7/3/17
First transfers are here, and I had the surprise of my trainer getting
moved to be a zone leader. My new trainer is Elder Sastré who just
served 6 months in Querétaro, and he doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so I'm going soló español now haha. It's a bit stressful
having to teach him the area when I hardly know it myself. Especially
navigating around the entire city for certain things was difficult, but I
knew enough Spanish and about Celaya to get it done. Life here is
great, and Spanish has been coming along a lot! Hope everyone is doing
well back home! The gospel is truly a blessing, and I'm happy to be
here serving. Happy fourth of July!
I have often reflected on how different my life is than a year ago.
Truly a blessing of the Gospel is the ability to change who we are and
become better. The first day with my new comp was the roughest, but now
we're good friends, and talk all day. My Spanish is better, it's just
remembering all the different tenses, and conjucations, and all the
irregulars that's tough. Sometimes I wish I could be back home having a
lazy summer with you guys haha. That's
usually when it's super hot, 2 in the afternoon, all our plans have
fallen through, nobody wants to talk to us, and I'm getting sunburnt.
I do love my mission though, and I can already tell that I'm a
different person than the one that entered the MTC. I'm glad everything
is going well back home. Eat some cherry pie for me haha! Love you
mom.
7/10/2017
I thought that I would email you guys and tell you about the largest
meal(by far) I've had here so far. It was this past Saturday and we
went to eat with la familia Lara. We got there and there were two
massive plates of Spaghetti, about half a loaf of French bread for each
of us, a bowl of bean, and a gigantic cup of agua de mango. (they never
drink plain water here). Well, I thought that it was the meal, so I ate
it all and was absolutely stuffed. That's when the hermana brought in
two more massive plates. Each had two large pieces of breaded chicken, a
salad, and some rice. I was about to cry. To this day, I still don't
know how I finished the meal. The chicken was probably the best thing
I've eaten my whole mission, but was ruined due to the fact that I was
so full. And then she brought in a big bowl of Jello for each of us.
Talk about a meal. We had to walk back to the casa and lie down for a
bit just to not throw up. I don't know why people do this haha. But
yeah, that's the story. You would think that I would be gaining a ton
of weight, but I've actually dropped a bit since I've gotten here. I
still work out everyday, and have actually managed to stay in pretty
much the same shape as I was when I left, just a little lighter.
Everything is going well, and I hope everyone has a great week!! Love,
Elder Cherpeski.
This is my new district by the way.
7/17/17
Well, I haven't had a whole lot of luck with finding any family here,
but we do have two investigators who straight up told us that they want
to get baptized! They went to church, and liked it, so we're looking at
two likely baptisms. Which is pretty good, seeing that there has only
been 4 baptisms in our ward the whole last year... I finished reading
D&C again here a few weeks ago. It's was really interesting. I've
been reading the new Testament a lot lately because I really like
teaching directly from the words of Christ when he lived on the earth.
We had divisions (exchanges) the other day, and I spent the day with
Elder Rodriguez. He doesn't know any english, yet we were still able to
communicate and talk all day, so that was pretty cool. There's an
interesting thing that happens sometimes. I'll be talking with my
companion, and he'll be explaining something to me, and I'll think that
he told me in English, but afterwards realize that it was all in
Spanish. It's kind of cool. I haven't said a prayer in English for 3
months, and now it feels completely normal to pray in Spanish. Elder
Sastré told me that I speak better than some Elders who have 6 months in
the field, so that wa encouraging for me because I thought my Spanish
was really weak. I understand all the tenses now except the present and
past subjunctive, so that's what I'll be studying for the next two
weeks.
It's really
nice getting an hour everyday to study the scriptures. It's probably my
favorite part of the day. Spanish is coming along well, and I feel that
by 6 months I'll be close to fluent. Elder Sastré along with a bunch
of members have told me that my Spanish is quite a bit better than other
Elders who have served there with the same amount of time as me, so
that was encouraging. Sometimes I think in Spanish now, which is a
weird thought. I'm not at the point where I can switch what I'm thinking
in my head yet, so when I'm stuck in English mode, it's harder to speak
Spanish. But it's definitely improving a lot! My ward is pretty
small. Only about 70 to 90 active members, but I know pretty much most
of them now. My favorite is the Obispo (bishop) though. For some
reason we get along super great and always have each other laughing. If
we ever visit Celaya when you pick me up, we'll definitely have to
visit them! I hope you have a great week, and eat lots of vegetable for
me, we don't ever get any here haha. Love you!
Elder Cherpeski
7/24/17
Hey everyone! Hope this email finds you doing well! :) Life here has
been great. Working really hard, and loving life! It rained almost
everyday this week, so that's been a nice change. It's much better than
the heat. Spanish is coming along really well, and I can understand a
good chunk of everything now. I can even say the "erre" now! It only
took 3 months haha!
Lately I've been studying the Plan of Salvation, or the Plan that
our Heavenly Father has for us to return to Him someday. As a
missionary this is part of what we teach people everyday, and is a
message of hope and joy. The Plan of Salvation is such a blessing in
our lives, and through faith, repentance, baptism, and keeping the
commandments, we can find comfort, and return to our Father in Heaven.
If you don't have a testimony of the Plan of Salvation, or even know
what it is, I challenge you to get a testimony, or to find out what it
is. I'm blessed to be able to share this everyday, and I know that it
is true with all my heart. There's only one way to find out for
yourself if it is true, and it is through researching the Plan of
Salvation, or talking to missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, pondering the message in your heart, and finally
through prayer asking your Father in Heaven if it is true. We challenge
people to do this everyday, and it's been amazing seeing people come to
know that the things we share are true. I know these things are true,
and I promise that you can know that it is true as well. I love you
all, and I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Have a great week!!!! XD
7/31/17
Good week here! Had pig head tacos, and I really didn't like it haha!!
Spanish is coming along well, and I gave a 10 minute talk in church no
problem.
About the city here, it's interesting. There is a lot of variety. The
population is 400,000 I believe. I don't see a ton of poverty in our
area, it's definitely very humble, but most of the poverty is near the
centro, where people do just about anything to try and make money.
Selling the most random stuff in the middle of the street and stuff like
that. It was pretty crazy to me my first time there. A
typical day for us is wake up at 6:30, exercise, shower, eat, study
from 8 to 9, and then I normally study language directly after that from
30 to 60 minutes. Then we go out and work for the day,
contacting in the streets, following up on fids (people who give us
their name and address), or go to planned citas (appointments) We have
our comida normally at 3 or so, and keep on working until 9. Then we
come back home, relax a bit, and go to bed. It makes everyday feel the
same, but also makes it go by quickly everyday. Things are going well,
we just need to get some baptisms here. I know it's not for a lack of
effort, and Pres told me that I'm working really hard and progressing in
the language and as a missionary quickly.
8/7/17
Hey guys!! I've decided to write you all at once today so I can pack in
a bit more content, because I normally don't get enough time to respond
to each of you sufficiently. So here we go. It's been pretty hot
lately. I think in the 90s or so, but I'm not sure. Worse than the
heat is the sun though. It hits you the second you walk out the door.
The work is going pretty decent, and I think we're going to have 5
baptisms this next cambio. We have 6 investigators coming to church
right now, when I first got here we had 0, so there's definitely been
some progress made.
I forgot to tell you guys about this story, but two weeks ago we
had our zone conference and interviews with Presidente Williamson.
During the interview, he asked me to say the opening prayer. I hadn't
said (or thought) a prayer in English since the last interview with him,
and that was when I had only had 3 weeks in the field, and was with an
english speaking comp. So I started to pray in English. I said Dear
Heavenly Father... and just like that I was stuck! I didn't remember
how to pray in English! I struggled through a brief and very broken
prayer, and it was hard because I was thinking in Spanish. I had no
idea that I wouldn't be able to do it, and it was such a wierd feeling.
I have failed to tell you all about my new salsa fascination haha.
It turns out I love eating spicy!! I can't eat my meals now without my
salsa haha. I ate a piece of plain habanero the other day, and my comp
thought I was gonna die haha. But it was fine, and I proceeded to eat
the habanero salsa that they had there. Also I can't eat a meal now
without my tortillas haha!!
I've been reading in Alma lately, and studied the story of Alma and
Amulek. They gave up everything in order to make sure the Gospel was
preached and upheld. They gave up their families, their liberty, and
were repeatedly mocked. So I really don't have it all that bad haha.
It's a very powerful story.
We had testimony meeting on Sunday, and it was really powerful! A
ton of the members here are converts, so it's definitely a different
perspective. These people had to really change their lives and the
traditions of their families to get baptized, and it's an inspiration to
me. We have cambios this week, and I'm really hoping to stay here for
one more. It's weird how fast the time goes. The days can feel like
years sometimes, but the weeks are flying by!! We took a cool picture
the other day, so here it is haha. I hope that each of you is doing
well, and I love you all!
8/14/17
Good news! I'm here for another cambio!! Our goal is a minimum of 5
baptisms this change. I really think we can do it. We have a sister in
the zone who just finished training, and is going to train, so we have
that same situation here haha! I'm glad that everything is going well,
and that you were able to pick a bunch of pears. For exercise, I do
anything from pushups, to using my bands, to using our huge jugs of
water to work out with haha! Sometimes we go to the park in the morning that is right next to our house and I'll do pullups, and dips there.
I also do core everyother day as well. My comp doesn't like to
workout, but he's lost a ton of weight from the mission so far. I know
that I'm losing weight as well, but I can't do anything about that.
I've played basketball a total of 3 times in the field, so that's kinda
sad. The church building is nice, but there is absolutely no carpet in
it. In fact I think I've seen carpet once in my mission so far... I'm
super excited for the next 6 weeks here, and I know that it's going to
absolutely fly by!
8/21/17
First of all, here's a little about some of the investigators that we
have. La familia Diaz: This was a less active family when I got here.
They've been attending a different ward for 4 years now because at some
point they got offended. They didn't want anything to do with the ward
or the bishop. However, now after working with them since I got here,
they've starting coming to our ward again, and they say they feel
extrememly welcome there. They have 2 nine year old twins that we have
on date for baptism here shortly, and the father of the family we be
baptizing them. They've come a loooong way since I've known them, and
I'm so proud of them. They plan on staying active in our ward XD Maria
and Estefanía: Elder Molina and I randomly street contacted them one
day. Maria is the grandma of Estefanía. They also have come a long
way, but far more receptive is the grandma, Maria. She can't read, so
that has made things complicated, but we have her on date for baptism
soon. She's a great lady, and she cracks me up sometimes. She told me
that she wants me to marry her youngest daughter haha! Damian and
Damian: I contacted Damian in the street about 2 weeks ago. My comp
didn't want to contact him since he was drinking, but I felt that I
should anyways. Damian is about 40 years old and has a son who's 11.
They are both golden investigators. They came to church, and they
already know everything! They read the bible everyday, and somehow
already had a book of Mormon, and both of them have read it!! The son
is a genius, and is already putting together electronic thingies, and
whatnot. He knows a ton! The father is super suportive of his son, and
works extremely hard to keep a roof over their heads. They're on date
for baptism in about 3 weeks. We have more investigators, but these are
the best haha. The ward is super impressed with the work we've been
doing, since they've only had 4 baptisms in the last year, and we're
looking at about 6 or so in the next few weeks.
As for P-days and what we do, they're the best haha. There isn't a
whole lot to do here, but we've gone to play pool, basketball a couple
of times, zone activities, and to the mall a couple times as well. My
favorite part of P-day is taking a nap and then going to write. It's
super nice. I read Alma 29 the other day, and it was really comforting
and stood out to me. It's talking about how Alma wishes he could
convert everyone with immense power, but that's not the case. At times I
felt frustrated that the work wasn't progressing as fast as I wanted
it, and this chapter really helped me out. I know that as long as I'm
trying my hardest, everything will be alright. Like I said, the ward
has been showing a lot more support lately because they see that we're
working hard, and bringing investigators to church. The bishop here is
great, and visited Damian and Damian with us to teach the Word of
Wisdom, and it was a fantastic lesson. I've been taking turns leading
the lessons lately, and despite it being a little stressful, they've
gone well. The mission lately has been so much more of something I
truly enjoy than something I saw as a duty. I think my outlook on it
has really changed a lot, and I love the mission more and more each
day. Sometimes it's super hard, and I really have to grit my teeth and
go back out into the sun, but on the whole it's a priceless blessing.
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