No Bacon

K, so by way of announcment, this computer underlines all my words in red.. it gets on your nerves. I know I'm spelling these right-more or less-but the computer thinks it knows better. That wasn't actually my announcement. My announcment was that I will be calling you guys on the 24th, I can use Skype or Hagout I hear is good.. I would rather use skype, but if the computer can't handle it over here maybe you guys should get a hangout account¿ I dunno. Also, you wont know the hour of my calling. At least not exactly, somewhere around 5 my time, I'm not sure how to convert so you guys will have to figure it out.. 

Anyways, lets get down to the nitty gritty: there is no bacon here. I looked everywhere. Meat meat everywhere, but nary a slice of bacon. I had to special order it from the meat shop, its close, but not quite bacon. Once I get the lang down I can make my bacon more specific, but for now I'll have to make do. 

Lets see, also everyone here hugs, a hug is just about the equivalent of a handshake in the US. And I recieved lots of kisses too. A person in the US that would hug you is a person here that gives you a kiss-not on the lips. So pretty much as far as physical affection goes, everything is a step up. I pretty much only shake hands with girls, and I have to make it a point to. They go in for the hug or kiss and I have to stick out my hand awkwardly. I love it. Everyone is pretty open with their feelings, not that I can really tell since I don't understand much...

Speaking of not understanding much I had a nice lesson the other day.. We were invited in by a guy to share a message about Christ since its Christmas and we asked him what Christmas meant to him-after I told him it was a time for family to get together for me-and he started crying. Then he told about how someones mom-I assumed it was his-couldnt be there this Christmas. I put together the crying and talking about someones mom and assumed his mom was dead recently. I was ready to tell him about the plan of salvation, but I decided I didnt think Id be able to convey it as well as my comp,

As we were walking down the road I asked my comp what that was about. I assumed I knew, but I wanted more specifics. I then learned that his wife had cheated on him and left him. In my defence he did actually mention his mom, but I think he was using her as an example and saying that his parents had been together for like sixty years. So yeah, its a good thing I didnt testify that his mom/wife was in a better place.. I think that may have come off as a little rude. Thank goodness the spirit told me to keep my trap shut. 

Anyways, what I thought was really cool over here is the members are very open about the gospel with their friends, we work almost totally off of references. That really is the best way to share the gospel. People dont stay in the church if they dont have a friend and thats a huge problem here. So, share the gospel, especially this time of year. People are more receptive around christmas. 

Sooooo yeah. Also theirs like a million dogs here. They're everywhere and a lot of them look really scary. Lots of german shepards. And they travel in packs. I dont really worry about it though, they usually keep the really bad ones locked up and the ones that are allowed to roam are the ones that dont bite. 

Love ya!!

...............I think I'm in another country...

añlskdfjñdfzxcnvkdjfHmmmmmm.. where to begin.. first off I apolize for the weird symbols that my come in the keyboard is really weird since its spanish ¨'¨these thingys are really hard to find...

 

Anyways, enough about the keyboard. Lets talk about what's important. Me! Chiste. Out in the mission field I´'m the least important. First comes god, then the people, then my comp, then me. That's how it be. Soo it took like one whole day to get to buenos aires, I spent the night in a hotel over there and explored the city a bit. It was reeeeaaaallly different. Tons of people and really dirty is how I'd describe it... There was a bidet in the hotel.. and I used it.. it was wild. Then I got up, went to the airport and waited for like five hours because the plane was delayed. I flew for five hours to Comodoro and spent a night there with some of the missionaries, then I met my new comp-Elder Ellis-and drove on a bus for the rest of the day and slept in my apartment.

 

Brief description of my apartment. This is just an estimate, but I'd say in total its about 12ft by 25ft. I'm not good at estimates, thats my best guess. It does have a high ceiling though, so it doesn't feel cramped and thats nice. We have a shower and sometimes hot water.. as in its hot for the first minute of your shower and then you jump in and out of the water to rinse yourself off.. we have a bidet, but we use toilet paper, I haven't quite mastered the technique yet of bidet-ing. It's all reddish tile which is easy to clean and we have a bunkbed, closet, tiny kitchen, a table and enough drawers for one person(I've been living mostly outta my suitcase).

 

Meals here are weird. We have barely any brekkers, just some crackers or something, a masssssssive lunch-which always makes you tired afterwards-no wonder they have siestas after lunch erryday. Then dinner is like at 8:30, but we just like eat some unsalted saltines or something back at the pension(apartment).

 

Rawson is beautiful, my companion and I run at the beach every morning since we live right by it. But yeah, it kinda looks like kennewick, except on the coast. The beach is mostly a pebble beach exept between the jettys theres sand in there. During the day people spend most of their time there. We'll knock doors and people just straight up arent there, literally everyone is on the beach all day saturday and sunday. They even go there for their siestas and get tans. I've never been there when other people are there, just in the morning. Our aparment is literally a block away from the beach. I love it.

 

The food here is awesome. The people are suuuper nice. We have tons of investigators, people just don't really follow through much, so theres a lotta less actives. We did get a couple less actives to come to church on sunday, that was pretty cool. Oh and I had to bear my testimony on sunday because it was fast sunday. I was't nervous since the people are suuuuper nice. Mostly I just smile a lot. I bet the people here think I'm simple because I mostly nod, smile-unless they´re not smiling-and say si. Simple Jack, that's me. You m-m-m-m-m-ake me happy.

 

But really its not bad, I don't have to be good yet, people don't expect anything outta me yet, so im good. The trick is to not get frustrated with myself, just keep smiling and know that it just takes time and lotsa faith. I can actually talk a lot, and I talk as much as I can, but I can't understand anything. People talk reaaaly fast and have thick accents. I know the words, I just can´t understand when people say them.

 

I ¨taught¨ my first lesson my first day. It was to a members kids friends. It was tough because there were kids running around everywhere and throwing stuff during my prayer. But, I things quieted down and I really felt the spirit towards the end. Thats when I feel the spirit the strongest is when we are teaching. Even though I can't really understand what my companion is saying I still know its true because of what I feel. The gospel is true no matter what the language is and Christ's atonement is for everyone. The language of the holy ghost is universal, and I can speak it when I bear my simple testimony to people. Maybe thats another way the gift of tongues is manifest, to speak with the tongues of angels, to convey your message with the holy ghost. In that sense all missionaries need the gift of tongues.

 

Anyways, lots to explain and not much time. Sorry if I don't respond to your individual letters this week, I will next week. I promise.

MTC Ketchup (you see what I did there?)

Thu, Oct 31, 2013

Let me see... Lets start at the very beginning. A very good place to start when you read you begin with ABC when you go to El CCM you begin with getting dropped off.

First thing first, Scott, Cindy, and Carissa dropped me off; we said our goodbyes and then two big elders picked up my luggage and I started off! The beginning was like an obstacle course: I would go into a building, the elder with my bags would wait at the other door of the building and I would be given a ton of stuff in each building-tags, books, keys etc.-this process repeated in about three buildings and concluded in the residence. Luckily the elders helping me were big because they thought my room was on the top floor, so we went all the way up with all my bags, but it turned out to be in the basement level. It was a hassle. 

After that I went to class and met my district. Those guys are lo maximo. Elder Rassmusen is my companion. He's a pretty boy from Las Vegas, always dresses up nice and puts a copious amount of gel in his hair. He's got a girlfriend and he gets like ten letters a day from her. He talks about her A LOT. I'm glad nobody's waiting for me, all the elders who have girls at home seem like they're having a harder time. Elder Porter and Elder Meadows, my roomates are siiiiiiiiick. Meadows is this big guy, about the size of Justin-he actally looks a lot like Justin-but he's not as funny. Elder Porter is probly my favorite missionary in our district, he's from Vermont and he's fun, but also knows when to be serious. A great quality in a missionary, most of these guys don't know when they should be quiet.

Classes are crazy. From the first day the teachers have only spoken Spanish. No a lick of english. Not one lick. We have six hours of class and the rest of the day is for studying and eating. My teachers are amazing, they love us soooo much and they are super spiritual.

On our second day we taught our first discussion in Spanish and after that we've taught every single day except Sunday. The discussions are with rm's who act like a convert from their mission they only speak spanish. It's killer. Especially answering his questions. But I've improved tons. The first one was soooo hard, and the one I just did I gave a whole discussion on the sacrament-we were planning on talking about the gift of the holy ghost!

The atmosphere is amazing, We pray allllllll the time and we feel the spirit all the time. The devotionals are amazing. A seventy from Brazil, Elder Carlos A. Godoy talked on tuesday. He spoke about his conversion story and how we need to look at people like jesus did, we need to realize that their souls are priceless. On sunday we gotta watch a movie and my companion and I watched a Christmas devotional from Elder Bednar in the CCM. That talk blew. my. mind. He spoke of how we all have some sort of a testimony, since we're here, but we need to become truly converted by studying the ways of Christ and being selfless as he was. If we try our hardest to be as selfless as Christ and act on our testimony then we'll be converted. But, interesting though: if we only want to be like Christ because we want blessings or because we want to be converted then we won't be truly converted and we won't receive blessings because our motives are selfish in themselves and that isn't how Christ was. Christ loved people because he loved them, We need to love people because we want to. 

Anyway a few housekeeping items: I moved to the west campus yesterday, the apartments are massive, out layout is exactly the same as Tori's apartment. Same couches. Everything. In fact my apartment is across the parking lot from where her's was. It the best. But the point is my mailing address has changed. It is now:

Elder Sterling Scogin

DEC03 ARG-CMRV

2023 N. 900 E. Unit 894

Provo, Utah 84602

So write me. Please. Letters are numero uno. AND I HAVEN'T GOTTEN ONE!! I'll set the example and send you guys some. Good thing I remember my address.

Also no more temple walks since I'm on west campus:( and I didn't get anyyyyyyyy cookies. I checked under the bush. nothing. And my P-day is on thursdays. So that's when I can email you guys. 

Thu, Nov 7, 2013 

Well lemme see, this week has gone by super fast, in the middle of the day it seems like the day will never end, but when I look back I feel like they just zoom by. It's crazy. 

Not much happened this week, just lots of class and lots of studying. The mock investigator we were teaching turned out to be our teacher-an undercover teacher-he has one arm and he earned a baseball scholarship, its for pitching. He is suuuuuuper cool, he goofs off with us, but also knows how to teach a good lesson. Apparently he's been in the news for something or other because our district president has heard of him. His name is hermano Ellet. But yeah, he's the perfect balance for our other teacher. Our other teacher, hermana Avery is suuuuuuper nice and we don't really mess around in her class because she's a girl and she's not a bro like hermano Ellet, but hermano Ellet is great because we need a break from all that work. 

It's been snowing a lil bit every day, but nothing's really stuck, I've been brushing up my futbol skills in the snow so I'll be able to go pro in Argentina. Our branch president is hilarious, he came over to our apartment and had a chip party with us. He writes songs and cant turn his head, not really sure why, he turns his whole body when he wants to look at you. 

Had a few devotionals this week, it's funny how much more I look forward to those kind of things then I used to. It really breaks the monotony of all the studying and learning. Sundays, tuesdays and P-days are what I look forward to. On sunday we had a nice testimony meeting in spanish, I bore my testimony and I think it went well if I do say so myself. We had a devo that night and I got to watch a movie. Someone tell Carissa I have church in the building across from the stadium now. I think its where she goes. I don;t know. But we had to walk there in the snow and I didn't bring my coat. It was killer. 

On tuesday Elder Zwick of the seventy spoke to us on obedeince, basically how we need to obey the rules and we'll be blessed, he told a ton of cool stories about different miracles that happened to obedient missionaries. Also he said how there used to only be one or two apostles assigning missionaries, but now it takes six of them. It's interesting to think that one of the twelve considered me individually and prayed about where I should go. They knew that where I'm going would be the best place to benefit both me and the people that are in the place I'm going. It's exciting!! Oh yeah, and next tuesday's devo will be taught by L. Tom Perry!!!!!! I can't wait!!! It's going to be amazing. 

So that's pretty much all that's been happening, a lot of praying, a lot of learning and a lot of studying. 

I'm using a half hour now and a half hour later for my writing, so I'll be back on later today to reply to all ya'll. 

Love ya guys!!!

P.S. I get to go to the temple and jambajuice on p-days. It's the best. Also, jambajuice gives missionaries half off. 

Thur, Nov 14, 2013

Alrighty, the days are starting to blend, I forget what happened last week and this week. I don't even remember what happened yesterday, everyday seems the same. 

I wake up every morning, get on my suit and tie, then head up to breakfast. Following that I go to class. Three hours. Learn about lots a doctrinal stuff.. in spanish. Learn some grammar.. spanish grammar. Teach a lesson to an "investigator".. in spanish.

Then I usually do a little studying on my own. The B.O.M., NT, D&C, PMG, etc. It's at this stage that it's really hard not to fall asleep. Especially because our classrooms are apartments, so theres couches to sit on. Don't worry though, I resist the temptation and endure to the end.. of personal study.

After that, more class, different teacher, Hermano Ellet. He's the guy with one arm. He told us that for Haloween he dressed up as Soul Surfer, and his wife was a shark. I told him he could've just as easily been the guy from fugitive that killed Harrison Ford's wife. Potato potato(read those two words with different emphasis). He teaches us the same sort of stuff as hermana Avery for three hours.

Then lunch. The food isn't terrible, it just never seems to come out right.. Following lunch is gym time. I'll ball it up on the b-ball court with my district. I'm actually not so bad it turns out. Either that or everyone here is terrible. I'm prone to think the latter. Sometime I play four square too, but it gets a little too intense for me. Some of the guys here-outside my district-are a little high strung.

Then I study some language for a couple of hours, I've got all kinds of books to use, three red ones, a regular Spanish book, PMG in spanish and English, and a spanish to english dictionary. Following that is companionship study, we plan out out lesson and practice it lots. 

At the end of each day we plan for the next day for a half hour. It usually only takes like ten minutes since we pretty much just copy down the schedule, but we stay till the end-9:30-since I'm ZL I gotta set the example for the new kids. 

We head back to the apartment, do whatever-clean, read, write in our journals, have chip parties, eat food-till 10:30, have companionship prayer, and fall asleep.

That repeats just about everyday, excluding p-days, Sundays, and devotional tuesdays. 

That is a chipmunk nest, and that.. is a crazy lady. Thats just a little taste of what Pretty dang excitin eh?

Okay, lets get down to the nitty gritty:This week my comp and I were called as zone leaders. Its not really a big deal in the MTC since I don't have to organize zone meetings or anything like that, all I need to do is welcome the new elders, which is awesome!! Yeah, it pretty much just means that I need to be friends with everyone in my zone. I love it. We've got like 45 people I think. They're all suuuper cool. One of the guys is from Spokane. He kinda reminds me of me. He's got cool glasses and he's skinny and white. Love it. 

And on other news L. TOM PERRY CAME AND TALKED TO US!!!! For tuesday night devo he came up and spoke. He's somewhere around ninety right? He JOGGED up the stairs. And he literally hopped off of his chair before his talk. He's got more energy than me. Also he MEMORIZED his hour long talk. There were no teleprompters and he looked us in the eyes the whole time. He talked about the importance of companions. Us going two by two. He told this great story about some of the missionaries in the Philipeans. A whole bunch of them had tickets to get off the island, but people had bribed the airlines for their seats, so they were sitting in the airport looking around when this guy from the military asks them what they're doing. They told him that they had lost their seats on the plane. He had just flown a bunch of food in and he looked from the cargo plane to them and said, hop in. The guy took three trips of Elders. It's crazy, he wasn't a member or anything, he just helped them out. I bet he had to break some military rules too.. The lord blesses missionaries. I've seen it in my zone and in myself. There is no way I would've been able to learn this much spanish in the such a short amount of time in high school. No way. 

So yeah, a pretty normal week. Filled with lots of prayers.

Love you guys!!!

P.s. mom, could you send this out to everyone, maybe set up some sort of list, it's kinda hard for me to put together everyones email. Send it to whomever you think wants to read it. Thanks!!!

Thur, Nov 21, 2013

What is uuuuuuppp? I sent lotsa letters out this week, so for whomever I sent letters to this stuff may come as old news.

It felt like it's been about two days since my last P-day, things have been getting faster. Pretty soon I'll be outta here to teach people!!!! I'm soooo excited to help forward the work and use the language skills I've learned here(even though I need to learn tons more). I excited, and ready, but at the same time not really ready when it comes to Spanish. I'll get it.

My travel plans should come sometime in the next couple of days, then I'll know where I'm going and when I'm leaving. One of my good friends in my district left for the Columbian MTC this Monday since he got his visa. It was bittersweet. He wanted to go, but he'd made a lot of good friends here. Honestly I'm a little jealous. So the result of him leaving is I get a new companion!!! It's awesome, we have a threesome now. My new companion is Elder Meadows, he's a really great guy, played basketball and football. He's about Justin sized and he's just a big teddy bear. 

This week I hosted for the newbie elders. I loved it! About 200 elders came in this wednesday and I rallied the zone to help them get settled. We took their luggage off the buses, showed them to their apartment and showed them around campus a lil bit. It was a great experience. They we're so wide eyed and in shock.. I was never like that. I was pro from day one. It was a nice little confidence boost since they were terrible at spanish and they all thought I was fluent. No big deal. I was pretty much their hero. There was a ton of great Elders coming in. Also we got a whole new district of Hermanas in my zone. We had a nice little meeting, told them whats what and showed them around. It was pretty dang exiting.

Lets see, on another note we had an Elder from our zone go home. From about week one I think he couldn't handle it. He wanted to get out as soon as he got here. I think it was the social aspect he couldnt handle. He was home schooled and couldn't handle his companion. At first he requested to leave and his parents talked him out of it. I think his parents sort of forced him to go in the first place. So he seemed like he was doing fine for the next couple of weeks and then he went to the BYU game. What? He looked for a way to get kicked out and he found one. I don't know, I tried everything I could do, but what it came down to was his agency, he could chose for himself and their was nothing anyone could do to change his mind. I dunno, I figured if you were going to leave it would've been best not to go in the first place. I heard the BYU game was a blowout anyways and it was suuuuuuper cold that day. 

Dah! anyways, I'm suuuuuper excited to get out of the compound and go bring some real investigators closer to Christ. I just wanna go! I'll get my travel plans sometime soon and I'll find out when and where I'm going first. I'm kinda really excited.

Hmmmmm by way of announcement I should be leaving sometime around the 1st of December, so if you need to send anything (ahem justin) then it should be here before the end of November otherwise it'll be really complicated to get anything to me. Also I don't need my temple bag, so we need to wrangle some sort of exchange with Scott. I think I may end up needing boots after all, but I can get some down there.

Anyways, love you guys!

Wed, Nov 27, 2013

Side note from Jessica: I did tell him some appendicitis and other stomach symptoms and remedies and told him to get it checked before he goes:(

Sterling:

Okay, so on friday everyone else in my district got their travel plans except for my two companions and I. We figured we'd get it the next day. Nothin. Of course we'd get it on monday, there's no way we couldn't. Nothin. I was super confused since both my companions turned their stuff in early. I'd understand if it was just me, since I got mine in late, but nothin. Then on tuesday we looked through the little peephole and lo and behold there were white and yellow papers inside: I GOT MY TRAVEL PLANS!!!!! I'm flying to buenos aires on monday!! The flight(1414) lasts like twenty hours total!!! I'm leaving from the SLC airport at 8:30, is there any way I can meet up with Scott right then and give him some stuff, while he hands off a sleeping bag/liner?? If not.. I don't know what I'll do about the stuff. I guess I could sent it... Just try to get back to me about it tonight pleeeaaaase!!

I know you guys are all suuuuper busy preppin for thanksgiving stuff, but I hope you check your email.. I email a day early today because we have a huge devotional/service project thing on  thursday, and since I'm a zone leader I have to learn how to pack the dry soup and then teach that to the other missionaries, so I have to leave in a little bit to be trained... 

Really not much has happened this week, I've just been doing the same old stuff, learning, praying studying... I beat everyone in my district at arm wrestling, and me and this hog wrestlin farmer from Idaho tied for first place in the zone. I rule my zone with an iron fist. None is more repected than I. I'm probly so ripped because of all this indoor soccer I've been playin. Anyways, I'll be back later tonight to finish up my time, but for now I gotta go and be trained. 

Also, I almost died because my stomach hurt so bad one day. It almost killed me. I'm pretty sure my appendix burst and then fixed themselves, that's how bad it was. 

Anyways, its thanksgiving, we all have tons to be thankful for right now! I'm betting when I get down there I'll realize how much we really do need to be grateful for. The gospel is a big one. We have the true gospel in our lives and that's a lot to be thankful for. We should all think about what that means to us. 

Love ya guys!!!!

Wed, Dec 4, 2013

Honestly I don't know exactly what time I'll be there, all I know is that I have to be at the travel office beforehand at 4:30 and the plane leaves at 8:30.. thats a four hour window I know, but my guess is that we'd leave around 4:45-5:00 and get there from 6:00-6:30-ish or however long it takes to get to the SLC airport from here.. its just tough because I have pretty much no way of communicating with you guys after this email so whoever was at the airport would have to be looking. I'll do all I can to walk slow and stuff like that and I'm pretty sure I could wait around somewhere before my flight and then see Scott. It's delta airlines if that helps. Actually I'm pretty sure I can call you from the airport. Yeah, I can. Try everything you can to find me, and I'll call you if I can. Goodness this sounds rough. Just pray that this works out. 

Concerning the stomach ache thingy, I'd say it was what Scott said, I didn't actually think it was appendicitis, it definitely was the lower rib cage, so it probably came from the bad food and sitting dealio.

Also, I tell Justin I got his package... and I got in trouble from my mission president. I sent him a letter, but those always take a while to get there. 

oiweruoiauskajlkamcmclaclaksdjalkds;lkfjasdl;fkjasd;lkfkjkfhkajffl;ksddjlfhhl;skdkj;alsakdkjfsldkjkj,cx,nxc I'm soooooooo excited!!! I love you guys!

Enjoy these pictures of the man who killed my wife: