Week 7!

Hola Familia!

Wow this was a long week for sure... But a good one. First thing is yes I have a new companion and his name is Elder Clavero. He is from Uruguay (actually in Zach´s mission!) He is decent at English. He understands a lot but cant speak a ton. It is such a weird change, because yes I am still being trained but since he doesn't know the area and the people I feel like I am kinda taking the charge.  But we are still working hard and trying to find some new investigators. Now I will start with my usual random stuff that I have written down to tell you guys.

On Monday we had a sleepover(mission style) since I didn't have a comp the Zone leaders (both from Utah) Elder Seagar and Elder Millheim came and slept in my pench. Then we decided to invite 2 other elders so there was 5 of us on 4 mattresses sleeping. It was really fun and a nice change for a night.

I have been listening to the band Nashville Tribute Band a lot, I really like their music and I think it is good for mission too. I really like the song The Hardest Things I Ever Loved to do. It is very good at covering all of the bases as far as missionary work.

We had a lesson with the Juncos family Clavero´s first night here and they told us about how they get sick when they smell smoke now. I was so happy I about jumped out of my seat when they said that!! It was a little hard for them to quit before their baptism but that was great to hear! But Maria and Claudia didn't show up to church for their confirmations so we are going to visit them tonight and we will have to do them next Sunday. But I was able to do Eliana´s confirmation and it was great! I was happy she asked me to do it!

Sometimes I am sitting on a bus or in church or wherever and I think, What the heck?! I am in the middle of Argentina! It is funny because some days it just feels like regular life! Other times I have had the thought, Wow I am the only person in this entire building that is thinking in English. Weird to think but it is true!

I was looking through Elder Seagar´s pictures and he was in the same MTC District as Ty Foster. I guess Ty gets home really soon! 

We got a new phone and it is awesome!!! We can send and receive texts now which is super nice to have. You really take texting for granted when you have it but it is super nice to be able to text our investigators and members.

Silvia is still doing amazing!! She is in 2 Nephi and she loves the church and the Book of Mormon. Elder Welsh is going to come back this Sunday to baptize her. She asked me to do it, but then I thought that I should bring up the idea of Welsh coming back and she was happy with that idea! It will be good to see him too, and I have to give his towel back to him that I have been using for the last 7 weeks. (I forgot mine in the mission home)

Elder Clavero and I are having more fun the last couple of days, It is really hard not being able to talk to him as much as I want to. But we try. I have been helping him learn English too which i think is helping my Spanish! My Spanish is going to improve so much. Because I am literally speaking it all day until we get home. When we get home we talk in English to help him practice. Everyday we start our companionship study with a hymn. It is super fun because we are both bad at singing and so we both just belt it!

I found a Book of Mormon student manual in English and I LOVE IT!! It makes it so fun to study because it opens my eyes to things that i would have never seen! Even though it is from 1996. I learned that Nephi saw Chris Columbus discovering the new land in 1 Nephi 13:12. I was going to see if you guys could find me a D&C and a Bible one? I would like to be able to go through all of them by the time I get home. 

I have been reading the book called Our Heritage. It is great and talks about the early saints. Then last night I watched 17 Miracles and I just have so much love for those people. I think we should make it a family trip to go on a church tour in the spring of 2020. Because it is 200 years after Joseph Smith´s vision!

I love you all so much and I hope that you have a good week!!! I loved seeing the pictures of the house and COLEYS  NEW ROOM! I bet she loves that. It looked like the race was a lot of fun too! 

♥Elder Sisk

P.S.  I bought a new watch! It was 90 pesos which is like 18 dollars!

Transfer Week

Hola Familia!

First off sorry i forgot to tell you that Pday was on Tuesday this week for transfers!

Okay so the biggest news of the week is I will be getting a new companion tomorrow. Elder Welsh was asked to serve as the new assistant to the president. The only downside to being trained by the biggest stud in the mission huh? He got the call on Sunday morning and had to be to the mission home on Sunday night by 8. We were both pretty bummed. The first thing he said is "It sucks when you only get to be with your favorite companion for 1 transfer." It is safe to say that it was an emotional day. The bishop had him give his testimony and like half of everyone there was crying. We ended our companionship with a visit to Pamela. We thought it would be perfect because she is the biggest success we had together. There was some more crying at her house. The last 2 days I have kinda been the free agent bouncing from companionship to companionship waiting for my new companion tomorrow. I learned so much from him and I plan to keep up the pace that we have set.

(just found out I will be getting a Spanish Speaking companion.... yikes wish me luck!)

Yes the baptism was amazing!!! And I had the amazing opportunity to baptize Maria. I will send some pictures! The conversion of the Juncos Family was such an amazing thing to be able to be a part of! They have made incredible improvements and after the baptism Claudia said "I know I'm not supposed to but I just want to give you two a hug!" and she came and gave us a big hug hah

We have still been teaching this lady named Silvia and she is great. She is set to be baptized on June 2, her birthday. She is really great and has had quite the history with about every drug there is. She is in the process of giving up the MaryJ.

So Mom, you and Pamela have the same calling now!! But this week we were talking with her and she said something that was just amazing! She told us that we are her angels and that we will always be special to her. It was really great to hear her say that. It made us feel great! 

This week has been really cold!!! We have a mini space heater that helps a lot but we have been wearing sweaters like everyday. And I love my Malta in the mornings! ;) 

Random things: I took out some money this week so that I don't have to take my card with me to places. It is easier to have cash. I bought a couple of new ties this week, I really like the ties here for some reason! The milk here comes in bags, kinda random. I met Elder Swanson this week, he is from Mapleton. I got the package, it was great! thanks so much! I have to try not to eat everything too fast :P

Thanks so much for everything! I love you all, have a great week!

♥Elder Sisk

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother´s Day!! It was so great to get to talk to you all on Skype!! I am so glad that everyone is doing well and everything! This week is going to be crazy busy because we have something extra (meetings and stuff) every single day this week. But we are just going to keep working hard! I am hoping that Elder Welsh stays here for the next transfer!!!! I hope you all have an amazing week, and remember, Heavenly Father answers prayers and he wants to hear from us! 

Love you all so much!

Elder Sisk

The pet lizards, just before they let them go.

Catching a ride to church

Week 4!!

Hola Familia!

First off..... BAPTISM!!! :) Saturday was Pamela´s baptism and it was so great! Everything went perfectly just like it has the whole time with her. We figured out that we met her like 4 weeks ago and we only taught her 9 times before she was baptized. Pretty crazy, she told us her plan is to be sealed in the temple to her whole family and to have kids be strong in the church. We want her to go on a mission though ;) She asked Elder Welsh to baptize her, but she asked me to confirm her.... talk about nerve racking! Only the second blessing I have ever given and the first one was in English! It went really well though and her aunt and cousins were crying so that is a plus right?! hah

Second, Yes Skype next Sunday. It is looking like I will be calling you around 1ish your time. We have to trade off on a member´s computer so It will just be one after the other. We each get an hour. It will most likely be at 12 or 1 MST. I hope that work with dad´s new calling. I thought they would probably be pretty flexible though?

So this week I went on my first exchange (companion switch for 24 hours) with a native spanish speaker. Elder Allendes is such a stud and it actually went really well. We got pizza ice cream and coke to celebrate! 

We have been teaching a new family this week. I think I talked about Maria in my last email? But here is their story: Maria came to church 2 times and went to a RS activity in a row without us even teaching her. After 2 times of coming we got her address and we went to teach her. When we got there we told her that we like to start with a prayer. She said we cant start yet, i need to go get my family! :) all of the sudden like 7 more people walked in. (Also the first time I got kissed on the cheek here. Most people don’t do it but some people don’t know that we don’t do that. We are allowed to but we are supposed to avoid it) We taught a great lesson on the Restoration to them all and it went really well. We have been back 2 more times this past week and 3 of them had baptism dates for the 18th. (Maria Elena 41, Eliana 12, and Claudia 34) The only problem is, that they didn't come to church..... :( but we have a lesson with them tonight so hopefully it is still good. Their date will be moved back a little though.

This week Spanish is finally starting to click! There are times that I feel like I am just hearing English because it just makes sense. Then other times I have no idea what people say. It is really weird but I am getting better and starting to teach more in the lessons that we have.

We are absolutely stoked right now because we are realizing that we have Heavenly Father´s trust right now. He is entrusting us to teach some of the most prepared people here in Rosario and it is so great! We both realize that it is not because of anything we did, we are just blessed to be here at this time. I also know that I am ment to have Elder Welsh as a companion right now. Hopefully he is still here for another transfer!

They have this drink here called Malta... It is so good. It is very similar to coffee but its not against the WoW! :) Also we made pancakes from scratch this week they actually turned out really well!

The mosquitos got really bad this week while I was on my exchange. The next day I counted over 30 bites on my arms! But they are almost all gone now.

We caught 3 lizards and have been keeping them as pets in our pench this week. I will send pictures of them. Its funny because now we are always trying to catch bugs and moths to feed to them. We are still trying to find the best way to get them food. One is really small maybe 2 inches. The other 2 are a lot bigger but they didn't eat the little one... yet haha

Random thought: Our bishop is a total stud. But I feel like he should be Irish and golf. He just reminds me of a lot of the guys you see playing on the tour.

It was such a good week! I am still loving it here! It sounds like everything is going well at home! Congrats on your tryout Coley! I hope everything works out. I am excited to hear more about it next week!

I love you all, have a great week, I am so excited to Skype on Sunday!

Elder Sisk

Questions and stuff:

Q: What do you guys do on Pday?  I know that you have to do laundry and grocery shop and do your emails?  What else?  Do you do some fun things?  Sightseeing?  How is the laundry situation?

A: We always do different things. Every week we go play sports at our church building. We have a basketball/soccer court in the back. They say that our building is the biggest church in South America. I´ll take some pictures of it this week. The last couple of weeks we have just been chilling but they also have this way cool outdoor mall in downtown Rosario. It is right by the monument. We went there a couple weeks ago and I think we might go again next week. We actually have a member who does our laundry for us. It is really nice, she has a washing machine, but dryers don't exist here.

Q:  I know you get fed by members usually for lunch.  What kinds of things do you eat for breakfast and dinner?

A: Yeah we always have lunch with members. Breakfast is always cereal or if we decided to make something else. But I love the cereal here! And we rarely eat dinner but food is offered to us at almost every house that we go to so I am usually never hungry.

Note with the pictures:  Here are a bunch of random pictures! Baptism, lizards, and we also made 167 cookies for the baptism! :) We traded ties with a member named Pablo!