July 13, 2015 Dog Training and Space Weapons

so this week was good, a little interesting though.

so i guess I’ll just start out by saying that dogs and missionaries are just mortal enemies... or good friends, lucky for us that so far all the big dogs seem to be our friends. the small dogs... not so much.

so in our house we live in this super tiny gated community, and to get to it we always pass by this little tiny dog in front of his house. he really can’t do anything to us but if he was bigger he would totally dismember us, but as the situation is he just kinda contents himself with following barking like a madman. we have tried to  scare it away by pretending to charge it and stuff, but it just gets madder.

so i think tuesday we walk past the dog, and we were carrying our umbrellas, because the rain hits in the summer here, and as we were about to get to this house, elder p. asks me, "wanna see something funny?" "...yes." so as we pass elder p. just points his umbrella at it and opens it. let’s just say that it’s a good thing that dogs don’t wear pants, because he would have had to change them. the best way he can describe his reaction is "BARK BARK BARK DIE DIE DIE BARK BARK BAR- OH MY GOSH SPACE WEAPONS!" but yeah, after a couple space weapon attacks (only when he barks) he doesn’t mess with us anymore. he just stares at us with hate, or he takes a lap around the block to avoid us, but anyways, I’m pretty sure that I’m qualified as a dog trainer now.

as district leader i had my plate full  this week, with planning the district meeting tuesday, and then intercambios thursday, and then a baptismal interview friday. but all went well, and i have a good district. i actually like being a leader, not really because i want extra responsibilities and stuff like that nor ordering people around, but because it seems that you receive more revelation when it is to help other people, fun stuff.

but we had some interesting lessons this week too. The one that tops the rest was with a random contact that we did. we passed by and he wasn’t there, but his mom was, so we started teaching her, with her husband kinda listening in, when all of the sudden he tells us, "i'm gunna leave, i have a meeting with my pastor, but i just want to tell you that Mormon isn’t a prophet, he’s not in the bible, i want you to find him in the bible, actually you can’t, cause he isn’t there." it seemed obvious that he didn’t really want an answer, so we just kinda let him rant for a minute, leave, and then we came back to our lesson.  but then, just as we are finishing up, he comes back in, but with his pastor. at first we were thinking "oh no" but we finished the lesson, turned to them and asked what question he had. the pastor was actually great, he just asked what we did as missionaries, so we explained, then the guy brought up his Mormon question again, and we just explained really calmly about the book of mormon, bearing our testimonies the whole way through. the pastor accepted our answer, and so then the guy did too. the pastor actually accepted a book of mormon and said he would like to hear ore of or message.

i guess through all this, and other stuff this week, I  kinda learned to trust in God a bit more. we don’t have the whole perspective, and there are many things that we could not work out for ourselves, but if we just trust that he is in control and do our part, that we end up way better than we would on our own.

anyways that’s it for this week. take care all. love you guys, be good.

elder gandola

July 6, 2015 4th of July

hey guys,

i'll make this quick.

so me and elder p. are getting along. the area is good, but it’s always a bit hard the first week of opening an area. but elder p. has served in the other area of our ward before, so he knows the area a little bit. the area book was super well kept, so we spent a couple hours this week organizing it, and today we spent a couple hours cleaning the house, but now we should be able to work better.

i didn’t have to capacitate this week, because we had a zone meeting this week, but i will have our first district meeting tomorrow. i already kinda knew the guys in my district because we saw them every sunday, so I’m not really worried.

4th of july we were planning to celebrate with hamburgers, but fast sunday changed our plans, so we celebrated today instead with kraft mac and cheese and root beer. (i aM SOOO HAPPY TO HAVE ROOT BEER AGAIN... IT’S BEEN 9 MONTHS, BUT WE FINALLY FOUND WHERE THEY SELL IT. OH WO I’M USING CAPS LOCK, I WASNT EVEN LOOKING AT THE SCREEN UNTIL I FINISHED THAT SENTANCE)

spiritual message for this week, prioritize your stuff, there is lots of time for lots of stuff, but get the important stuff out of the way and you will end up being able to more other stuff done anyways.

anyways, take care, be good, love you

elder gandola

June 29, 2015 Special Transfers

well, this week was interesting.

so first of all, we had to stop teaching a bunch of people this week. we realized that our teaching pool was just too big, and that many of them realistically were not going to progress, especially many who had had a lot of time in teaching. lots of times satan doesn’t try to attack us by making us do bad things, it’s just kinda more effective to make them not do good things. either way they aren’t progressing, and its easier to just tell them to delay the good stuff until tomorrow. i suppose there’s a lesson there for all of us.

but then we got  some interesting news  sunday night, that’s right (for those of you who read the title) we had special transfers (not sure if that’s how they say it in english or not) but at like 10 at night they called us and told us that we had transfers the next day. at first we thought it was a joke but nope, it was real, fun stuff.but it was kinda a bummer. elder p and i get along well and have been working good together. i think of all my companions he is the one i have played around with the most.

but anyways he was super worried because he is staying there, but as señor companion (wow...that’s even incorrect in spanish... meh, I’ll leave it). he says that if he is senior companion right now that he will be district leader sooner. well, if my experience is anything to base it on, he’s right. actually, he should be district leader in about three weeks. yup, i got put as district leader. the ironic thing is that i didn’t really move. i got put in the other ward that meets in the same church building, though it is a different district for each ward, but they are tiny, 2 companionships each. actually i just switched places with the other guy that was in this area before, now he is in my old area. my new comp is elder P. he is the first companion i have had that 1. is american, and 2. i knew beforehand. he was in my first area for one transfer, and then was my zone leader in aguas for 2 weeks. he actually heads home halfway through the next transfer, so it looks like more special transfers are in my future.

well, that it for now, but should be interesting, guess we’ll see what happens.

well be good, love you

elder gandola