It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

(Emailed to Friends)
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Not here though.  Still a solid 80 degrees every day!  But it's starting to feel like Christmas and that's what matters.  Sorry if that was really cheesy.

Anyways, quick, hard week.  They're all starting to blend together.  Not sure if that's a good thing or not.  I really don't know!

Quick overview of the week:

Monday - taught a lesson.  Taught Maricela.  She's probably like 70 years old, but really understands what we're teaching.  She has a bad leg though and can't make it to church.  Rough.  We'll keep working with her.

Tuesday - normal day in the mission.  Lessons.  Nothing too spectacular.

Wednesday - meetings with the zone and district.  Last one of this transfer so lots of pictures.  And we had to bring our area book so spent a good amount of time the day before, ya know, actually doing something in it.  A ward missionary left with us to some lessons after.  It went well.

Villa Mella Zone

District - Potokar, Stephens, Ventura, Romero, Decker, Pena

Elder Rodriquez, Mocada, Pres Corbitt, Romero, Potokar

The missionary on the left is Elder Rodriquez.  He's my older brother in the mission.  He's an excellent missionary.

Thursday - Mission tour with President Corbitt (mission pres) and President Cornish (President of the Caribbean, of the Seventy).  Way awesome.  I don't think I got the full significance of what they taught because it was in Spanish, but really awesome.  Elder Cornish knows a TON.  Like a lot a lot.  It was incredible to listen to him teach.  We talked about the atonement and he went deeper into it than I've ever heard anyone here.  I think a lot of the time the seventies don't get as much respect in comparison to the apostles, but they all know an insane amount of doctrine.  Some of the most Christ like, humble people on the planet.  After we ran to the temple store, and taught a few lessons.  I said hi to Miranda Fielding at the MTC so that was cool!

Friday - we taught a guy who's been coming to church activities for a while, but never has come to church.  I think we can get him to baptism eventually though, so no worries.

Saturday - found another family, we'll see if they'll progress.  We also taught Antonio, a 70 year old man from Columbia.  He's reading everything we give him really fast, we just need to work with him to get him to church.

Sunday - had 3 investigators at church.  Part of the family Dilone (Nicolas's family.  Everyone, but him) and another investigator we found.  Here they do a primary program right before Christmas.  It was on the articles of faith.  I love watching the little kids.  I really enjoyed that.  After we taught Carolina Renoso, the daughter of a member.  She's married and has two kids.  Her husband is inactive.  She took all the missionary lessons, but couldn't get baptized because she worked on Sunday and wasn't married, but lived with her husband.  Now she doesn't have either of those problems.  Should be a fairly easy baptism.

Today - easy going day.  A guy came and fixed some stuff in our house.  Awesome.  We ate as a district for the last time.  Bout it.

And about Transfers.  We found out last night.  I'm staying with Elder Romero for another transfer.  Elder Ventura is changing though.  We're going to have Elder Paw, from Hawaii in our house.  He has about 8 months in the mission.  I actually talked to him for a minute at the mission tour.  Seems like a really good guy.  Should be fun.  Elder Romero is going to be our DL too.  That worries me a bit because he's kind of forgetful, but I'll help him along.

I also found Marcos in an Ensign this week.  May 2010 Ensign.  I pretty much freaked out when I saw it.  So shout out to Elder Ninataype for being famous.

 

We had hot chocolate a few times this week.  Weird since it was still hot outside, but was amazing.  Really enjoyed that.

And ya.  I think that was pretty much the week.  Fun stuff.  My birthday is next pday, so I think we'll do something fun for that.  I'm looking forward to skyping next week with the fam.

Have a great week everyone!  Love ya lots.
Elder Easton Potokar.

(Emailed to Family)
Honestly, just kind of a normal week.  I felt a ton better this week.  Physically, and emotionally.  I felt more like myself and less depressed.  It was awesome.  I'll put up my list from the week.

Still stinking at writing in my journal.  Don't think I've done it for like a week.

I wasn't able to buy the study stuff I wanted.  They only had it in Spanish, and it's a little too in-depth for my Spanish vocab.

I made my new agenda for the next transfer.  Uploaded pics of it too.

 

I tried to stay positive this week and it really helped me out.  I honestly just felt a lot better.  I set some goals for this transfer, and for who I want to be at the end of my mission today.  Took a solid hour or hour and a half to do it.  I think it'll help me stay positive.

It's cooling down here.  It's like the summers at home I think haha.  It's bearable and I don't sweat as much now.  Still way hot during the midday though.

I did get another package.  I got it from the office during the mission tour and then dragged it all the way to the temple and through the metro haha.  It was a 10 pounder too.  Wowza.  Fun stuff.  I was worried I was going to get transferred and have to take it with me, but I'm in good shape in regards to that.  While walking to the metro with it, I had it in front of me and I didn’t see a short little post.  It hit the package and jammed it into my gut haha.  It was pretty funny.  I had no idea that post was there.

Skype.  I think and am actually pretty sure I'll be able to use Skype.  If you could make an account for me and all that that'd be awesome.  Also around what time would you want to Skype?

Funny story from this week.  We were walking down the street and these crazy eveangelitcos were have a crazy sermon outside and they all eyed us down while we walked by and then these nuns walked by in the other direction and it was like a three way stare down.  Haha I felt like a fight was going to break out.

I accidentally broke my clock yesterday.  Went to snooze it and knocked it off my dresser.  I'm going to use the analog one.  We usually have the fan on at night so it's good.  I don’t' hear it at all.

Speaking of which our AC has been disconnected.  We've been using too much power so they shut it off.  They screwed up our power when they did it so we didn't have any power in our kitchen.  We moved our fridge and washer and microwave to the living room, but there's only one outlet there so we had to switch them in and out when we wanted to use something.  The mission handyman came today and fixed everything though.  I still think we don't have AC, but everything else works again.  He fixed our toilet too which leaked so we had to bucket flush. Really nice. (Does the guy that comes and fixes things in your apartment a member? Or does the mission hire him?) He works for the mission.  He was a missionary here actually.  This is the second time he came.  It's a wonderful day when he comes.

They have a mission newsletter with all of the birthdays.  So everyone knows when they are.  Ventura is moving to Moncada's house now, so we talked about all going to Megocentro next week for my birthday. That'd be fun.

We were at the family Baez’s house yesterday.  He's missing one leg and is in a wheelchair.  She was talking about how when he had Chikungunya his leg was huge - and then said it was that leg, because the other one isn't there.  And then he lifted up his half leg and set it back down.  I don’t' know why, but I found that pretty funny.  I had to stifle my laugh quite a bit haha.

Joints are fine.  I still feel tired at times, but I think that's more just form the work.  That's about it physically though.

I think we'll get to go to the temple again in January.  I think it's usually the month after the mission tour.

Also Elder Bateman is getting transferred to be a finance clerk.  I did splits with him once.  I don't know who our other ZL is going to be.

(I was going to tell you Garrett Bingham got the math sterling scholar.) That's awesome!  Tell him congrats from me.  Let me know how they do going on to the next competitions.  Who won some of the others?

Got to decorate the house a bit. Elder Decker took over with me and we did it one morning.That tree with the presents was actually one that was already in the house.  The one you guys sent me is the one against the wall.  Haha it is pretty small, but better than nothing.  Far better than nothing.

 

(Do you have any plans for Christmas yet?) We don’t' have any plans.  We're hoping some members invite us over for dinner, but we might have to ask them.  I know we do work on Christmas, but I've heard lots of people will be drunk or out of town.  I don’t' expect it'll be a very productive day.

We committed Nicolas's family to live the WOW (Word of Wisdom) this week.  That was pretty cool for me.  I enjoy teaching the commandments and committing people to living them because that's when the blessings will start coming in. (How is the Dilone family coming?) They are going to church.  The mom, and the two daughters came to church, but the dad was sick or something.  The mom is pushing to come to the ward dinner on Wednesday too which is awesome.  They committed to living the WOW too.  That was an awesome lesson.  Still haven't accepted a baptism date, but they'll get there.  We need to talk about the law of chastity though and talked about marriage.  I don't know if they want to be married, so that could be a problem. We've been really patient with them so far.  Haven't taught the lessons too fast.  We'll keep working with them.  That's a huge step in their life so we'll give them time.

Honestly, Paula and Victor were golden.  They really didn't have any problems, we just taught them and that was it.  I'm probably going to miss them the most from our area.

Other investigators who have potential to be baptized.  Maricela.  I talked about her a bit in my general email.

Mon.  He's been coming to church activities, but not church.  Has lots of friends in the church and sometimes that’s half the battle.

Nicole.  She's been coming to church with her cousin for like 5 months and says it's really changed her already.  Just need to help her get a testimony and that's about it.

(Did they feed you lunch or anything at the mission tour?) We did have lunch there.  They even had leftovers and we took like all the rice.  They were handing out the rice to everyone, we just took the most. Like 7 Ziploc bags full of it.  We had that rice for lunch for the next three days.  Carried us through the end of the allowance.

During lunch Cornish had a Q and A about church doctrine.  He knows a lot.  I don't think I got the significance of it there because it was in Spanish, but really amazing.  Really amazing.  President Corbitt also talked a lot on Thursday about the spiritual potential of this country.  Like the people here are raised believing in God a ton, and can really grow in the gospel really fast.  But Satan has attacked here really hard with the law of chastity, especially with the missionaries.  He said that he felt that before, and now knows it’s true.  I thought that was very interesting and very true.

Elder Paw seems like a great guy.  I talked to him for a few minutes at the mission tour.  He has two more transfers than me (he's in Elder Romero's group) and one less than Elder Decker.  A very young house mission wise.  He's seems really laidback and really loving.  Like a Hawaiian.  That's about all I know. Decker is now senior companion.  That gives us someone with 10, 8, 7, and 5 months in our house.  And then Elder Stephens and Pena have 12 and 7 months as well.  Very young district.  Pretty awesome in my opinion. I'm pretty close to Elder Decker.

We also got shots at the mission tour for influenza or something like that.  I just marched up, got it, and ya.  Like no hesitations.  It was like 10 seconds long too.  They didn’t' do it too quick.  I was pretty proud of it! Haha (Easton dreads getting a flu shot every year!)

I come home dead at night.  We walk tons and we walk fast.  I never have (*knock on wood) problems getting to sleep.

I set some daily goals for the transfer.  New words, BOFM pages to read, etc.  Let me know if you have any more ideas for some daily ones.  My problem is there are lots of good little ones so I'll set tons of them, but then don't have time to do them all.  I worked on taking it easier this time though.

I was happy this week and it felt great.  Hopefully it stays and last for a while!  I pray a lot that it will.

I believe that's all for this week. Please ask if there's any more questions.  Thanks for the Jazz news too.  Made my day! Sent my Christmas letters home too.  You can open them - everything is individually wrapped.

Love you lots.  Looking forward to next week and Christmas!  Miss you tons.
Love, Elder Easton Potokar.