new stuff!!

i think i know what my mom always meant when she said vegetables are good for you. this week was definitely good for me. not that i enjoyed it, or that i want to have another like it, but it was good for me in the sense that vegetables are good for you. you know that later on you will be glad you had them.

basically what i was trying to say is that this week was a little rough, me and my companion get a long all right, but it was definitely work to adjust to a new companion and speaking spanish all the time. (if i am being honest mye and my trainer never spoke spanih outside of lessons.) but it is all good i grew a lot from this last week.

there is a family here that have known missionaries for 2 years. but they never made changes in there lives to progress. and with my trainer we talked to them every once in a while, but never really progressed with them.

then in comes my new comp. we talked with them kinda harshly if i am being honest. asked them what they have applied, what they have learned from their time knowing the missionaries. the answer was not much. then we asked how they felt about our message, and they said it is a normal message of christ.

that was when we wosked them a little. (wosk means to chastise. more or less.) we said that because they never acted on the things the missionaries taught they havent seen how wonderful this message is. and because they never acted they have recived the blessings heavenly father wants to give them.

after that we invited them to pray, and hopefully they do. because if they do they can start to realize that this isnt just an ordinary message. this mesage is the whole gospel of jesus christ.(that sentence souns cooler in spanish just btw) 

i had a good talk with an elder here about measuriong success. and he said that you cant measure success by baptisms. there is an elder here who has over 70 baptisms. but he is a jerk. this elder told me that it doesnt matter how many people you baptis, if you dont end up becoming more like christ through your mission.

i really liked that thought and related it to some thing the profeta joseph smith said while they were building the temple in nauvoo. he said that they werent just building a temple, they were building them selves. through their sacrifice they were becoming the kind of people who could enter the temple.

by serving a mission i invite others to follow christ by showing them the way. but what does it serve me if i dont come unto him too?

one day we were walking down this side street by our house and a taxi drove past us. as he was passing out of the corner of my eye i say a flash of what looked like water. i took a few steps and then turn to my companion and asked if the driver threw something at him. he just nodded his head and looking at his face i saw that he had some liquid all over his face.

the driver spit or threw water at us!!!

the next day we were walking down this same road and a taxi drove past us and Boom!  i get a face full of what i hope was water!!  the same freaking chango (that means monkey) threw water at us again!!

i wish i could say i walked away like peter rejoicing to be abused for christs sake, but i am going to be a honest i was a little upset.

i hope you all have a good week,

elder arkoudas

the hum drum stuff i think is boring but you all told me you want to hear.

bueno so this week i recieved some emails that says you guys like the stuff i probably think is boring, sohere we go.

i mentioned a spider and a wasp fighting last week, and just so you know, the wasp one. but to be fair it would not win against other spiders i have seen here.

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED!! IF YOU DONT LIKE SPIDERS *cough cough rebecca oborn* DONT READ THIS NEXT PART!!

yeah so we were walking home the other night and we stopped to talk with this kid marcelo, he isnt progressing super well so we just stop by every once in a while. but as we were talking to hime i saw this huge spider walking across the road.

now let me clarify huge. if you were to take a chicken´s egg and place it on the back of this spider not only would it not get squished, but you would also still be able to see its legs poking out.

another example, because i get the feeling some of you are still confused.  take your ring finger (leave it on your hand) look at the last two joints, bones, no sé como se dice. but look at those two parts ofyour finger, the one with the fingertip and the one next to it. now if you have small hands go look at someone else who has bigger hands than you. but that size of object is how big this spiders body was. then add two nch legs and you have a pretty decent idea of this spider.

anyways i went over to this spider and picked it up... just kidding. we just looked at it for a bit.

VIEWER DISCRETION ENDED!!!

yeah then this morning my trainer elder archer left for santacruz. so now i am wth elder santander, he is from chile. and he doesnt speak english. so this should be a good 6 weeks.

no it will be awesome, i recently finished reading the book of mormon in spanish and yeah i have a pretty good grasp of the spanish language.

now i am just working on being confident. i have always struggled being confident in my self. if you think i am lying that is just because i would pretend to be confident by being decisive, but honestly in mybrain i was freaking out. even if outwardly i looked calm.

but yeah confidence is my next milestone. i recently had an experiance that really helped me be positive and submissive, so now we are going for confidence.

but yeah know i love you all. some of you are probably thinking "he is just talking to those in his famiy, and his friends but not me."  nope i am talking to you too. this world is too scary o nothave people you love so i am inviting all of you into my tribe.

basically that means we are friends:)

love Elder Arkoudas

hey mom

 this is hard.

not the mission. just trying to find something worth telling you guys about. i could tell you about the waterfall we went to last week, but that was just fun. not really important. or i could tell you about the wasp i saw wrestle with a spider the size of my thumb nail... but same thing. not really important. yeah this is hard...

this last saturday we went to the baptism of this guy diego. the hermanas in our district were the ones teaching him, so we went and sang a hymn in front of everyone. 

if you know me from home you know i dont really do stuff like that. before i would always get scared and nervous. but for whatever reason, i dont even get fazed anymore. i have sang in front of people like 4 times since i got here.

maybe latinos are just nicer than north americans.

but anyways it was nice to see someone baptized. i have been to 4 since i got here, and they are always very spiritual experiances for me. probably for the person getting baptized too... hopefully they are spirituall for everyone there, but i was just trying to say that i like them.

yeah other than that i have been reading the book of mormon a ton. i decided i wanted to read it in spanish all the way through before i finished my training. unfortunately i decided that when i only had 3 weeks left in my training, so i have been reading 30 pages a day for the last 2 weeks. but it is awesome. you really get to know the story really well, and it has noticably helped me with my spanish too.

anyways thats all for now,

elder arkoudas

hey mom.

this week was pretty good. pretty hard too, but dont worry about it, i came to an understanding today. so i had been struggling a little with just being here. not because it is too hard, but just not wanting to do it. anyways things were just kind of adding up and i wasnt feeling great.

then as i was cleaning the bathroom today (cause it needed it) i remembered a song from somewhere in the past. it kinda goes like this "what if your blessings come through rain drops what if your healing comes through tears, what if a thousand restless nights are what it takes to know he´s here"

and at first i was just kinda like oh yeah that is a good song, i think my mom likes it... and then i thought about how it has been spiritually and mentally hard lately, and i tried to apply the song to my life. and as soon as i did it just kinda hit me that this is hard because i need to grow. really the only way i can do this work, the only way i can get along with my companion, the only way i can not be homesick is if i turn to the savior for help. hopefully it doesnt take me a thousand nights to actually get there.

anyway i love you mom. i always joke with the other missionaries that i cant wait till monday to email my mom, cause i dont have a girlfriend. but it is honestly true, i miss my momma.

love, 

elder arkoudas

water fall

hola, va a disculpar, pero este carta no es tan largo

so this week we did a lot of contacting. if you want an acurat picture of what contacting is really like, imagine this...

you are having a party. it is going to be an awesome party. but unfortunately you dont have phone numbers for some of the people who you want to invite to your party. so you decide to take a day and walk to all of their houses and invite them personally.

you head out in the morning and you get to the first house. now you are really excited because you really want this person to come to your party. you know it is going to be the best party in the whole world, and you really want them to come.

so you knock on their door and they open up the door and you talk to them for a bit, but they dont want to go to your party. so you go to the next house and the next and the next. some people do liten and they give you a time to come back and talk more about this party, but a lot of the people you really wanted to come to this party dont want to go.

that is what contacting is like. and this week we did a fair deal of contacting. and finally i was a little tired of people not wanting to come to my party! it is going to be fun! if you will just listen you would realize you want to go to this party! this gospel will change your life! for the better! I know it will because it has changed mine! and i want you to have this same happiness that i feel!

but some people just arent ready to be invited to the party. anyways i am getting too deep into this metaphor. 

we knocked on this lady´s door and she opened up but she was leaving to the market so she didnt have much time. actually she didnt have any time and barely sid hello before she was walking down the sidewalk.

as she walked away, under my breath i said "buenas dias hermana, my name is elder arkoudas and this is my companion elder archer. we have the keys to your happiness and your salvation in our hands... but we can see you are busy so we will come back another time."

after i said that it kinda hit me that i really wanted her to listen. i have never met this lady before. still dont know her name, but i know that if she would listen, just listen. her life could be soooo much better.

in the words of alma."oh that i were an angel and could cry repentance unto the whole world..." 

really this week has been really good. i started reading the book of mormon in spanish 10 days ago and it has really helped my spanish. 

i know this work is true and i know it is worth it. it is by no means easy. all of you who are preparing for your mission (should be just about all of you) i want you to know that this is the best thing i have ever done. i am the happiest,sadest, tiredest, grateful, joyfull, disapointed, satisfied, and in tune with the spirit i have ever been.

all in all 10 out of 10 would definitely recomend.

elder arkoudas

I think I should add a little of the reply I got from him today:

new years was pretty awesome. we went to a steak house and i got this really good burger. then me and my comp went up ion the roof of our house and burned this old pile of garments that other missionaries had left in our house. then we came back in side and we about to go to sleep when the fire works started going off... so we went back up to the roof and watched the whole city light off fireworks for a half hour. it was pretty awesome. 360 degrees of explosions.

elder hansen is from wyoming and elder mullo(¨the native¨) is from quitos equador. super cool guys. they are in my district (really just them and us and a pair of hermanas) so we are a squad and we always do stuff together.

this is a sexy tie.