1/1/11

Devin was so right about how this is the best mission in the entire world! It is amazing. The last two days have been hecticly fantastic! Okay so my pdays are on Monday but they give us a pday the day after we get her to get settled in! I love this place so much. On the plane ride that was 13 hours to Buenos Aires i sat next to a woman that accepted my B of M with my testimony in it and read third Nephi to he on the plane and i answered questions and it was awesome. Oh and it was all in Spanish! This place is awesome. I got here and the mission president met us at the airport. We slept at the mission home last night and ate there. I got my trainer yesterday, his name is Elder Brown and he is bomb awesome. He is white but every missionary looks native here cause they are so dark. I have almost been killed like 5 times from people driving and we walking its like frogger even on the sidewalks. It’s so much fun, the people are so nice... well its like they are being forced to be nice though. They all say hi and talk but its like they are being forced. It’s nothing like America. I haven’t had the chance to take many pictures, but i will and will send them home on Monday cause that is our next pday but i can attach pictures.

I figured out that there are about 500 members in our area and about 25 that go to church, so we have got a little work to do but this next part is for Devin!!!!..... GO GO GO OLYMPIA, which team is he? Oh ya and the area i was assigned to is called Encarnacion 3 (send names Devin if you know anybody here) its about 6 hours from the temple by bus. I think we are the farthest area away from the mission home. I can see Buenos Aries Argentina from our pension. It’s awesome. There is a windstorm out side right now and i think a rainstorm is coming! We have done in contacting and i haven’t met any one cause today is pday and we got in at about 1 last night. But i think i will tonight. Every thing is amazing and it hit me today that i have 22 more months of this and i might try and extend, If they will let me. It is so dirty here, not dirty dirty but dirty, you have to watch your eyes at all time. The magazines and tvs are worse than Las Vegas. The people are so funny, turns out Latinos have got jokes.

It’s amazing wearing different pants!! I have been wearing the same pants for nine weeks and today is the first day i have not had to. Oh ya about my pension or apartment, it’s the coolest most getto thing ever. Cockroaches everywhere and the walls look like they have had dirt rubbed on them. It could possibly be the church from Nacho Libre, it’s so old. We have a bade' or how ever you spell it, haven’t used it yet but i know its going to be an adventure in its self! I love Spanish. The language is different. They mix Gaurani and Spanish here. Like lets go is jaha instead of vamanos. It’s just something i have to pick up. I’m going to get a Gaurani nametag soon. The people love it when you use Gaurani. I have been told that you will have tacos all day everyday. I have already gotten used to the sweat. Oh ya something more with hygiene it’s non existent here. I lost my toothbrush somewhere along the way and didn’t have the opportunity to brush for 3 and half days and i fit right in. Usually the rule is you have to be in sight and hearing of your companion but here they added one in the book, you have to be in sight hear and smell of you companion cause you can’t see or hear them but you will be able to smell them. You sweat all day every day. I sweat in our pension. The only room that has ac (must of been made in 20s) is our sleep room but we sweat everywhere else. It is actually pretty big. I’ll get some pictures of it. All the dogs here are so tranquil its nice. They don’t chase you, they beg for food and leave. Oh the food is awesome so far. Of course the first two meals i have had in the mission home is ice cream and pizza and fruit loops and home made orange juice. My compa is awesome, he doesn’t speak a lot of Spanish with me which i wish he would but he is awesome and we get along well. Tell me what you wanna know i will be able to write more on Monday but could you do me a favor family and tell Jancen and Courtney that i couldn’t read there letters they sent by email so i don’t know what they said. It’s against the rules to read their emails. Oh and tell them that dear elder is better than hand written, faster i think, but i still don’t’ know the address. I know that every body has the same address so i think it is just the address of the mission home which i think you have.

I love you family it’s was nice to talk to you on the phone three days ago

Love Elder Shaw

p.s, oh and everything is cheaper here familia. Don’t send packages it is about 60 dollars and i can probably get it from the black market here. I think i am going to look for a micro chip for my camera there, although electronics are pretty expensive here. I’m still getting used to Gaurani money. I only have like 7 mil Gaurani until next pday which is about a dollar 20

I LOVE SCOTHAROOS and all of the goodies thank you! Thanks for the tie it is awesome and I look like a candy cane! We decided we are going caroling to residence halls on Christmas morning! Really thank you for the goodies and stuff. It's killing me not to open the other presents. My companion has literally like 30 presents I think from his dad. They are divorced but there is no way he will able to keep anything its so heavy. Ha but I's worried about being over wieght too!
MERRY CHRISTMAS oh ya and tell cody that is so cool and to prepare and to write me!!! I don't have his address. Where is Jancen goin? Dang Braiden, you can't get better than me. not already! Sounds like you are doing awesome. Tiffany wrote me and told me about the rocky game! That sounds awesome, tell him to ignore Bubba and realize he is only doing it out of jealousy or how ever you spell that! But that is awesome! Keep doing fantastic! But HEY FAM I will be heading to Texaz-Argentina and then Paraguay! I am so excited to go. only 6 days left, but I think I have 3 hour lay over between 9 o'clock and 12:35 is when my plane takes off so some time between then I will be calling in the morning. Dad could you dear elder and explain the conference call a little more. Do I call that and it will forward to the home phone or something or how does that work? I am so excited, oh and guess what a memeber of the 1 quorum of the 70 came to the mtc to show his son and his family who wants to serve a mission. he found out that there was a district going to Paraguay Assunsion which is where he is from and where he served so he came into our class room with his famil and talked in Spanish and told us about Paraguay. I understood most everything!!! of course then he said that they talk a lot fast, but then we ask him to talk in Gautni and IT WAS NOT LIKE SPANISH! I'm done for. Oh and I also found out that parts of the the east of my mission speak Portuguese! But really studying a language is so much fun! he told us so much and it was so exciting. Did you know that out of all the people in Paraguay 90% of them are direct ancestors of Lehi, people from the Book of Mormon. There is almost no European influence or European people there, so we are teaching thema bout their fathers from the Book of Mormon. How cool is that!?!
Oh and I learned something funny this week. Okay so carver is to hunt and then reflexive form of the verb is become married and the esposas is wifes and handcuffs hahaha. It hought that was so funny!
Oh also I think I brok a bone in my hand 3 weeks ago playing basketball cause it is still purple and swollen and shaking hands hurt but I am not going to health clinic cause there is no way they are making me stay till i tis helad so I 'm just leaving it. It is not that bad but colorful!
This last Sunday some institue teacher can to our fireside and gave this skit by himself. he was playing wilford Woodruf and told the story of the Jospeh Smith from his perspective. It was amazing. There is so much to the story of Jospeh Smith that people don't teach. Like that actually went down in Carthage. the spirit was so strong and I really wish that I could go to carthage agains, but I 'm glad we went that once as a family! After the devotional we sang We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet and every boady stodd up half way through and it was amazing how powerful the spirit was! The MTC is the perfect life and all you have to do is decide you are going to love it and you will love it, all you can eat, feeling the spirit learning a language, basketball, and studying the doctrine all day! Guess what we have like 10 inches of snow outside today and it is our Pday so we got to take pictures and stuff in the snow. It is not supposed to stop snowing till tomorrow so it is going to be aweomse! But I hope that you are enjoying life and excited to call cause I am. I love you family and my favorite scriptures this week by far was sections 120 to 122 in D&C. They are so powerful! when I get back we need to do that scripture chase thing on Christmas Eve again for some things good like a gift certificate! I'll do even better now!
LOVe you BYE

December 8,2010

Dear Beloved Wonderful Fantastic Family,
That is horrible that Eagle lost what happened? How did Braiden do this week? Tell him to forget Sefiert and that the girls will still be interested even if he does horrible, so he is not worried! I Love playing basketball and I am going to miss it in exactly 3 weeks from today I believe is when I leave! I am so excited to go to Paraguay, I really think that the Spanish is going very well! I have been so blessed with understanding the language! Although there is a hermana in my district that is struggling pretty badly I pray for her every night! But it is amazing how I went from absolutely no studying in high school to all I do is study all day! I spend every reasonable second I have studying the language and the doctrine. I have challenged myself to see how many scripture references I can memorize and I'm at about 35 right now but sometimes I forget some of them! What's happening for Christmas this year? Anything exciting? I'm not sure what happens here on Christmas but I really want Christmas music and they don't allow it here any music!
Okay so yesterday was the second trc (investigator role play teaching thing once a week) that we taught in Spanish and for the first time I felt the spirit while teaching! I was so worried that I would not be able to feel the spirit if I taught in Spanish because I was focusing on the worlds so much, but yesterday was so good! I shared like 5 scriptures throughout and I still can't believe how real the gift of tongues blesses all the missionaries, how can someone go from no history of the background an in 5 weeks be speaking a 35 min lesson, sharing scriptures and answering concerns, if you think about it it is amazing in that amount of time. Every night I pray the spirit loosens my tongue because with out it I could not do it!
Family I had the most amazing experience today! So yesterday me and Elder Kirth got a new companion who has been here for 14 weeks because of a medical delay so he can't leave the country (but he just got re-assigned to Boise) and is leaving this Thursday so I told him to look for you and send my love! Look for his name is Elder Davis. He had a doctor's apt. today and so we got to go to the outside world to a hospital for a doctors apt. for him. Elder Kirth and I were writing letters int he waiting area when a 55 year is women walked in who has obviously a hard life. As she walked by I felt prompted to say "have a good day" so id did and she stopped and looked at us like she had seen us before. We told her we were missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She said she had us over about 8 years ago...and then she paused and started to cry. By now we had gotten up and were by her.
She said she had listened to the missionaries after her husband had died. We talked to her for about 8 minutes about how she will see him again and that you can be happy attains through the Church of Christ. Her name was Alice Santiago. She was crying the whole time and said that she wanted to feel happy again. So I told her that some missionaries could stop by her house and teach her about the plan of happiness. I wrote down her information and shook her hand and she went to her appointment. When we got back tot he mtc I called the Provo mission president and gave him the information and he said thank you and that they would visit her! It is the most amazing feeling and I love her and I don't even know her! I love this work! I am sitting in the washing room with 560 missionary around me right now and trying not to cry ha! everything is well here and today is amazing!
I am not sure what my favorite scripture is this week but D& C 95:1 is still good and alma 36:# and probably Mosiah 2:41 is really good this week.
I love you and thanks for the letters !
Elder Shaw

December 2, 2010

Hi mom and fam! How is it going? hows life? hey did i tell you that the girl that competed against kylie in the junior miss thing for idaho is an elders in my room girlfriend. ya thats my interesting fact for the day! oh tell dad i heard his voice!~!!! i was sitting next to the nurse at the mtc when she was calling hom enad i heard dad answer and i almost yelled hi but i figured I would maintain a quite dignity (that is the mtc favorite phrase) so I didn't but I heard him!! oh ya I have planter warts. that in 4 days spread to 3 toes so I am going to the outside world to a doctor today to get them dug out and someone told me it hurts! if I have to get a shot I will not make it, I might die on my mission today!
I found an amazing scripture this week share it with every one! You have to look it up! Its in the first epistole jonh chapter 5 verse 21!!!!! thank you for your letters and prayers! But really there is so much in the scriptures, they can answer all problems
could you send me the borups house address, bro borup is emailing me and I cant emil back please!
O ya braidens first game is today, let me know how that goes
I love you!

November 30, 2010

What's up family! How's it going? Hey doesn't Braiden have his first basketball game this week? How does the team look? Whose pulling through? Oh guess what Braiden ... no big deal but yesterday during gym I dunked 7 times throughout gym and one of them was in the face of a kid taller than me! It was fantastic, he went up I went up and the rest is history! But that was awesome probably the coolest dunk I have ever done! I wonder if Paraguay will make lose alot of weight cause then... I will fly! Its a bummer the Beans didnt make, is there a lot of snow there? It snowed like about 3 or 4 inches here one night and it doesn't melt. It's so weird, everything melts in Eagle! But the MTC is awesome. This last week flew by, oh and this last week was the week to prepare for teaching our first lesson in Spanish all the way through. Which was yesterday, it is amazing how fast you learn at the MTC. In 4 weeks I can teach a 40 minute lesson all in Spanish. I didn't go as well as I expected but that is because the week before we taught in English and my expectation were too high, but it was alright. Sometime I feel limited to what I want to say and that is the worst! But I realized something this week, That a mission is the perfect example of a refiners fire. I am in the midst of the refiners fire. The chanlanges and experience on a mission will purify anybody if they will serve faithfully. It is amazing how much you feel the spirit here too. It's like I am addicted to it and need a certain dosage everyday or I don't feel complete ha. But it is amazaing and hey if you ever want to send like your favorite scrippture of the week or something feel free cause scriptures are like gold to me here I love them. Is it wrong to love your Spanish Book of Mormon more than you English because I have definitely switched over completely and even though I don't understand some if it, it is so much better and I really hope I don't lose them. I feel for Devin now! I also realize that the teachers that our district have are amazing. they are fantastic teachers and I love them to death. They are exact opposites and one is a Nazi and the other a baby but they equal out. I love Mormon chapter 9!

Alright so story of the week is my companion found some laxatives stuff in someone's room and they said he could have it. In the pouch there was 2 pills 2 cookies and this powder stuff and my companion took every single one all at once and it was the funniest thing. Watching him squirm in his seat and say oh no throuugh out the day. I couldn't stop laughing. I almost took the other pouch but decided not to because we had to teach in a little while and one of us had to be stable to make it through the lesson! I am really making progress in the language though I am being blessed. I understand all the grammer and I can understand real well but I talk very slowly and my vocaab isn't fantastic but I think that will only come out in the field!

Keep me posted and thank you for the letters and packets I love reading them.

Oh ya as for christmas I don't need anything and it will just put me over on weight but the food and ties were fantastic. Thank you!

I Love You

Elder Shaw