Jan 30, 2107

Hey, from the words of President Robertson, we no longer live under the law of Moses but the law of Jesus Christ haha.  I don’t know if you guys heard, but they changed the mission schedule and its super different.  We get an extra 2.5 hours for p-day, plus we are given a lot more time in the morning and a nigh to relax.  I’m sure you can check it out on the church website. If you look there are some missions that wake up at 7:30!!!! Crazy stuff. They also changed around some of our key indicators.  It was a pretty sweet broadcast, I’m not sure if you guys are able to watch it but everything Elder Bednar said - he just killed it!  I wrote down like 5 pages of stuff from it.   It was actually really great.

This week again was pretty fast we are finding a lot more people but everything seems to slows down right after new year’s and Christmas; not sure why.  Today we went to a pizza place, which has all you can eat pizza for 85 pesos and its goooooood too.  There’s a record in the mission and our zone leader holds it with 22 pieces of pizza hahah crazy eh.  I had like 7 and felt like dying.   Nothing really new, I mentioned our new district leader Elder Cortez, he’s pretty funny.  I miss Elder Salmon though, I learned a lot of great things from him.  I also forgot to mention that his grandpa is President Salmon from our old stake presidency.  It’s still super-hot here, its 35 degrees all day.....missing the mountains hahaha, but its supposed to rain all this week so can’t wait (not being sarcastic seriously it cools down a bunch) other than that it’s still the best of times in Los Pinos.  We might have a baptism in the later month will see!

Love you - Elder Maller  

Jan 23, 2017

Jan 23, 2017 - Hey, Things are going good in the Los Pinos ward.  The work is going slowish right now.  We got a ton of eternal investigators that we just can’t seem to baptize, so right now we are focusing a lot on finding new people.  We have found some awesome people, so were working with them and we could hopefully have a few baptisms in February; but we’ll see.  I’ve learned a lot about this area and it’s kinda nuts.  There’s a lot of bondistas (people who worship the devil) and bondista temples.  I never knew about that before and the scarey part is when we go contacting, cause it’s hard to tell who they are, but there’s a bunch.  Everybody here either knows one or is related to one hahah, oh well.

The ankle is getting much better, I sent a photo of how its doing.  It’s just pretty bruised and a little bit swollen but not much.  I wish I took a photo of it initially, it was soooo bad but its good now.  Today is the best.  We found a new Wendy’s restaurant in Ramos wooooo hoooo!! It tastes just like home, but the ice-cream is waaayyy better and super cheap.  The weather is awful, it’s just soooo hot.  The other day it was 35 degrees at 9 o’clock at night.  In a week or so were moving apartments to this brand new one that a member just built and it has AC!!!!!  It’s cheap to, it’s like 4000 pesos a month.  This member who built the complex, it cost him about 45,000 dollars to build 3 apartments and 1 penthouse!! Seriously, living here is super cheap I’m kinda starting to think about staying here for school cause that’s also free idk.  Anyways how is home and the ward? It’s hard to believe that they created our ward like almost a year ago.

luv ya’ll - Elder Maller  

Jan 16, 2017

Well this was just the most unlucky week of my life I think hahah.  It all started last Monday when the power went out because of a huge wind storm that hit us and blew over 6 electrical poles like a block away from our pench (apartment). So the power was out for two days and on the second night we got permission to spend the night with the other Elders, unfortunately they got locked out of their pench (apartment) so they had to call the office Elders to get the spare kays and it was just awful we didn’t get to bed till like almost 12.  We still decided that we would go play soccer in the morning, which we did, and as I was walking, and idk how it happened, but I stepped wrong and sprained my ankle really bad, like never this bad before.  I think it was because my calf’s got so tight because we just started running in the morning, which was the first time running since being home and I think I’m actually starting to gain some weight.  Anyways it was soooo bad that my toes got swollen and a couldn’t wiggle them.  In the beginning they even though I would have to go home and that was the worst to hear, I wanted to cry.  So that day was hard, I had nothing else to do so I just prayed all day and most of the next day and now I’m able to walk on it with a air-boot.  I should be able to work a bit tomorrow.  They say that I should be good by end of next week so that has been quite a miracle.  I didn’t think I’d be able to walk on it for a while and I’ll be staying in the mission if all continues to go well.  Oh and they shut off our water that day too, but we got it fixed so everything is mostly back to normal.  In a few weeks were moving penchs (apartments) to a brand new one with AC, soooooooo happy about that.  We also had transfers today and me and Elder Udall are still together, so no changes for us.  All is well, we have a Columbian family that is progressing very well.   There whole family came to church and we did a family home evening with them and another group of members. It’s still stinking hot here and the humidity is wrecking our books, like all our planners are wavy, is pretty funny.   Love y’all cha chooooooow

Jan 9, 2017

Wow, this week just flew by I don’t remember much of last week cause were in the grind.  Transfers are next week so we have been working hard with some of our long-term investigators.  Last week I almost got chewed out by a dog; a big one to.  I was on divisions with Elder Mayorga, he’s a short Mexican, so he walked by the dog and nothing - no response, I walk by the dog and it got crazy, it showed its teeth and just started barking like soooo loud.  I pretty much froze, I didn’t really move until I just started kinda walking away.  Elder Mayorga was like “man you are seriously lucky cause that dog could have like maimed you, like really bad”.  Other than that things are pretty good, I can see the spirit guiding us every day.  Things are coming along with the language, which is getting better every week almost every day.  It’s now about getting faster and speaking more smoothly but I have no problems understanding my companion.  Some people I can understand almost completely.  So right now the focus is about feeling more confident, so if there’s anything you wanna pray for specifically, there you go.  Love you guys, Elder Maller 

Jan 2, 2017

Jan 2, 2017 - Feliz ano Nuevo.  So right after I emailed you guys last week me and elder Udall went to this burger place and got some food, I got a burger and he bought these quesadillas.  We played basketball right after and he almost died; he got soooo sick.  On Tuesday we had divisions with Elder Salmon and Elder Mayorga.  I went with Elder Salmon and we actually had a really good time.  I learned a lot from him, he’s a really good missionary.  It’s hard cause you wanna know Spanish but ultimately you wanna know how to be the most effective and successful missionary.  Some believe it’s just about working hard and some believe it’s all about working smart but Elder Salmon has it figured out, it’s a mix of both and he just really knows what to do and its really because he’s guided by the spirit.  I think it’s not just cause he has experience in the mission (by the way everyone in our district is from the same MTC group, they all have been out for 13 months).  Anyways, we went back and found out that they had to stay in the pench (apartment) the whole day because Elder Udall had bad diarrhea and had to go like every few minutes, which was really disappointing because they had some really important visits to make and now were pretty behind with our investigators because he couldn’t leave the pench (apartment) until SATURDAY – ahhhh, we were both soooo frustrated cause we basically lost a whole week. During those three days I just studied Spanish almost the whole day, luckily I was able to do divisions with Elder Salmon for the last few hours in the day and Elder Mayorga watched over Elder Udall.

New Year’s Eve was pretty nuts.  We switched our studies around that day from the morning to the evening so we had to leave the pench at 9am and get back by 6pm!!! That’s how crazy it can get here like these people here are crazy, like I’m being serious, I didn’t think people could behave this way.  So we basically did our studies and ordered ice cream, which is another sweet thing is you can order just about everything to be delivered to you, and then of course the fireworks which were pretty sweet.  I could literally do a 360 and see fireworks everywhere and it lasted for like almost a half hour.  Anyways it’s great to hear from you guys again and I love seeing all your pictures.  Today I just read who our new mission president is.  It’s President Resek.  He’s a Latin but lives in Utah.  I don’t know that much about him except his son is in this mission and he will be serving under his parents for a transfer, like that would be soooo nuts hahaha, I’m not sure if I would like that hahahaha.  Anyways his name is Enrique Resek and his wife is Sandra Resek.  Apparently there pretty great they should come in around July 1 so it’s pretty exciting but sad too President Robertson is pretty great.

Love you guys - Elder Maller