words in the pench its just all Spanish and he just looks at me super confused hahaa. :) He is way awesome though we are going to have tons of fun together!!!

That's really sad about John Wadsworth. :( I feel sad for Austin too because he is in the mission, but hey that's why we have the plan of salvation. :) Families are forever!

This was a good week! We weren't here for too much of it! Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Mendoza waiting to get my hijo! Oh hey Jared Cahoon is also training to end his mission!!! He also is going to the best area on Earth... Albardon!!!! I gave him some references to old investigators up there in San Juan, but yeah he is a lucky duck. :) But yeah Hna Azañero is one of the Hermanas here in Tunuyan and she is training as well! She is training a gringa too! Her name is Hermana Holmes from Northern Utah! haha my district is 5 gringos and 1 latin!!! Its pretty funny to me. :) we are going to have tons of fun as a District...I cant wait!!! A lost Elder Chamberlain got transferred into the District!!! He is from my MTC District! haha I haven't seen him like my entire mission! So it's been awesome hanging out with him again!

Soo yeah basically that's it for this week! We have been going around meeting all the investigators and everything! It's going great though and I am super excited for these next few months too come! :) Well I love you guys tons! I hope you have a great week! Be safe, do work, and pray often. you know the drill. :)

Love, Elder Lawrence

PS... I just sent an email to President Goates about the online orientation... I feel like it should be fine but we will see!

PSS... Love ya! :)

  Got to see some of my best buds on transfer day in the terminal! Me and Mortensen also went and got some pizza after this photo was taken, it was the bomb.

 4 generations of Secretaries right there! In order from left to right.

 Getting ready to receive the hijos! We all had to take off our ties and our hijos had to guess who their trainer was by giving them their tie...sorry its super low quality haha!

 The new Tunuyan crew! :)

 I realized I didn't have a photo alone with my hijo so like 2 minutes ago we walked outside and took this photo haha!

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. :)