holy barjona‏

Hey family. this week went by a lot better and smooth.  today was a fun day. pretty laid back but still fun. so just barely i made chimichangas. they were super delicious!. so we took re fried beans, jalapenos, chicken, some seasoning. and put it all inside. ill send you a picture of it all soon. then earlier we went into town. we went to a bookstore and i got a pocket size bible in Spanish. haha. you guys know how i like small stuff like that. i couldn't resist. then i bought a french dictionary. i was reading it this last week and its not that hard to understand. so i wanted to read more. then me and my comp bought a matching tie. were going to wear it to the district meeting tomorrow. that will be fun. then we walk along the shops in the plaza. there is this store called ANIS. so i got a picture to add to my anis collection. hahahah. that's all that happened today.

yesterday a new elder came in the mission. he was a late arrival so only him. the others came in 4 weeks ago. so when i called president to get everything worked out he just wanted to bring him to his house without any other missionary. that's when pres gives him the interview and then has dinner. with the missionaries. but being the smooth talker that i am i was like. pres this elder doesn't speak a word of Spanish hows about me and my comp come and translate just in case. hes like "that's a good idea elder".   can you say Free Dinner!!  hahahaha. it was good.

on Monday a family gave us lunch. they gave us a whole chicken and some potato salad. there is so much left over still. i love getting fed so often in this area. then after the office we went to the bishops house to help his kid out with his English. that was actually fun.

so do you remember the guy at the stake conference that stood up at the end? well we had  lesson with him as well. this guy is just too prideful to read and pray. the whole lesson he was like. i already have all i need. i feel as though I'm full. so i was like. God never stops giving us blessing and the only way to feel full is if we put a lid on our " spirit tank". it reminded me of the scripture " A bible a bible we've got a bible"   but you have to say it like Jordan at 630 am during family study.  hahahahaha. but yeah he is a very hard man to get through. if only he would read and pray. that's all anyone has to do. but even if we think that he would be too prideful to accept an answer and be wrong. i hate people like that. he must be an evangelist. they are just as bad as the JW. probably worse. they go around saying whatever they think they know. really overbearing people. but the best way to shut them up is through a good testimony.

 then Sunday was a good day. in church the bishop gave an amazing talk. our ward has had lots of problems and especially with the authority. people have no respect for others here. generally speaking they are very prideful. then the stake president and the counselor both spoke. basically saying how the bishop isn't superman and how he needs a lot of support. he was supposed to be released from being bishop this Sunday but i guess they had  talk with him.

 on Saturday we had a really good day. that morning we did a lot of contacts and i was like, hey do you remember that woman that we contacted the other day and she gave us her direction. well lets go pass by here. the woman had only given us a direction to a corner. so we went to the first house and knocked it. well it wasn't the woman we were looking for but even better. we presented ourselves and she was like i know here you are and i have actually been needing to talk to you. so they let us in and we gave the whole family the first lesson.  oh but he mom was an inactive member since she was 15 but remembered the church and knew that we could help. so they had a family friend that needed help and so we passed the reference right there. 3 new investigators!!. the only problem would be that no one here likes to get married and yeah. so we have to talk them into marriage first. that's quite the task. we set so many appointments that day!! i have never worked so long. but it was all good because we were pretty much teaching the whole day.

 on Friday we had an appointment with this guy named Lucas. he is a very interesting sort. he just doesn't quite get it all. hes more interested in proving thing through knowledge and science. but at least we got him to pray right. some people have the lords prayer just ingrained into their heads. they just don't get it.  freakin Satan!! there are so many people that just don't understand what they are being taught. they just do it by tradition. hahahaha. so one point of emphasis that we have been working on is to set up baptismal date the first lesson. its a lot easier than you would think. but it caught him off guard. he was like why do you want me to get baptized?   lol  his reaction was just too funny! then on Thursday we had district meeting. that was fun. nothing super special worth telling. well i cant think of anything else to say. i really liked your emails. they were all fun to read. i liked moms smoker experience. now the seegrist family really is going apostate!!! hurray apostasy!!! jk hope your doing well and have a good week. later!
 Elder Seegrist

Hola

hey family how are you doing? this last week was OK. luckily it went by fast. i was super anxious to finally have a little free time. my comp has been kind of a wiener. same with the other office elders. i think its all because of the conference with the GA. for some reason they planned a service project on p day then to top it off they asked if we could come. or should i say my comp. he said yes of course without bothering to ask me. its just kind of makes me mad. that's really not how i wanted to spend my p day. its no that i don't like service but its just the timing. i love service because its a brake from the proselyting. but whatever. i guess if he feels like he can make my decisions for me we´ll have to sit down and have a talk. then our pres is getting really gay as well. he pretty much canceled all activities until he sees more improvement. this mission is becoming quite the bummer. i don't mind changing a little but it just makes me wonder when hes going to stop. i really think he might take our p day entirely at this rate. i think i would have a mental breakdown. its my only mental release. aaaaagh! well its not entirely bad. luckily the week went alright. yesterday something funny happened. so recently what i do to some people when i answer the phone is i make dog or cat sounds. i only do it to this one zone and they picked up on it as well. so yesterday they called me and they are like hey seegrist we found something you might like on the piano in the chapel. so they played it and they replace the key sounds with dogs and cats. hahahah. it made me laugh pretty good. lol this all reminds me of a couple years ago we went to the cabin after Christmas and Brandon got the Sim's game on his Nintendo ds. well it was like one in the morning and he decided to record himself. so as loud as he could " MMEEEEOOOWWWWW!!!!! MEOOOWWW!MEOOOW!" lol then dad says " Brandon shut up and go to bed!!!!" hhahah, do you guys remember that??




so do you remember when i told you guys about that guys that ot up at the end of stake conference and said how he was offended, well he had an appointment with him and it turned out fairly well. the guy is what you might call an eternal investigator. but we were able to take out his doubt. when we were talking i said straight up to him, "look, we want you to get baptized" then he goes off and tell us his life's story and how he thinks he has enough.. well what it directly came down to is that he doesn't believe what happened to Joseph smith. so we had to explain to him really clear that when people tell him to read the BoM and to pray its not so that way you will know how you should believing your life but to accept that god has called a prophet to restore his church. i think he finally understood and i think he will actually read and pray. the guy is pretty much in agreement with what the church teaches and he is living almost all the commandments. we also explained o him about eternal marriage. and how its only possible under the authority of god. which we have. all he has to do know is read and pray. on Monday we found out that our bishop is getting replaced. i think that he asked for it. but maybe positive stuff will come out of it. I'm hoping someone with more time and experience so that they can fix our ward. i guess we´ll see.



so on Saturday we found 2 new investigators. that was cool. we haven't had any in a while. it suck when we don't because it means we usually pass by the same people every week. we had a little success that day. hopefully there is more on the way. well i cant think of much more to say. love you guys, hope your doing well

informe semanal‏

hey family, pretty crazy this last week, we had lot of conferences and stuff. well today we did nothing, my comp has the flu or something, not sure. but he feels pretty bad. so we just stayed in the house all day. so i listened to music ate cookies and granola and buzzed my hair, it was really long. so now I'm off ot enlist in the Hitlers youth, ha ha jk. so as i was saying this week was full of conferences. we had a seventy of the area come talk to us about how to do things better, he teaches really well and it makes me excited to try some of his suggestions. so one of the conferences was just with the office elders. that was pretty nerve racking. he pretty much layed the hammer and said we have a lot of room to improve. which is true. especially with the schedule and leaving the office on time. then we had a zone conference with two other zones and he also spoke at that.

not to mention he spoke at stake conference. that was really interesting. he gave a great talk, more directed at the less active and inactive members. a lot of people here get offended easily and just for that the go inactive. so he said it straight up. "brothers we will all be offended at one point or be the one offending, we just need to forget and forgive, we want you to come back." it was pretty cool. he also talked about eternal marriage. he told all the young women to never marry outside of the temple because its a guaranteed divorce. as soon as you die you are separated. this is where it got very interesting. that was pretty much how he ended his talk. and as soon as he sat down this guy comes up and is like. "i respect the church and all but this man really offended me, me and my wife were married outside of the church and we are not going to et divorced!!" it was all ironic because he had just talked about not getting offended. then he sat back down, i think he just heard the part about divorce and stopped listening. well the only problem now is that he is the husband of a member in my area so we will probably have to teach him in the future. great!!

 that also reminds me of something that happened in my ward. one Sunday at church they were sustaining someone to be a counselor in the bishopric. well i guess it was all a surprise to everyone and hadn't informed anyone before church so during the sustaining the other counselor voted in contrary. it really threw me off. i had never seen it happen before. after the meeting i asked if he was OK and he said that he just didn't understand and he wasn't informed. the weird part is that he lives in the other ward but the stake assigned him to help out the priesthood in our ward. kinda weird right? but anyways. cool experience of the week,,,

 so we have been working with this inactive family, well they have 2 kids, one just turned 8 and the other is around 5. so the little 8 year old has a ton of interest. its been cool seeing his desires and knowledge grow. he has already read 60 pages in the BoM and he has a ton of questions you would expect to hear from an adult. i think he will be the key to reactivating his family. he tells us he wants to come to church and we picked him up once. but yeah i think there is alot of potential here.

 so this last Thursday was the year mark. to celebrate we made hot wings and i finally used that ranch sauce you sent me for my birthday, lol. it expired right on the 2nd. hahaha. it was still good. then while the wings were cooking i took and old shirt and drew on it. i forgot my camera but i send some pics soon. but i wrote on the back of it. on the left side in blue i wrote 1 año, then across the bottom i wrote SEEGRIST. the on the rest of it i wrote "Eat This Satan!!!" hahaha, then we had a fun ceremony and i attached it to the end of broom handle and then i took a can of insect repellent and i torched my shirt like a flamethrower. it was really awesome!! it all burnt in the matter of about 5 seconds and all that was lift was the collar, lol. in all a good week.

 so how are things going at home? its warming up nice down here. hope you are all jealous, its about time it warmed up. luckily the winter seemed to go by fast, we are just hitting up spring now but its starting to get really nice. hopefully it means more fun activities. so father your birthday is coming up here before next week. hope all goes well!! and you too chelsa! well i hope things are fun and delicious! remember, its never too late to send Jason lots of candy! lol talk to you next week

9/01/10

en este momento tan grande de mi vida les felicito que ahora tengo un año en la misión!! me basta decir que ya soy un maestro en el idioma castellano y que nunca he tenido tantas mujeres. puede decir suerte pero a mi digo "los frutos de servir una misión"!! lol.

 well you probably didn't get that. but its all silliness anyways. this last week has been normal. today was a very normal p day. just some more soccer. for some reason i got really bored with it though. and i stopped trying. then the zl decided to tell us how things should be blah blah blah. whatever. but we did go into town and look at some cool shops. they are typical Jason shops. like mini REIs. but i loved it. i like that type of stuff. if only i could use it here.

 well tomorrow i will be hitting one year in the mission. its all going down the slide from here. weeeeee!!!! i don't feel like I've really been here that long but at the same time i do. it feels like I've always been doing this. so last night we started "hat night". that's where we make delicious food and we wear a hat. so we were walking downtown looking for hats and doing other "office" stuff. my comp bought a bright green neon hat. and i bought a red hat with gold prints of money and coins and dice with a money sign on front. it was looking pretty gangster. but most important is the food that we cooked. we made some bratwursts and grilled some red peppers and onions and put it on top. it was super delicious! then we ate an oreo alfajor whole. me made a fun video to go with it. the whole idea of hat night is to get closer to your comp and have fun. so we decided it was OK to do it. me and him get along really well. some things annoy me but for the most part we get along really well and we both understand each other fairly well.

earlier yesterday we had a lesson with an investigator. like most people they just simply have no desires to know anything about god or religion. its kinda sad, they have no real reason not to care. but the lesson was really good. we brought a member and he really helped her to understand. bringing members can really make a big difference in a lesson. so don't be afraid to help out the missionaries.

 on Monday we went to pass by here with a member but she was leaving right as we got there, i swear every time we bring this member all of our lessons fall through. i feel bad for him. it kinda hurts our rep with him as well. but at least he is always willing to come with us. so after the splits we made him and his wife a cake. i think it made him really happy.

on Sunday we had a few people at the church. I'm starting to finally see more and more show up. so maybe we are doing something right. i just wish there were more. we also had a good chat with our bishop. he is really good guy and has high expectations for the members. a lot of times as members we get caught up with the flow and don't realize how it really should be, he is just trying to fix this and make it work like it should but at the same time a lot of members got offended. at the end of the lunch he thanked us and said that he has never felt so much support from any other elders before. its been cool gaining his trust. at first he was a little down that he was getting office elders. because we have less time and all. but i think he is more than content to get elders that actually are trying. not boasting because it doesn't feel like I'm really doing anything different or special that any other elders weren't doing but it really feels good to be appreciated by the members.

 in my first area i didn't feel as though the members really cared that they were there. they were just fine and dandy the way they were. really sad that there were like that. so enough rambling. just do what you can to help out the elders. just don't buy them food. the Utah elders are too spoiled. and rides either. they are probably walking to do contacts for the first time that month. lol. those lucky dogs. they don't know how lucky they are.

then later that Sunday we had our weekly planning session and then we left to go to a baptism. so first we passed by romina, our investigator, and we brought her. it was a big activity, there were a lot of members. and the mission Pres showed up too. but we had to leave early because an inactive family invited us over for dinner. we showed up late but they had just finished up making the food. it was a very awkward dinner. they had some family and friends over and it seemed as if they were all inactive members and they started to drink some wine, and then their friend show up drunk. he was really quiet but you could tell he was hammered. in all super awkward. but we ate ñoquis. they are really good, they are little balls made of mashed potatoes and flour and then with some sort of sauce or meat. they have a tradition down here of eating them every 29. so I'm figuring ill eat some for my b day. that will be fun., well that's all i can think of right now, i hope you guys have a wonderful week and keep it safe. love you guys!