Hello family and friends!
Well hopefully Ill be able to make up for the short letters from the past couple weeks. This week has gone by way way fast, full of lots of things.First Ill answer some of moms questions:What council did the mission pres give you for your new area?nothing, haha open your mouth and speak with everyone and use the presidents son that just got back from chile about 2 weeks agoDid you teach a lot of people this week?yes and no, ill explainWhat are the families like in the branch?its basically one family (the presidents family) with their kids and then the Elders quorem pres and just random single older people, but sunday there were only like 15 of us so its very very small.Did the Mission Pres feel that you had helped strengthen Villa Deloris?I havent talked to him about it, but i felt like the members there thought that i helped alot. At least Pres Zelada made it sound that way. Alright here is the week.Monday: we had P-day with the whole zone in a city called Villa Maria. We played football and it was a blast. Then we had our tranferrly Zone mtg and then we came home (a day with almost no time to work)Tuesday:We spent the morning knocking doors and a very nice lady probably in her late 20s let us come in quickly and share the message of the restoration. She seems to like it alot, but she isnt there very much so we havent been able to find her home since. We also found another very nice lady but the same thing has happened with her, that she is never there. One of the hard things here is the people wont let you make appointments with them and usually if you do they end up not being there. We had lunch with the presidents family and then during the night pretty much all of our plans dropped through so we spent time looking for more people.Wed: we had a few new converts that we tried to go by but as well werent able to find them. so again we spent time knocking doors. In the afternoon we had an appointment with the presidents daughter who isnt a member. She lives with a guy that doesnt want to get married and she has a couple other problems but now that her brother has returned from his mission she seems to have a desire to change. We are working with her on building her faith so that she will be able to change her life around little by little (she came to church on sunday). Then spent the night visiting people with the presidents son (david).Thurs: in the morning we spent the whole morning cutting the lawn at the church. I think a toy lawn mower might have worked faster haha. It was an electric one that the missionaries have burnt out a few times so it has about 0 power so you have to go extra slow. In the afternoon we tried to go by those ladies that i told you about without any success and spent the night again doing visits with David.Fri: In the morning we took a bus to Villa Maria to have our district mtg and then we did exchanges (I went with Elder Oliphant in their area and his comp and mine came back here). It was so fun to work with Elder Oliphant again. it has been almost a year since we were comps and he was so impressed with my progress. We were able to teach a ton of great people. We asked this one girl for an address and then told her we would be back to teach her and her mom in a few minutes. When we came back the moms friend was there and the girls friend. The mom said she was fighting with god right now but her daughter could listen. We taught a very good lesson about the restoration and by the end the mom had changed a 100 percent. it was so fun to see. I could really see at least 3 of them being baptized with in the next 2 months.sat: In the morning we went to a few appointments and then to lunch. After lunch we came back to my area and we had time till their bus went back so i took advantage of that. I sent his comp with mine again to a couple appointments and Elder Oliphant and i went to a branch council mtg.Sun: I got to give the gospel doctrine class which i ran out of time giving. Then we both had to give talks. Mine was about Commitment (it was a very weird subject). In the afternoon we tried to find some lost members but they werent very receptive, but we were able to find a good family that didnt have time to listen to us so we are going to go back during the week.Mon: today we cleaned the pension alot and were going to go shopping but we havent gotten money yet so we are living on rice :). Its hard to be in areas were you have to travel so much and you dont have enough money for everything. I hope everyone has a great week and I hope dad and steph will get better and not be sick. I hope everyone enjoys conference! Im so excited for it! I cant believe its already here, It feels like we just watched it.Love you all!
Elder Veenker
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
3/16/09 Letter
well i typed pretty much this whole letter yesterday in the church but this computer wont open it so you dont get a daily report of everything just the highlightsthis week was AMAZING!!! we had so many great experiences. and o yes i am in a new area, las varillas, it is on the oposite side of the city of cordoba. i woke up at 2:45 this morning to go to cordoba and then got a bus to villa maria and then met my comp there and then we just got here to this area. it is a very very small area with about 10 active people. you can walk from one side of the area to the other in less than a half of an hour so it is definitely different than villa dolores. my comp is from georgia and his name is elder zuluaga (his dad is from columbia). his has been in the mission for about 8 months.anyways here is the great weekwed:pres olsen came to interview us as well as our baptisms. it was a great experience and he was very impressed with jorgelina and juan carlos. they both were very anxious and happy. After they got interviewed he interviewed each one of us.most of the week we spent inviting people to come to the baptism.sat: we prepared the church and the font in the morning and then had the baptism in the afternoon at about 5. when jorgelina got there she told us that friday night she lost her job and the guy that she takes care of said a bunch of mean things so she left and went with the family that lives out by her, but she was still so so so positive and full of faith. the baptisms were awesome!! they both asked me to baptize them and the spirit was so strong there. My comp gave a talk about baptism before the baptisms and jorgelina said while she was listening she saw a light around my comp, but when he moved the light stayed there and she could see people dressed all in white behind him. it looks like she has alot of people on the other side watching out for her and helping her. after the baptism we had brownies and cookies that i had made and everyone couldnt stop talking about them.Sun:we did the confirmations and juan asked me to confirm him which surprised him cause i just figured that he would ask my comp to do it. the meeting was very very spiritual. after the mtg i had to say goodbye to jorgelina because they had to leave and i knew i wouldnt be able to go out and say goodbye to them. she was very emotional and said she would never forget what i had taught her. i can tell she has changed a ton from the gospel.mon: we got transfers in the nighttues: had lunch with quevedo for the last time and then had a lesson with juan carlos and said goodbye to him. the branch organized a surprise going away party for me but someone spoiled it because a member stopped me in the street and asked me what time the party was at. anyways it was very hard to leave everyone, i really have grown to love them alot. it looks like we will have a ton of hard work ahead of us here in this area too. elder oliphant (my second comp) is my district leader here (2 hrs aways, its another very spread out zone) anyways thats all i have time for today sorry i will try to write more on monday. sounds like it was a great experience with elder jensen. he is a great teacher isnt he. it was a great experience to get to meet him a few weeks ago. supposably in may something exciting will be happening here in cordoba because elder zivic said he had already received an assignment to come back in may.thanks for everything!
love
Elder Veenker
love
Elder Veenker
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
3/909 Letter
Dear Family and Friends
What a week. Dad that is some pretty crazy news. I bet you will do great! Katie and Doug Im so excited for you guys! I was so happy to get a letter from mya telling me the great news.Lots of people asked about how my comp is. He is doing just fine now, his knee stopped hurting and all is well. They took out the stitches on Friday and he will definitely have a few nice scars to tell about but the one his forehead is healing up very nicely.Just so you know this next monday there wont be an email cause we will be having transfers on next wed. Eventhough I thought I would be leaving this area last transfer it is almost certain that I will leave this transfer. It is sad to think that there are alot of these people that I will never see again in this life.This saturday we are planning on having 2 baptisms of Jorgelina and Juan Carlos. They will have their interviews on Wed from Pres Olsen when he comes to do our transferly interviews.anyways here is the weekMonday: we had to go by the Rojas Family and tell them that we cant come by until they start progressing and attending church. That was really sad because we have become great friends and sometimes that is a problem. Brother Quevedo is there friend and he passed by during the week and he said that they were pretty sad about it, but they still didnt come to church.Tues: we spent most of the morning preparing the church for a branch baptism that they had that night. and then went and knocked a bunch of doors trying to find some new investigators. After lunch we went back to the church to turn off the font so it wouldnt over flow and then we had the baptism.Wed: We went to Merlo and did Exchanges there with the Elders there to see how they are doing. After that we had district mtg and then on the way back we stopped by Jorgelina to talk to her about the baptism because she didnt know if she was ready. We went through the interview questions and felt good about those so she decided that she is going to get baptized saturday.Thurs:Spent the whole morning knocking doors and trying to find more people, but we arent having very good luck. Nobody wants to open up for just a couple minutes to listen. We had lunch with the pres and the tello family and then had to go over to the church to teach Juan Carlos. He is so ready to get baptized and be a member. He just fits right in and feels so comfortable in the church. He will be a great missionary in a year or two. After that we went by a few members trying to get some references and then tried to find more people.Fri:Went to the hospital in the morning to get the stitches out of Elder Linebacks head and then had lunch with Quevedos. After lunch we tried to go by a few inactive members but everyone was sleeping the siesta. In the afternoon we spent more time knocking doors and talking with people.Saturday:I woke up feeling really sick to my stomach, but we still went out and worked and then had lunch. A member gave us a reference of a lady that is very interested but lives about hr aways ,but we are still going to go out there. We have found there are a lot more people that want to listen the further aways from the city we get. In the afternoon my comp taught an english class in the church while Pres Zelada and I cut the grass, this time not with sciccors but with what looks like a toy lawn mower that you have to plug in. After cutting the grass my comp and I went to San Javier to Jorgelinas for her little boys b-day party. He asked her earlier in the weeks if the missionaries could come. He really looks up to us. He is pretty shy and doesnt say much too us but you can tell he admires us. When they were taking pictures she asked him is he wanted one with us and he just about jumped out of his shoes to say yes. I made brownies and everyone loved them!! There were a lot of really nice people there that we got to talk with and make good friends. I hope we can invite them to the baptism this week and theyll come cause I told them they needed to try my cookies so we are going to use that to try and hook them into coming :).Sun: Had a normal day in church with hardly any people (20 of us). After church my comp got sick and just wanted to rest so we werent able to work in the afternoon. I cant believe how fast the weeks go by. Anyways thanks for everything
Love
Elder Veenker
What a week. Dad that is some pretty crazy news. I bet you will do great! Katie and Doug Im so excited for you guys! I was so happy to get a letter from mya telling me the great news.Lots of people asked about how my comp is. He is doing just fine now, his knee stopped hurting and all is well. They took out the stitches on Friday and he will definitely have a few nice scars to tell about but the one his forehead is healing up very nicely.Just so you know this next monday there wont be an email cause we will be having transfers on next wed. Eventhough I thought I would be leaving this area last transfer it is almost certain that I will leave this transfer. It is sad to think that there are alot of these people that I will never see again in this life.This saturday we are planning on having 2 baptisms of Jorgelina and Juan Carlos. They will have their interviews on Wed from Pres Olsen when he comes to do our transferly interviews.anyways here is the weekMonday: we had to go by the Rojas Family and tell them that we cant come by until they start progressing and attending church. That was really sad because we have become great friends and sometimes that is a problem. Brother Quevedo is there friend and he passed by during the week and he said that they were pretty sad about it, but they still didnt come to church.Tues: we spent most of the morning preparing the church for a branch baptism that they had that night. and then went and knocked a bunch of doors trying to find some new investigators. After lunch we went back to the church to turn off the font so it wouldnt over flow and then we had the baptism.Wed: We went to Merlo and did Exchanges there with the Elders there to see how they are doing. After that we had district mtg and then on the way back we stopped by Jorgelina to talk to her about the baptism because she didnt know if she was ready. We went through the interview questions and felt good about those so she decided that she is going to get baptized saturday.Thurs:Spent the whole morning knocking doors and trying to find more people, but we arent having very good luck. Nobody wants to open up for just a couple minutes to listen. We had lunch with the pres and the tello family and then had to go over to the church to teach Juan Carlos. He is so ready to get baptized and be a member. He just fits right in and feels so comfortable in the church. He will be a great missionary in a year or two. After that we went by a few members trying to get some references and then tried to find more people.Fri:Went to the hospital in the morning to get the stitches out of Elder Linebacks head and then had lunch with Quevedos. After lunch we tried to go by a few inactive members but everyone was sleeping the siesta. In the afternoon we spent more time knocking doors and talking with people.Saturday:I woke up feeling really sick to my stomach, but we still went out and worked and then had lunch. A member gave us a reference of a lady that is very interested but lives about hr aways ,but we are still going to go out there. We have found there are a lot more people that want to listen the further aways from the city we get. In the afternoon my comp taught an english class in the church while Pres Zelada and I cut the grass, this time not with sciccors but with what looks like a toy lawn mower that you have to plug in. After cutting the grass my comp and I went to San Javier to Jorgelinas for her little boys b-day party. He asked her earlier in the weeks if the missionaries could come. He really looks up to us. He is pretty shy and doesnt say much too us but you can tell he admires us. When they were taking pictures she asked him is he wanted one with us and he just about jumped out of his shoes to say yes. I made brownies and everyone loved them!! There were a lot of really nice people there that we got to talk with and make good friends. I hope we can invite them to the baptism this week and theyll come cause I told them they needed to try my cookies so we are going to use that to try and hook them into coming :).Sun: Had a normal day in church with hardly any people (20 of us). After church my comp got sick and just wanted to rest so we werent able to work in the afternoon. I cant believe how fast the weeks go by. Anyways thanks for everything
Love
Elder Veenker
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
3/2/09 Pictures
(the letter for this week will be posted soon my email is being mean to me and won't let me get to it so keep checking back and it will be here soon.)
2/23/09
Sorry this is a little late of a post but here it is.
Well it sounds like mom and dad are the only ones that really care about getting my letters every monday since they were the only ones that wrote me after not getting anything yesterday. O well, at least they love me.I forgot last week that yesterday we were going to have a mission conference in Cordoba, so Sunday night we had to make the 5 hr bus ride back into cordoba. We stayed with the elders that are work in the offices and I got to sleep on top of a bunch of Boxes of Books of Mormon (very comfortable. . .not). We had a member the Pres of the Seventy come and speak to us, Elder Jensen, and also another member of the Seventy Elder Zivic. They gave way way good talks and made it very interactive. Elder Jensen talked alot about the power that is in The Word, and also about how sometimes the missionaries get inbetween God and the Investigators, or the investigators look to us more as god and dont really seek out the real answer. Thats when we end up having "Eternal Investigators". He also talked about how we need to get out of that line as soon as possible and gave us a few suggestions on how. Overal it was a great conference. I was able to say goodbye to my trainer that will be going home in 3 weeks, Which is crazy cause I swear I was just with him and he had only been in the mission for a year.This week has been a good week full of alot of good flat out hard work.Tues: the zone leaders came as well as our district to have our district mtg and then the zone leaders were going to do exchanges but they didnt have time so they just called it good. So the rest of the day we just worked trying to find new people and inviting members to an activity that we had on friday.Wed: We had a lesson with Juan Carlos about the Word of Wisdom and he says he already lives it, haha he even doesnt drink caffine, its amazing how the Lord really is preparing so many people and when he prepares them he does it very well. That night we had our mtg with the Presidency.Thurs: Was THE HOTTEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!! It got up to about 120 degrees. My comp got a little bit of heat stroke so we tried to spend alot of the day in doors, but we had to walk alot because where we worked was about a 45 min walk from the pension and thats where we had lunch too. haha mom I dont know what you would have thought about this kitchen. We were sitting there eating and this girl comes to the door and needs some gas for her scooter so the lady goes over to the shelf (in the kitchen) and gets the gas can and pours her some gas right there in the kitchen, I just had to smile and remember all those times that mom told me the kitchen wasnt a garage or a work bench.Fri: I think the temp drop about 40 degrees. It was a great day probably a high of about 85 so we were able to work really hard and found some good people to teach. We stopped this one guy and we taught him the first lesson and how to pray. He said how do you pray, can you pray where ever? I told him yes and we said a prayer right there in the street. After lunch we went to San Javier to teach Jorgelina. We taught her about the Law of Chasity and she accepted it very openly. She told us the other day she left her little boy with the old man that she takes care of, and when she got back the little four yr old boy was sitting there teaching the man out of the pamphlets that we use. She says he definitely will be a missionary when he is older.Sat: In the afternoon we had an activity for the branch. We did a night at the theater and watched a movie (madagascar 2). Everyone really enjoyed it and asked to have another one next week to invite all their friends to it.Sun: I gave a talk. I´ve decided they must like listening to me cause the first speaker always leaves me with about 30 mins to talk. This week sister Quevedo gave a talk for the first time in probably 4-5 yrs. It was great, but she still left me alot of time. I talked about the Great Value of Our Message and how many members dont realize it. I shared a few conversion stories from the book of mormon and showed how after every really conversion, they always have a great desire to share it with others. Then I shared a quote from Elder Bednar´s talk from April where it says that members are fulltime finders and missionaries are full time teachers ( I LOVE THAT QUOTE ). Then we went to Cordoba that night. Mom I got your package and also Wendy´s. Thank you to both of you!!! I LOVED the Root beer and Maple Surup. We made pancakes and maple surup the other day and everyone loved it. I also love the ties and the football! thanks for everything!At the conference I got some really good news. Some of the investigators from my last area got baptized. And the Gonzalez family finally got their papers to get married so now they have to do it.O another cool fact I found out last week. My comp has a step counter that he wears every day and in one year in this mission we walk over 2000 Miles!!! That means in the last year I have put more miles on my feet that I put on my snowmobile in 3 seasons of riding!!! Pretty crazy huh? and I thought I rode a lot.Anyways have a great week I love you all!!
Love,
Elder Veenker
Well it sounds like mom and dad are the only ones that really care about getting my letters every monday since they were the only ones that wrote me after not getting anything yesterday. O well, at least they love me.I forgot last week that yesterday we were going to have a mission conference in Cordoba, so Sunday night we had to make the 5 hr bus ride back into cordoba. We stayed with the elders that are work in the offices and I got to sleep on top of a bunch of Boxes of Books of Mormon (very comfortable. . .not). We had a member the Pres of the Seventy come and speak to us, Elder Jensen, and also another member of the Seventy Elder Zivic. They gave way way good talks and made it very interactive. Elder Jensen talked alot about the power that is in The Word, and also about how sometimes the missionaries get inbetween God and the Investigators, or the investigators look to us more as god and dont really seek out the real answer. Thats when we end up having "Eternal Investigators". He also talked about how we need to get out of that line as soon as possible and gave us a few suggestions on how. Overal it was a great conference. I was able to say goodbye to my trainer that will be going home in 3 weeks, Which is crazy cause I swear I was just with him and he had only been in the mission for a year.This week has been a good week full of alot of good flat out hard work.Tues: the zone leaders came as well as our district to have our district mtg and then the zone leaders were going to do exchanges but they didnt have time so they just called it good. So the rest of the day we just worked trying to find new people and inviting members to an activity that we had on friday.Wed: We had a lesson with Juan Carlos about the Word of Wisdom and he says he already lives it, haha he even doesnt drink caffine, its amazing how the Lord really is preparing so many people and when he prepares them he does it very well. That night we had our mtg with the Presidency.Thurs: Was THE HOTTEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!!! It got up to about 120 degrees. My comp got a little bit of heat stroke so we tried to spend alot of the day in doors, but we had to walk alot because where we worked was about a 45 min walk from the pension and thats where we had lunch too. haha mom I dont know what you would have thought about this kitchen. We were sitting there eating and this girl comes to the door and needs some gas for her scooter so the lady goes over to the shelf (in the kitchen) and gets the gas can and pours her some gas right there in the kitchen, I just had to smile and remember all those times that mom told me the kitchen wasnt a garage or a work bench.Fri: I think the temp drop about 40 degrees. It was a great day probably a high of about 85 so we were able to work really hard and found some good people to teach. We stopped this one guy and we taught him the first lesson and how to pray. He said how do you pray, can you pray where ever? I told him yes and we said a prayer right there in the street. After lunch we went to San Javier to teach Jorgelina. We taught her about the Law of Chasity and she accepted it very openly. She told us the other day she left her little boy with the old man that she takes care of, and when she got back the little four yr old boy was sitting there teaching the man out of the pamphlets that we use. She says he definitely will be a missionary when he is older.Sat: In the afternoon we had an activity for the branch. We did a night at the theater and watched a movie (madagascar 2). Everyone really enjoyed it and asked to have another one next week to invite all their friends to it.Sun: I gave a talk. I´ve decided they must like listening to me cause the first speaker always leaves me with about 30 mins to talk. This week sister Quevedo gave a talk for the first time in probably 4-5 yrs. It was great, but she still left me alot of time. I talked about the Great Value of Our Message and how many members dont realize it. I shared a few conversion stories from the book of mormon and showed how after every really conversion, they always have a great desire to share it with others. Then I shared a quote from Elder Bednar´s talk from April where it says that members are fulltime finders and missionaries are full time teachers ( I LOVE THAT QUOTE ). Then we went to Cordoba that night. Mom I got your package and also Wendy´s. Thank you to both of you!!! I LOVED the Root beer and Maple Surup. We made pancakes and maple surup the other day and everyone loved it. I also love the ties and the football! thanks for everything!At the conference I got some really good news. Some of the investigators from my last area got baptized. And the Gonzalez family finally got their papers to get married so now they have to do it.O another cool fact I found out last week. My comp has a step counter that he wears every day and in one year in this mission we walk over 2000 Miles!!! That means in the last year I have put more miles on my feet that I put on my snowmobile in 3 seasons of riding!!! Pretty crazy huh? and I thought I rode a lot.Anyways have a great week I love you all!!
Love,
Elder Veenker
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