Transfers!!

Hey Everybody. 

 

So this week was probably one of the most interesting weeks we´ve had in awhile. So transfers were yesterday! I am in Sáenz Peña still but with an Elder Mejia. They already happened!! We got a call on Sunday that said that transfer calls would now be on Sunday instead of Tuesday. And, they sent Elder Giles off to campo largo and my companion showed up yesterday. It was sad to say goodbye to Elder Giles, even more so because it was unexpected. I will miss him for sure, but am also excited to have another latin. Not counting the MTC, I now have had 3 gringos and 3 latins as companions. And Elder Mejia is from Mexico. 

 

Anyways, more on the week. Elder Giles was still a little sick to start the week off and so we were just in the apartment while he recuperated. Then, Darian, the convert of the sisters that Elder Giles baptized, had his birthday this week. He invited us over to his house to have some cake and soda and it was pretty cool. It went well and he´s a pretty cool guy and a really solid convert. And then on Saturday we had to be in the apartment early again. They say that there are festivals and stuff in the streets, but there is absolutely nothing. But, I´m not complaining. I´ll take the rest. And then church went really well and I taught a class and I really liked it and there was a lot of participation. And, as far as the people of our area go, las familias ponce, Ramirez, and alvarenga (maria´s family) are all doing well and continuing to move forward. Oh, on a sidenote, by staying here this transfer I will officially have 1 year of my 2 year mission in Sáenz Peña haha 6 months in Ensanche Sur and 6 months in Centro. I´m lucky I don´t hate the place haha 

 

Other than that I just had the weekly quote. This week it comes from Dieter F Uchtdorf. He said, “Let us acknowledge that most often gaining a testimony is not a task of a minute, an hour, or a day. It is not once and done. The process of gathering spiritual light is the quest of a lifetime.” I love this quote. A testimony, or belief, doesn´t come or stay from one experience. We have to constantly try to grow in faith, in knowledge, and in all aspects of life.Thanks to everyone who wrote me this week and I hope to hear from you all soon.

 

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

P.S. Mail takes about 5-6 weeks to get to me and my birthday is in just under 6 weeks…and I put letters on the wishlist this year ;) haha

This computer doesn´t accept any device being plugged into it...we´ll hope for pictures next week.

10 months!

Hey everybody. 

I officially have 10 months of my mission in Sáenz Peña now. I´m semi hoping to get to a year just to say that I did haha. Anyways, this week went pretty well I guess. the only bad thing is that Elder Giles and I both had our times of sickness. We had district meeting on Tuesday and I wasn´t feeling crazy good. From like Tuesday to Thursday I was just feeling a little stuffed up, almost like allergies, but they weren´t allergies. But, they were never that bad so that´s the good thing. 

Amalia and her family are still doing well. Sara Quintana is progressing pretty well, it´s just hard for her to get to church; partly for her age and partly out of pure laziness. but, we´ll get her there. And, these less actives in our area, Nicolas Dezcano and a lady named Maria and her family have all started to come to church. We have been working with them and it´s awesome to see them start to come back. On top of that, a long time investigator (of like years) of the sisters got baptized this last week. It was pretty cool and he actually asked Elder Giles to baptize him. That surprised us and really came out of nowhere, but it was a nice little surprise for Elder Giles I guess. 

And, on Saturday we had to go in to the apartment early. Only, I have no idea why. There was apparently some carnival or circus or protest or something going on. I have no idea honestly. Now, the bad news. Elder Giles started to get pretty sick on Saturday and was dying at night and was so bad on Sunday morning that we couldn´t even go to church. That was the first time in my mission that we haven´t been able to go because someone was so sick. So, keep him in your prayers and hopefully he gets better soon. 

Other than that I just have the quote of the week. I´m claiming that the quote is just something that I came up with, I just thought of it and wrote it down and have it on the wall in the apartment, but if it belongs to someone else, then I´ve never read it before haha. It says, "You cannot become patient without opportunites to act impatiently." I like it and I´ll just leave it to you guys to think about :) Thank you to everyone that wrote me this last week and I hope to hear from you all soon.

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

 

 A Catholic Church in Cordoba.

 The city.

 The temple.

Elder Giles baptizing Darian.

 

 

Divisions!!

Hey everybody! 

This week was pretty good, even though I was almost never in my area. Oh, and first of, I hit 16 months in the mission this week, the time is really adding up. So, I was not really even working in my area from wednesday to saturday because Elder Giles went to Cordoba. He went there to finish up all his visa stuff and I stayed with Elder Creer and Elder Gonzalez as a trio in their area. So, Friday was the only really fun day with them. In the morning we did an activity with the branch and walked around and just gave away presents to the kids of the more humble families in the ward and then went to the birthday party of the mom of one of the part member families in their area. It was awesome and they had incredible pizza and Elder Creer made tacos (which dont exist here) and then the cake was really good. So, the divisions were pretty fun, but I was kind of happy when they ended to just be back in my apartment with Elder Giles and back in my own bed. And, Elder Giles brought back some alfajors from Cordoba and they were supposed to be really good. They´re super different which I think is what makes them good, but they aren´t incredible. And then, Elder Giles gave his first talk in spanish yesterday in church and it went well. He only messed up when he said that his younger brother was 27 haha. But, it was a good talk. Anyways, la familia ponce is still doing well and that´s about it for this week. 

The quote I wanted to add comes from Thomas S. Monson and it reads, "When we give to others what we have, even if that may not be money, others will more frequently want to be in our presence." I like that and how true it is in all aspects of life. Others respect humility and desire to help. Thanks to everyone who wrote me this week, I´ll put some pictures up next week, and I hope to hear from you all soon.

 

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

Baptism!

January 19, 2015

Hey everybody!! 

This week was a pretty good one. First off, there are no letters on this keyboard, so forgive me if there is a mistake. And, this week was interesting. The elders that use to live with us both got emergency transfered out to take over an area in Resistencia and we had to help them leave and then move stuff from the apartment above us which kept us entertained. And, Elder Condori stole my huge bottle of soy sauce that I use for rice and had barely used...little punk, it was kind of expensive. Then, I did divisions with our new district leader, Elder Creer, and those went really well and we found some cool people. One of them was sara quintana. We knocked on her door right before calling it a day and going in to the apartment, and she just said that she had been waiting and praying that we would show up. She´s older and lives alone and wasn´t able to make it top church this week, but is really good. 

Oh, and I forgot to tell you guys that Elder Giles and I went to the zoo last week aqnd that was kind of fun. It was the same zoo that I went to last year, so there was nothing new. And, to top everything off, we had the baptism of aldana and everything went well!!! :) It was good and nice to see. In other news, Elder Giles has to travel to Cordoba this week from Wednesday to Saturday and so I´ll be stuck in divisions. But, that´s pretty much it for this week. 

The quote this week comes from Thomas S. Monson and it reads,  "We discover something about ourselves when we learn about our ancestors." I like that and how we can really change by learning about those who have gone on before us. And, I encourage all of you to take a look at Familysearch.org and find out a little more. Thank you to everyone who wrote me and I hope to hear from you all soon.
 

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

 

 Jackie in the rain!

 Baptism

Interviews

Hey Everyone! 

This week was pretty good overall. First off, we had interviews with President Franco. Those went well and we had a good training from the assistants and it was a really good day. And, we also had zone conference this week on friday. It was nice, took kind of long, but pretty interesting. They said that some areas in the mission might be getting bikes which is a pretty big change. However, I do not want a bike. You can talk with more people by just walking, I think its more exercise, and, more than anything, I´m getting to the end of my mission and don´t want to buy some ghetto Argentine bike that I wont bring home with me. 

Anyways, they also talked about how we are going to get rid of a lot of the numbers that we report in the mission for the missionaries to really focus in on and understand our purpose- To help people. Too many missionaries were getting caught up in the numbers and not the people, and therefore didnt have success, and then got angry, etc., etc. And they want us to teach more on family history. To learn more about our families and teach others to do the same. 

Other than that there was a kind of funny story that I had with Elder Giles. We were doing the nightly verifications with our leaders and just talking like normal and they asked elder Giles what he was thinking about. Well, Elder Giles thought that it had to be a missionary answer and just shouted out, "hablar con todos" or "talk to everyone" and the leaders and I got a chuckle out of it because he could have said anything but it just went straight to that. Sorry if you didn´t find that funny. 

The only other thing is that we found 2 really cool people, Mayra and Natalia, and both of their respective families. So, we´ll see how that plays out and how they progress. And, Aldana finally came back from being with her Aunt and Uncle and came to church yesterday, so we should have her baptism this saturday if all goes as planned!!! She´s Amalia´s kid for those of you who had forgotten. So, wish us luck. 

And, the only other thing I wanted to put in here this week is a quote from Sister Franco that she said in spanish but I´ll do my best to put it in English. She said, "The one thing that never changes in life is that there are always changes." We have to adapt to the changesa of life and deal with them the best that we can. Thank you to everyone who wrote me and I hope to hear from you all soon.

 

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

 

 The street after a rainstorm.

Sáenz Peña

Hey Everybody!! 

The biggest news of the week is transfers. We are staying together in Sáenz Peña!! So Elder Giles and I are on our 3rd transfer here together. Then, we had to be in the apartment early a lot this week. On the 30th, 31st, and 1st we had to be in the apartment at 7pm. So, we didn´t do too much at night other than study a little bit, cook food, and just talk. But, we still got some good work done this week. Delicia, Amalia, Ezequiel, and la familia Ramirez are still doing well. Only the Dad still won´t let them do anything with the church and she doesnt have anywhere to live if she left him. But, they´re still and awesome family to teach.  We are focusing on teaching la familia Suarez to get them reactivated and get the kids baptized. And, we are going to focus on finding new, good people to teach. 

Then, the other big thing that happened this week is the reason why I didn´t write yesterday. We got called and had to go do tramites in Corrientes. Elder Giles needed to do his Visa stuff to stay for his mission, and I had to show my papers to the people at the office for them to update my status on the internet. Actually, I´m not too sure what we did with my stuff to be honest. We did something though. So, we had to travel there yesterday morning, go do the papers, and then relax some. We had some time to walk around after, so we saw some of the shops, enjoyed the view of the river(even though its really dirty), and then, the highlight of my week, we ate t Mcdonalds AND Subway!! I normally don´t eat this much, but the last time I ate american food was a year ago in corrientes. So, I got a foot-long, a big mac, large fries, a chicken sandwich, coke, and mcflurry. Yes, I know it was excessive and yes, it was worth it. Although Subway was really limited on their selections and I just had to get roast beef, it was still worth it. So, that made for a really long day yesterday, but it was a great time. 

Thank you to everyone who wrote me last week, Happy New Year(See you all this year haha), and I hope to hear from you soon. The last thing I wanted to put in here was the quote and this week it actually comes from one of my favorite members that always gives us lunch, German Rodriguez. He got up and fast and testimony and was talking about the difficulties in life when he said the following, "The easy things don´t make us better or force us to improve." I love that and I love the simplicity. Just put it into practice.

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine

Happy New Years!

Hey everybody! 

This week ended up being super awesome! We had a lot of good stuff happen this week. It was Christmas week of course. So, we got to skype home on Christmas and that was super legit! It was awesome to see my family and grandparents and cousins and aunts, etc. And,I even got presents. haha Even though I´m 6,000 miles away I got a legit all blacks jersey, hockey blanket, and quote book. thanks a million Mom and Dad and Tessa. 

And then we had the branch activity on Tuesday and that was pretty fun even though we had to leave early to get back to the apartment in time, so we didn´t get any food. Then, we had the zone activity with the missionaries on Wednesday, Christmas Eve. We had a Ping-pong tournament, Grido icecream, and a white elephant gift exchange. Elder Giles and I won the ping-Pong tournament, but there was no time for the final game so we dont know who the real winner is. And I gave a sledge hammer as my gift and got a little pottery bird thing. 

On Christmas we passed by la familioa gomez and had a great time we them. I gave them gifts as well, that I hope they like... I gave jorge and Patricia a book in English to learn, I gave Cintya a mate cup, Celeste gum and chapstick, Mauricio a hat, and Brisa some playing cards and chapstick. Than, as a family gift, I found my favorite tv series in one of the stores here and gave it them as a present. I gave them 5 seasons of the tv series 24 along with one of my missionary tags. So, that was awesome and they really liked it. And, to top off the awesome week, we had a White Christmas. We had the baptisms of both Delicia and amalia and all went well with those and it was a great way to finish off a great week. 

The quote for this week comes for the new year. We are all usually setting goals and this is a quote that comes from President Thomas S. Monson. It reads, "When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates." I love this quote and how applicable it is to everything that we do in this life. We must measure what we are doing if we want to get better and we must hold ourselves accountable as to whether or not we achieved what we were going after. Thank you to everyone who wrote me thi last week for Christmas, I hope you all have a great New Years, and I hope to hear from you all soon.

Les Quiero,

Elder Joshua Clarine