Hey Family que tal???

This was a good week. It was not so productive because from like the 23rd to today (the 2nd is a holiday too) most people were either gone or just way drunk and so we had a couple days where we were told to stay in the apartment. But this week will be great. We have a several people that we are going to finish teaching and get ready for baptism and confirmation for the 14th of January. One of them is this girl named Narylla (I think that's how it's spelled...) And she is great. She is excited but just getting a ton of pressure from her Aunt. I guess the Evangelical churches here have a book that just talks about how evil every church is and the aunt gave her this book and she just has tons of questions about every little thing. I just told her, listen Nara, none of this really matters if you don´t believe that the Book of Mormon is true or Jose Smith is a prophet so... any question you have, is answered by whether or not you believe that Jose was a prophet and if the Book of Mormon is true. We haven´t seen her in a couple days because of the fiestas... But we have an appointment with her and her wonderful aunt today at 6. Wish us luck? I am thankful for all your prayers in my behalf and on the behalf of the people I am working with. It just feels good to be working here, and with a companion who wants to work. Also, We are teaching this lady named Ayde (I-day) and she came to church and said she felt really peaceful and a warm feeling in her heart. She has a date for the 14th as well. We are also teaching some awesome families! We set a goal of 7 baptisms this transfer and I hope we accomplish it. There are so many people here and the elders that were here earlier... lets just say, its been a while since the people of Villa del Parque have seen missionaries outside ;)

Yesterday was like a regular Sunday in the sense that there wasn´t a testimony meeting and so Hermano Perez came before the meeting started and asked me to go up and present myself, and if I wanted to impart any council or advice or anything to animate the members, I have about 15 minutes haha. So in about 3 minutes before the Santa Cena, I wrote a few notes and said a little prayer. The first speaker got up and she was great, talked about how we can do service. She really wants to go on a mission and so she talked a ton about mission work. After that it was my turn. As soon as I approach the stand, the microphone starts making that noise like ´´woooooooooooooooooooo´´ and so I back away and it stops and so I come closer and it starts again... So after just standing there smiling at the congregation for a couple seconds, looking like an idiot, I just took the microphone out of the socket and gave a very loud talk haha. I felt like an old school preacher...

This area is way different though. I sit on couches DAILY. So the people are a lot better off here than in Cordón, but they are all just as nice and generous as others. You really can´t get a Mendocino to say yes to letting you help them, and they don´t take no for an answer when they want to sirve you... Really great people here.

Hope you liked those. The elder who got my gift was just like.. ROCKS?? WHO WOULD GIVE A BOX OF ROCKS? hahaha It was way funny because Elder Leany did the same thing. I thought they looked great... At least it was creative. I got a lighter. And then another elder wanted to trade my lighter for his yarn. But I really did not want yarn. So I just gave him the lighter. It was a good party. I ate cow tongue...

I GOT THE PACKAGE! that was awesome. I loved the chocolate and peanut butter. I just ate them together and made reese´s pieces..(sp?)
I can floss again! That was very welcomed. Thank you for the memory stick too! I also got a bunch of letters from Sophie, Brother and Sister Kuta, the Johnson family, an awesome card from the Giler´s and a couple DearElders. Christmas was great :) Thank you all :)

I hope you guys had a great new year. All our neighbors had like military grade fireworks and so that was exciting. I love you all and am praying for you all the time.
Elder Daybell

Hey everybody it was way nice to talk to ALL of you yesterday you all look great and happy and like you are enjoying the holidays. Sorry you guys weren´t able to head out west R and Hope. But it was a perfect Christmas for me to be able to see and ´´be´´ with my whole family. Dad, there really is something to this ´´I only want my family to be happy´´ business haha. I am sending a lot of pictures this week. here we go!

Well this week was a big week. I got transfered to Villa del Parque, Godoy Cruz and its way nice. Its up in the mountains kinda. The buses here are scary. I feel like a little country bumpkin in the big city, I am totally lost haha. But Elder Leany is great and he and I are going to see a lot of miracles here. The ward is alright. The Bishop is just a young guy and wants to put a lot more responsibility on us than what we should have but its okay. I learned a little about that in Cordón. We are going to recommend having a ward council,. and then starting an activities committee, and then getting the members excited about the mission work. Something I learned in Cordón is that it is better to teach a man to fish, so we will be doing a lot to help the ward out, but not to the extent that we are doing everything. Especially now that we aren´t counselors, I want to be able to focus more on finding, teaching and baptizing converts and strengthening members. This area has a lot of potential and there are just a TON of people here!

Well Christmas was great. Being away from my family and friends was different, but I feel like I learned a little bit about myself and God, and more about our relationship. I first learned for myself that I love my family and there is nothing I want more in life than to have a happy, good family. Secondly, I learned that I am never really alone. I felt that way a little bit and wasn´t lonely, but didn´t feel like I had anyone for thousands of miles to be happy with. Feeling down for myself, I remembered that no one on earth has ever been truly alone, except for the Man whose birth we celebrated yesterday. I then felt bouyed up and great love for the Savior. He was born to die, and He died for me, so that through Him I can live again and be with my family forever. Because He traveled a lonely road, completely alienated from everything, even His Father in Heaven for a time, I will never have to. He has given me the promise of being forever happy and never lonely if I choose to follow Him and endure to the end. This is my hope and my joy. I love you guys a ton and I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas.

Elder Daybell.

Okay mom you seriously got to keep doing the ´´hahas´´ they are so funny in your letters! I love them. Do you see why they are so fun? Oh man.

I have a couple items of business first.

1- I am getting transfered this week to Godoy Cruz(zone), Villa del Parque(area). My comp is going to be Elder Layney (I don´t know how to spell it....). I heard he is cool and likes to work and so that is going to be awesome!!!! He was also attacked like a year ago and these drunk guys were trying to rob him and broke a pepsi bottle (glass) over his head and threw a bunch of rocks at him but he said he didn´t feel anything. Miracle? I think yes. I am going to be with a famous missionary! hahaha okay and

2- WE can skype for Christmas!!!! So I hope Lins and Dave have Skype. If not, no biggy, they can download it fo FREE and on Christmas day, I will just call you guys if I can find an open internet place. if not, we are allowed to do it at a members house. I am glad I leaving Cordón for this reason... no one has a computer and there aren´t internet places hahaha...

3- I didn´t eat anything too strange this week... :(

Thats all the big news I think.

This has been a great week. We had interviews with President Avila this last wednesday and that was great. We only do them every other transfer so its been 12 weeks since the last time I got to talk mano a mano haha. He really is called of God to lead this mission. I had a great experience with Him and the Holy Spirit. This made me want to learn more about the gifts of the Spirit and so that is something that I researched a little bit this week. Specifically, the gift of discernment. I have always wondered about that, and I realized that I didn´t really know what it meant. I have come to the conclusion, that it is an available ´´upgrade´´ after we understand how to ask for, recognize, and receive personal revelation. Fortunately, there is a chapter that talks a lot about that in Preach My Gospel and I learned much after reading.

Anyway that is just something that I was thinking about this week. I echo the plea found in Doctrine and Covenants 46:8, ¨seek ye earnestly the best gifts...´´ I know that every good gift comes from Christ, and in light of this Christmas season, I have much to be thankful for. I love you guys and I am so glad you are all going to be together for Christmas this year. This will have been the best Christmas for me since I can remember, knowing that you are all together. It will be better in a couple years when I get to be with you too, but just know that I couldn´t have asked for anything better than this- to be among our Argentine brothers and sisters while my whole family is celebrating together.

We had our branch Christmas party this last Saturday night and it was kind of a disaster. It was supposed to start at 7, but didn´t until 8, and the only priesthood leadership that was able to come was a young, less-active deacon. Our Christmas ´´dinner´´ consisted of the two sodas and facturas that I bought at the store next door and the pork rinds one of the Hermanas brought. The live nativity was great. The primary kids performed wonderfully and presented some of the cutest cows, donkeys and sheep I have ever seen in my life! I hope I didn´t sound whiny in describing the whole event, I did it with a smile and will always remember it in a positive light. Our Savior wasn´t born in a fancy hospital, and there were no professional doctors or nurses to help comfort Mary or Joseph and I would readily confess that the animals that surrounded His nativity weren´t cute and probably more unwelcome than the ones we had. But, the humble attempt of the Cordón Branch to pay homage to the birth of our Redeemer will always be in my heart. I feel that God looked down on that event with gratitude and happiness that His saints would be willing to truly sacrifice to worship His Son.

Anyway, tomorrow I will be spending the day passing by some investigators and then visiting some members in the afternoon and nighttime. It will definitely be hard to say goodbye to them. But the Church is true everywhere you go and I know I will find more saints in my next area.

I am just about to finish the Book of Mormon again. I just got done with 3rd Nephi and the account of Christ´s coming to the Americas has just gotten me more excited for this wonderful season. I love you all and I can´t wait to hear from you next week. Elder Daybell

December 12
hey family! This week was kinda frustrating because we didn´t get a ton done due to illness. Elder Espino had a pretty nasty cold or something a couple days and then we did divisions with the ZL and one of the assisstants and I was in Tupungato. I feel like I haven´t even been in Cordón this week hardly! This is the last week of the transfer and I was hoping to have at least 2 of the 3 Doras and one Marta Delgado baptized this next weekend, but none of them could come to church yesterday so... I don´t know if I will be in Cordón for 6 months so who knows what will happen on the 21st. THAT IS SO AWESOME FOR MIKE DRAUT! I have heard a ton about Cordoba and we actually taught a guy from Cordoba a few months ago. Oh man thats just way awesome. When does he leave? He is going to love it! Tell him to start practicing rolling his rr´s haha. So yesterday the Rama of Cordón del Plata made some serious history. President Fredes (district president) called an EQ president AND a first consejero to President Quiroga! From now on, the missionaries are no longer going to be consejeros! I think we were the last area in the mission to still not have consejeros (I don´t remember how to spell the english word for consejero) so I am way excited about that. This branch has changed a ton since my Sunday here. Now my callings are limited to piano player, branch secretary, and now primary pianist haha! The branch primary program is next sunday and I am stoked! its going to be so good and the primary president asked me to play the ´´we are as the armies of Helaman´´ song. I know that you all are thinking like.. wait was he actually good at piano? And the truth is that... no haha. I am still highly inadequate and my expertise are limited to the Happy Little Donkey from the first level books but... Somehow I manage to hammer out a few right notes every now and then. I have learned so many skills in this branch though. Like basic piano, how to conduct meetings, how to plan meetings, how to call people to speak and how to baptize, confirm, confer and ordain, and give blessings to the sick. I will always love Cordón and I think that the things I have learned just in 4 months here will affect the rest of my life. Lessons on gratitude and humility. On accepting who you are and being happy with what you have. The power of hard work and the numbing damage of complaining.

Since I was given a lot of extra time this week, I decided to read some conference talks from the last several years as well as the scriptures. It was awesome going from talk to talk and finding things that must have been spoken just for my benefit. The leaders of the church certainly are inspired and their words have power for a long time after they are first spoken. I am really grateful for them and the effect they have on me.

Well I don´t really have a lot to say this week. uhhh Next week I will have info on how to call and all that stuff. Love you guys and I hope your getting stoked for Christmas!

Love Elder Daybell

Hey everybody this week was great.

First, the pictures. Today (monday) we had the opportunity to help out a less-active family by mixing and laying a TON of cement. It was way fun. They don´t really use wood here to build stuff. Its almost all cement and brick walls. The people are like... you guys use wood? how do your buildings stay up??? It was way fun though and I got totally covered in it haha. We were up on a roof laying the cement first because a truck came and just poured it all on but when the truck was empty we were still missing a good 1/4 of the roof so we got to make it in the little mixer they had. I imagine you could make some great dough in one of those bad boys. After we had finished mixing one of the loads, I was standing right in front of the mixer and it just decided to fall over for no particular reason but it was all good because I got mostly out of the way haha. Earlier the hermana told me not to get cement on my hands because it would mess them up... Well, her prophecy was correct, only it was the mixer that got them haha. It really wasn´t too bad and my amigo in the picture doctored me up. I know I´m not supposed to say those things, but it really wasn´t that bad. Sorry mom.

Anyway, they fed us after and I don´t know if I was just way hungry or what, but it was SO good. And then it started raining and hailing really hard so I hope there won´t be any problems with the cement. Anyway, today was really great.

Well, I started the New Testament in the MTC and have been reading it pretty slowly up until about two weeks ago. I just flew through Hechos and Romanos, and enjoyed the zeal of Paul in the following books. James and Peter and John taught me some great things, as well as Jude, and I found a wonderful piece of knowledge in Titus (I call that scripture the Anti-Missionary--see if you can find it). Really, I loved reading the Gospels and I learned much from the words of the Savior. I initially decided to read the NT completely because I realized I didn´t know personally many specific teaching of our Lord. I learned so much over the past 5 months in the NT, combined with my reading the D&C, OT, PGP and of course the Book of Mormon. But then I got to the book of Revalations... Which I don´t know.. it was hard to start it. Its the last thing standing between you and the end of the NT. But I decided to get into it and I got all the way through. I have never learned so much in so short a time! It is amazing the things that we will see and experience either on this side or that of the veil. God is not a god of fire and brimstone, but of hope and joy. I know that my Savior will someday wipe all the tears from my eyes, as it says. I also gained a stronger testimony of learning by the Spirit. It really is pure knowledge flowing into you when you elect to learn God´s way. I was greatly blessed this week. Next is Isaiah haha.

This week we had 18 people (including two full families) who said they would come to church. Sunday morning as we walked to each house to look for these people, each one told us why they wouldn´t be able to come today. Walking to church was kind of a downer. But as I took the Sacrament and looked around at the various members, I felt as if a powerful testimony had been born. It was, after all, fast-sunday and many of my brothers and sisters here walked to the pulpit and bore a simple testimony. I thought of Brian, 12 year old, who we recently just baptized and how he had to ride his bike almost 8 miles just to get to church. He was there. I looked at Hermana Cazon, an elderly sister who comes to church every sunday. She can´t read, but feels and believes that the Book of Mormon is true. She was there. Celia, a 14 year old young woman whose mom is decidedly against her membership and the church and who hasn´t been able to attend for almost 2 months- was there. Yea, we had a good flow of members going up to the stand sharing sincere and pure testimony, but every single member there bore testimony that they were willing to take Christ´s name upon them, just because they WERE there! It isn´t easy for anyone in my branch to come to church, whether it be family problems, financial problems, or just getting up on time after a hard week in the fields. I took that for granted for so long, but I am greatful for that experience. I hope that I get to stay here for the holidays. Transfers are on the 21st...

On that note, I am very excited for Christmas. We know that He was not born at this time, but we celebrate His birth at this time. As Christmas is a season of giving, it only makes sense doesn´t it? Our Heavenly Father GAVE us His Son. His Son GAVE us our salvation if we choose to live up to it. He paid the price for the greatest of all the gifts of God. We can never repay Him, but we can show Him that we truly are willing to follow Him by striving to love our neighbors and family.

Anyway, I love you guys and I hope all is well. Its rained almost everyday this week, which I´m told never happens here. It rains like 2 times a year usually.. Anyway... Love ya! Elder Daybell

Hey everyone so this has been the fastest transfer of my life. It really is going by like a whirlwind and before you know it a 1/4 of my mission is already past. I can add my testimony to everyone that says its the fastest two years of your life...

pics

1The sunsetting.. I know i´ve taken a ton of those but the sun going down behind the Andes, shooting the last rays through the clouds is really breathtaking....

2 The cherries are starting to be harvested. There are trees all around and of so many different fruits. If I want cherries, i pick a few on the way, or apples or peaches or pears or walnuts.... (didnt know those grew on trees...) but anyway I ended up eating a whole kilo of cherries. They were really good. I think thats almost 2 lbs. anyhoo...

But anyways thanksgiving was this week. I am sure it was great there. they have enough holidays here so I never feel homesick in that regard haha. Okay. This week on the food report, I ate something new and different. Its called pata de vaca. Which is like all the sinews and parts of the hoof and legs of cows that isn´t meat. It was not bad. Its like salt flavored jello that has been left out too long and is kinda rubbery. It wasn´t bad, but it didn´t change the fact that I had to beg in prayer that I would get through it. And I did, so that was a much appreciated tender mercy. I made a deal with myself that I would try anything that was placed in front of me here because why not? Paul became like the greeks and romans and the other gentiles, so I can become like the Argentines. Or Bolivians haha.

I went on divisions with the new elder in our neighboring area of Tupungato and he is just awesome. He already knows castillano perfectly! It helps that he´s a portaño haha. So it was way fun, we taught 15 lessons and had like 5 news. But it was really fun because we had a competition and the rules were thus: had to place a LdM (20 pts) and 1 of every folleto...(i don´t remember the word but those are the little booklets about the restoration, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, law of chastity, etc.) there are 6 of them. Each was worth 13.333333333333 points and so in total, if you placed a BoM, and all the folletos, you had a 100 pts. Well, I started getting all my easy folletos out of the way by way of just talking to people in the street. The Restoration, Plan of Salvation, and Gospel of Jesucristo are relatively easy to give away because they are some of our fundamental beliefs. The Law of Chastity was fun because a lot of elders (yes, me too) just get way red when they teach someone about it. The Word of wisdom was interesting because this guy I stopped on the street was carrying a crate full of returnable 40 oz beer bottles and smoking something... but I told him about prophets and how through a prophet we have the word of wisdom. He was like Bro I alread have a prophet. Bob Marley maaaaaan. But i saw him later reading the whole thing so I hope it did some good. Okay, now teaching someone about the law of tithing is really hard to do if its not like an established investigator and they are just lock stock and barrel ready for baptism. But we both managed to teach a little bit about commandments and how they are for our benefit and how tithing has always been a commandment. Return appointments with both of those people haha. It was a really good day and we ended up tying because we both handed out every folleto and each placed a Book of Mormon. So we ordered from the Krustyburger to celebrate a little haha. Divisions are fun and miracles always happen. It is also weird that I´m not the greenie anymore. Only as far as like titles go though. I have so much to learn and experience still.

Something I have been thinking about lately is testimony. We know its like any living organism that requires nourishment and care. If it lacks those things, it diminishes until dead. As a sidenote, I believe that any testimony can be replanted again and hearts can change. But I have been studying the words of living prophets in recent conference editions of the Liahona about testimonies and how we gain and maintain them. A common theme I have found is that there are a few requirements to the gaining and maintaining of them. First, you need a desire. God will bless us according to the righteous desires of our hearts and I promise that the desire of gaining a testimony is certainly a worthy desire. This leads to the next step; willingness to work. The Lord will most likely not do for us what we can do for ourselves (True to the Faith: prayer) and so if we take no thought but to ask Him, we probably will not recieve anything (for a testimony is a gift of God). This work involves daily scripture study, constant prayer, desire of course, obedience to the commandments and personal meditation. The next step is to be willing to do something with this gained testimony. We have to be willing to change, or to live the Gospel of Jesus more committedly. Then, if we ask God, with faith in Jesus Christ, and that we can recieve answers to our prayers, we will know by the power of the Holy Ghost anything we want, including the veracity of the First Vision of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, to name a few. And then we have to put it all into practice.

Like it says in John, we can gain a testimony of certain principles like tithing or daily prayer or keeping the sabath day holy by practicing it. I am working on improving my testimony becuase I know it will help me become a more powerful teacher, or in other words, a stronger testimony will help provide the Holy Ghost more to work with, and the message will be taken directly to the heart of those who listen. Anyway, just some thoughts.

I hope you are all happy and good. I can´t wait for Christmas! I started listening to more christmas themed mo'tab now haha. This is going to be a great Christmas. Love you all!

Elder Daybell

Hey Family! okay... first of all, I thought of something I need. STAMPS. good old fashioned american stamps. I am currently using some 44 cent stamps Elder Hancock gave me. They are commemorative Vancouver olympics stamps and famous seamen.... His dad is in the navy or something haha.

And if you could send me a cheap pendrive... that would be awesome because you cant buy more than 8 gb here and its 150!. Pesos. So really only like 36 american dollars... but still. you can buy like a 32 gb for that much in the states... But if not this time, maybe birthday present or next christmas. Also, Elder Packard, the senior missionary dropped by the apartment the other day to install a water filter and told me about an elder whose parents sent him a couple pairs of shoes and its going to cost him almost a 1000 pesos to get out of customs... So like 2 or 300 ish US. But a 1000 looks more impressive. SO he gave me some new tips... Make sure packages are small, not super heavy, and nothing rattles in it. Also make sure the address is written directly on the package somewhere too because they take off the labels sometimes just to spice it up i guess....

Okay anyway. Thank you so much! This week was not so hot. We had so many people tell us they would come to church or commit to something and then chow, nothing happened. I think missionaries and telemarketers are probably the most-lied-to people in the world. But we are selling something so much better! and its free! When people back away from the table of the bread of life and the living waters its because THEY didn´t understand. Elder Lawrence of the 70 told me that if they didn´t understand, its because you didn´t teach well enough. Talk about lighting a fire under you right? Besides that, the week was pretty good. It was elder Espino´s birthday on the 17th. He is 23. hence the 23 on the pancakes I made him! I got up and did about 12 pushups and then started making the batter--from scratch (The flour already has all the baking powder and soda and everything in it so really its pretty easy). I made some pretty big ones and then walked in trying to fit Feliz cumpleanos to the happy birthday song we know and love and he was needless to say, surprised. I left after taking the picture to shower and get ready and when I came back to study like an hour later, there were about 2 bites taken from it. I seriously wasn´t offended or mad or anything. I didn´t know if he even likes sweet stuff because we´ve been together like a week. It was just hard because they were sitting right there and they were way tasty... I took about 1/365th of a pancake every couple of minutes.... I felt weird eating his birthday (pan)cake(s). For lunch that day we had a barbecue on a cookie sheet and a couple of bricks we found in the back yard. It was really good. And yesterday the Diaz family made him a really good cake that we ate for dessert. Very fun.

I ate ubre this week. Its cow utter. Terrible. There wasn´t even any free milk.

We passed by a house the other day because this lady I talked to on the street told us to come by. So we got there and the same 4 little kids were outside playing with some tractor equipment and so we told them to go get there mom. A little girl runs in, and tells her mom that the mormons are here, and then I SEE the woman stick her head out to see, and then quickly go back in. She sends out her other kids to tell us that she isn´t there. I say, could you go ask her where she went? and another little kid runs back ( haha I love doing that) and tells us, she went to Cordón. The first little girl puts on a really serious face and shakes her head no, like to say, ´´its a lie!´´ Oh my goodness I lost it. We both just started laughing so hard. It seriously could have been in a movie. Anyway we left a pamphlet with one of the kids and said we would try another day haha.

Well. I am way excited for Christmas. We don´t have a buffer holiday like Thanksgiving so I am just ready for Christmas instead haha. Plus my comp is not american so we probably won´t celebrate it. I might celebrate by making some rice or buying a Coke. Its really good here. But meat is so expensive! Unless you buy the weird stuff like mondongo or ubre... so... pass. I hope you all know how thankful I am to be here, to have a call to the work, and to have my awesome siblings and parents. My friends are some of the best in the world too. Love you all and hope all is well. Eat too much on my behalf!

Elder Daybell