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Monday, December 5, 2011

hey family,
hows things in the northern hemisphere? cool? fortunately for us, at the beginning of last week, we had a couple days of cool weather.  it was the best.  but anyways just to answer questions right off, as to my whereabouts, there is a bigger town called merlo.  thats the name of my zone also.  we are mas o menos a mile and a half south of that... i think... in parque san martin.  if you really want to get technical, we live on a street called balbastro and close to an intersection of that and ave. 25 de mayo.  there is a small park and firestation at that intersection.  so yeah... if you want to you can google me and maybe find me. 

2nd yeah im getting the ward newsletter.  thanks i love it. 

3rd no i dont think i have any terra shield stuff.  or lemon. 

4th rodrigo...
so we had another charla franka with him and his mom and im not sure how it went.  we all prayed and the spirit was there but i just dont think its going to work out unfortunately.  it breaks my heart though.  its really complicated and stuff and hard to explain... but it ruined my day. 

so we have been focusing on working with members more and it is going pretty well.  we are getting as many references as possible.  its going pretty well.  we still cant seem to get people to come to church.  we are going to focus on that this week.  we did have a good experience i´ll tell you about this week.  we were up working in the top edge of our area, we almost never go up there but we did and visited a member.  the batalla family.  the dad and youngest daughter are active members but noone else in the family is active. we were up there and decided to visit them.  they were all accepting and allowed us leave a thought with them.  the older daughter´s boyfriend was there and was kinda interested so we taught the first lesson.  it went really well and we left him a book of mormon and the others in the family all bore their testimonies.  it was really great.  as we left, the father walked us out.  at the gate he told us how that morning while leaving his house for work, he stopped, went back inside and said a prayer, asking heavenly father for someone to visit him that day because he was just feeling like he couldnt keep going.  with tears in his eyes, he thanked us for being the answer to his prayer. isnt it awesome how much heavenly father loves his children?  he really does.  and he hears and answers our prayers.  thats the message we are bringing to the people.  the sad part is that most of them dont even give us the chance to share that message with them. 

another cool thought, reading in alma 5, somewhere around verse 43 ish i think, alma the younger bears his testimony.  he says that he gained his testimony through much prayer and fasting.  i wish i could cite the exact verse.  sorry but you can find it.  anyways this is the same alma that saw an angel of the lord and has seen these crazy miracles.  but when asked of how he knows of these things for sure, its through much prayer and fasting.  and the thing is is that we can all have the same testimony as alma and the sons of mosiah.  our miracles and answers are only as great as our faith.

we are really trying to get people to come to church this week.  we are this close to getting a baptism but we just seem to fall barely short every time.  its killing me.  this week though, im speaking in sacrament meeting.  that should be interesting.  i dont know what im going to talk on yet but im scared.  oh well.  it should be good.  also im just kinda the pianist in sacrament meeting now... so thats cool.  i cant even play himns... but yeah. im doing my best.  i cant really practice though. thats the thing. i played god speed the right this week. 
So also this week i invented something amazing... jared knows what empanadas are but i made dessert empanadas.  noone ive met has ever heard of such a concept.  i made the empanada dough but instead of salt i used sugar, then i but dulce de leche, strawberries, bananas, and kiwis in it.  we then whipped our own cream and put it on top after we fried them.  they are delicious and im going to make millions off of them mark my words. 

in other good news, we had about 2 days of cooler weather this week.  it rained really hard.  oh yeah also i did divisions with a latin elder who didnt speak english.  that went pretty well actually.  we had some good conversations and stuff.  there was even one time where i forgot i was speaking castellano.  i got all excited and stuff but he just thought i was weird.  anyways castellano is coming along nicely.  i also thought it was cool how they fit 4 people on one bike... 4´s a crowd... im curious as to how they started... kinda interesting...  oh yeah... other kinda bummer news is that they are changing things, missionaries are going to be in their areas for like 7-8 transfers!  thats about one year!  that means i´ll probably only have 2 areas my whole mission :(   i think it is good though that you can work in your area and see it progress and stuff.  but yeah...

anyways so jakes birthday is this week right?  Happy Birthday bro!!!!!!!  14 is pretty lagit.  im going to be honest though, i cant remember exactly what day it is... i wanna say the 10th? 12th? 6th? i get your birthday, joseph smiths, and pearl harbor all mixed up...  so im sorry my memory stinks and i cant remember stuff good... but i know you´re turning 14! yay! i also heard you´re doing sick in basketball!  I hope you have an awesome birthday and people are nice to you on your birthday.  you cant kiss girls til your 21 though...
anyways my time is up i gotta go.  too bad i was at a conference for all of pday and i didnt get anything done. that kinda stinks. oh well.  i hope everyone is doing well.  i love you and set up the christmas tree for me and send pics :) k byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Love you all!
Elder skousen
 thanksgiving (sweaty as heck... kinda gross...)

 the obelisk

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