Thursday, February 25, 2010

HOLY COW ITS GMAIL!

¡
HOLA FAMILIA! ¿¡COMO ESTAN!?


I don´t have much time here, they swapped over our emails, so my

address is different now, but is run through GMAIL! YAAAAA!


SO! Boring week, you´ll probably be getting most of your exciting information from the tape. Speaking of which! Dad, the only kind they sell here are the micro tapes, no didigital. Also, no uploading anything to the computers here...sooo....nothing at least till I get to Mexico. We´ll see once I get down there. I figured out that tapes are like, 10 cents a tape, so it isn´t nearly as bad as I thought.


It´s been a kind of hard week for the district. We all started doing our teaching thing that the teachers want us to do (See tape) and a lot of people are getting fairly frustrated with Spanish. They are just having a really hard time with it...however we are taking some good steps to move on past it, and it seems to be doing alright. The main problem is that when we would usually study, we´re teaching now, so it´s kinda hurting us.


I´m doing great though! Elder Tibbitts and myself are really flourishing! Being Zone Leader is waaaaaay easier than District Leader! I count it an extreme honor to be able to server the elders in this zone, it is amazing to see their progress, and to try and help them out in whatever meager ways I can.


Mi familia, los amo tan mucho! Quiero que estar con vosotros pero yo sé que este is donde necisito estar. No puedo esperar por cuando estoy en Mexico! Es encredible a pensar que voy a estar en allí en 3 semanas! AAAARGH! Necesito aprender mas español! Necesito aprender mas acerca del Evangelio! Neceisto aprender mas sobre como enseñar la gente! AAAARGH! Pero, confio en Dios y Jesucristo. Yo sé que va a ayudarme a superar mis afflicciones y superar los deficios en mi vida.
Nos vemos mi familia!
Elder Newell


My family, I love you so much! I want to be with you but I know that this is where I should be. I can't wait to get to Mexico! It's incredible to thing that I'll be there in 3 weeks! AAAARGH! I need to learn more Spanish! I need to learn more about the Gospel! I need to learn more about how to teach the people! AAAARGH! But, I trust in God and in Jesus Christ. I now that God will help me overcome my afflictions and overcome the deficiencies in my life.


I'll see you, my family!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Week 5



HOOOOOOOLY COW YOU GUYS! I ONLY HAVE 3 MORE WEEKS HERE! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Time is going by waaaaaay too fast! We're entering cram mode to be able to speak spanish as best we can, but more importantly learning how to teach to people's needs more. That's the big push of our teachers, they don't teach us much spanish, because if we understand the doctrine, and understand our purpose of why we're out here, then the Spirit will help us to speak spanish way more, and we will be able to teach with that spiritual power.

We taught the first time in Spanish last night, the first lesson. It was awesome, the investigator, Mr. Jacobs, had a hard time accepting the Book of Mormon, saying that the Bible is all we needed. We testified of the truth of the words to him, and helped him to understand that we need a prophet to decipher scriptures, so we don't have all the messiness that happened with the Bible. We also talked about how the people in the Americas didn't really have the bible, the New Testament and such, and so God called prophets for them and helped them out by giving them this record.

I've learned so much about the scriptures since I've been here, I'm beginning to see how amazingly deep these words are. My testimony has grown immensely as well. There is simply no way that an uneducated farm boy at the age of 20 could have written 531 pages, detailing a history of a peoples for 1000 years, without any major glaring flaw, without being unequivocally proven false yet, it's insane. The more I hear about the history of this people, the more I love them, and want to serve them with all my heart, might, mind, and strength.

It sounds like Alex is doing awesome! I've noticed he is not speaking very good english in his letters :P. I hope that doesn't happen to me, but I also hope that it does. That way I know that I'm really a part of that people. I've already noticed myself typing/writing spanish words where it should be english, even in my talking. You might notice a couple times in the tape I'm going to send. OH YA! I'll be sending that off today, hopefully it's a good thing. Let me know what you think. I hope you got the pictures I sent off yesterday, and the CD that goes with them. I knew our family would want some sort of digital form of them for emails and such :).

DAD! I don't care if you have nothing to say! Just keep sending stuff! I love hearing about all of your days, thank you so much mom for keeping on sending stuff and your newsletters! Some of those pictures are awesome! Dad was such a dork back then! Hahaha, but it's so great to hear from all of you. How are Ben and Than doing? The last thing I heard Than was giving a presentation to Marvel that went really well. I don't know anything, because they haven't sent me any letters! I KNOW! I need some parental repreimands here :).

Carnival, ya, I've heard about it. Simpsons had an episode on it, and everyone was in those creepy big head suits.

Should I speak more spanish? Less? Should I do a spanish section in my tapes? Is better know a zone a good idea? OH HOLY CRAP! I just remembered, ahahha, Dad, they put you in all your positions here for 4 weeks, then swap with someone. So Sr. Companion for 4 weeks, then you're the Jr. I was released as District Leader, and then immediately asked to be Zone Leader with my companion, Elder Tibbits. He's the blonde one with glasses in the pictures. Sometimes he doesn't wear them. So that's been fun, we just started interviewing the District Leaders for the first time two hours ago. We need to prepare a lot of lessons during the week, and go to a lot more lessons, but overall it's a lot easier, at least for me, than being District Leader. Don't have to correct people's behavior :P.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY MOM! President's day killed any proposition of sending a card or something, so I figured I would just send something here, and in the tapes. THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the sacrifices you have made for me. I honestly would be such a terrible person right now without you! I love you so much! Please don't cry about me being out here, because I'll know and will be very dissapointed :P. This is the best thing I could be doing with my life right now, I have grown so much, matured so much, and have, at least I hope, lifted up some other Elder's out of some cycles of depression they have been experiencing. I love you taaaaaaaaaan mucho! No puedo decir todas los cosas que quiero, pero lo amo. En serio.

Oh, my last adventure! We were at the temple, and President Clegg gave us the names of members in his family from like, the early 1800s. He's the first councilor to the President of the MTC. We were like...OK....so some of us got to stand in as children for sealings, and the others did endowments, and we were able to do all the work for him, plus some. It was great. But we were supposed to take the cards back to him, and one Elder forgot to ask the worker for the card, so when we went to give them back the secretary just gave us this look, as if to say, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!? But then she just smiled and said, it's OK, they'll take care of it. Some people here are tricky. It's easy to forget they are real people and make jokes....

Adios! Amo todos detus!
Elder Newell

Friday, February 12, 2010

HOLA FAMILIA!

Hola mi familia! Como estan!? Voy a trabajar a hablar en espanol hoy, pero el idioma bar no trabaja, entonces no puedo escribir con accents o tildes. Padre, puede traduce por favor? Not all of it will be spanish, just the parts I can do ;).

Este semana fue muy poco. Nada grande pasa, pero la MTC no es regular. Unos de los otro missioneros hablaron que todos los cartas que escriben son los exactamente cosa. Comprendemos mucho espanol haora. Halbamos mejor tambien. Es dificil, pero podemos comprender y ensenar en este idioma. El Senor nos ayuda mucho. Aprendemos acerca de espanol solamente 2 horas en una dia, pero sabemos mucho.

Recuerdo traer mis cartas que me envian este semana, entonces voy a...reply...need to write that word down.

Gracias familia! Tengo much amor por todos de vosotros, y quiero a oirles uno mas. No puedo wait por el airport call! Buena suertes, y gracias por todo las cartas que me daseis! Hablare en el nuevo semana!

Elder Joseph Neil Newell

Also: Thanks for the packages and stuff, it's great to have that wednesday tradition holding strong! And thanks for all the pictures mom! I was able to show our family to an "investigator" at the TRC yesterday, so it was great! I'll be sending home pictures this week, we've had a lot of mixups with photo development, but they are waiting for us as we speak. Hasta manana!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Hollllaaaaa!!!!

Hola mi familia! Como estan!? Thank you all so much for all the letters you have sent me. Gracias por todos los cartas envian yo. Por favor, envian mas! I love getting updates on how you are all doing!

That's so great to hear the Rec center did that, way to go! Class is excellent. I am of the firm opinion we have the best teachers at the MTC. It gets pretty intense though, some days we have up to 6 hours of study time, not including class. Spanish es muy bien. Es facil cuando lee el. We get an hour of exercise a day, except on P-days and Sundays. Lot's of exercise. Lately I've been four-squaring it up, then hitting the track/weight lifting. Balancesto es por tantos. Everybody really appreciates the Tide pens and wants to say thanks. They have mostly all gotten some at the book store now. I'm thinking of picking up a voice recorder and sending home tapes every month/week or so, how does that sound to you?

This week was kinda hard though, we had to say goodbye to two misisonaries in our district that left for the Peru MTC. It's insane to think that we've been here for three weeks. It feels like you dropped me off yesterday.

Thank you all SO MUCH for your letters! Alex wasn't kidding when he talked about how great they are! Tengo mucho, mucho amor por todos de ustedes y quiero hablar que yo sé que Dios vida, ye que tiene much amor para nosotros. Yo sé que Jose Smith es un profeta de Dios. Yo sé que la Libro de Mormon is verdadero, y que Presidente Monson es un profeta de Dios tambien. Jesucristo vivó para nosotros, y mediante su expiación, podemos ser limpo y puro.

Amo ustedes!
Elder Joseph Neil Newell