May 16, 2016

So I haven't wrote this for a little while I think. We have been talking with a lot more people because there are no progressing investgtors. in this area right now. We did a ton of contacts this week, which is hard in the cold. Everyone wakes up at 11 and goes to sleep at 6, so we walk in the streets from 6 to 9 looking for anybody living that we can talk at. We got in the last 2 weeks 28 new investigators, but with them, we will probably leave 22. Yay numbers. 
A lady in my ward made me a laundry bag. I'll send you a pic when if i find a computer that can do it. It is really cold here now. Around 8 celsius,  don't know what that is in f. We got a new bishop, but he doesn't have any counselors, which is a little weird. 

I had legal stuff this week, but it was in a different area really far, so we needed to sleep there. We went to the train station in bus, but the bus was late, so we missed the only train to where we wanted to go, and had to wait until 9:35 for the next one. When we got halfway they cancelled the trains,so we got off and wandered around lost at 11:35 at night in a not so nice area, until a member saw us and helped us to know where we needed to go to get another bus. So we went there and took 2 more buses until we were more or less close to where we wanted to go. Then we gave up and called the elders in the offices, cause they have the only car, and they came and got us. We got to the pension at 1:30 in the morning. So that was pretty fun. I can't think of anything else that happened this week, so that's that

Hasta luego,

Elder WInkel

 

 25 April 2016

So this is my new companion, and a pizza de argentina, which I gifted myself in my last day of my other area . This week it is still raining. My new ward is a good size, which I like. We don't have any investigators progressing right now, we have to find some. We take the bus a ton, but everybody normal does, so it's not too bad. The other fotos are a district activity and my old comp and me coming in out of the rain.

Week 20

So this week was kinda empty, a lot of appt's fell thru. We found some more people to teach, and that's always cool. It has been pretty wet and rainy here, I think it has rained almost every day for the past week and a half, kinda weird. I found out that a guy in my ward doesn't have a tribe in his patriarchal blessing, he is a sealer in the temple and sings really good, and doesn't have a tribe. I'm not really sure how that works. I'll try to send some photos next week.
Elder Winkel

Week 19

This week was pretty bad and good at the same time. Almost every one of our fixed appts.
fell thru, but we found a lot of new people. We have been teaching this lady who is terminally
ill with cancer, and she accepted a bautismal date, but she has to get married to the father
of her children or seperate, and this always takes forever. We also got a date for an older
lady who's husband just died, but she told us it is just a goal, and she doesn't think she
will be ready on that day, so we'll see what happens!

Week 18

Okay, so this week some people told me that I need to send more details about these
people who got baptized. The family Chancan is Jaime, the father, 44, Christina, the
Mother, 42, Jhack, the oldest son, with 12, Franck, the second son, with 11, Mateo,
the youngest son, with 7, and Candela the daughter, with 6. They are awesome  
investigators. They moved to Argentina from Peru 6 years ago, they are very peruano,
 very short, and goditos. They live in Campo Tongui, which is almost a nice place,
because their house burned down with all of their stuff when they went to visit their
parents in peru. elder Rosti baptized the parents, and I baptized the kids. I don't know
how they chose, two days before the baptism I asked elder rosti who was baptizing
them and he told me that I was going to, suprise! We thought it would be cool for the
presidente de rama, and of young mens to do the confirmations, since they know them,
and also the people here really like authority figures.
Ezekiel is 17 years old, his mom and older brother are members, and his dad and
younger siblings are not. He is super addicted to a game called Counter Strike.
He wins money playing it professionally.
Gonzalo is his friend, and is also addicted to Counter Strike. They play it all day, every
day.
This week we talked with a lot of people, and had our stake conference. No
investigators came, but its alright cause the micro that we took to the stake center
was super full.

Week 17

7 March 2016

Hey, so this week we baptized 6 people! It was good. I liked it. I got to
baptize two of them, Jhack and Frahnk.
I also got to confirm Gonzalo, which was pretty scary, and cool.
We had 139 come to the church this week,
which is by far the most ever. E' Rosti got changed to monte grande,
and I got a new comp, E' Cedeño de Panama. He really, really, really likes
Panama, and plays football americano.

Week 16

29 February 2016
 
This week we had 6 people commit to baptism for 5 de marzo. Pretty cool, also we ate ice cream this week. Not the same, but it was still good. Got to see Elder Bednar, and he talked to us about missionary work, so that was cool. He gave our mission the blessing of an apostle with the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood. Spanish is going alright, I kinda understand the general idea when people talk, especially about church stuff. That's just about all that happened this week, Hasta proxima,

Elder Winkel

Week 13

So, this week was pretty similar, nothing super awesome or super bad happened this week. Oh, I gave 2 blessings in Spanish, that was interesting, but I don't know if the person recieving the blessing understood.Here are some pics. I am just sending all of them, so I don't know which you are getting, so be careful.

 

Week 12

Okay this week is going to be a little shorter than normal cause i'm just about out of time. We found Pedro in the street, but I don't think he is interested anymore. The work is progressing in other places. 
I don't ever want to eat fidelos again. 

Elder Winkel

Week 11

Hello outside world. I have survived one transfer in Argentina! You can all congratulate me and send me 

money, or ice cream. I'll take both. 

Pedro is still gone so that sucks. We had a newer investigator come to church for the first time, and she 

brought three of her children and two grandchildren over 8, who are all taking the lessons now, so that 

was pretty awesome. We have been trying to get her to come for 4 weeks now. This week we broke our 

record for most lessons taught in one day, which was sweet also. I met this guy that lived in new york 

for ten years and is named Oscar, he is pretty cool, and cooler cause he speaks english. I am learning 

spanish pretty good. I can understand most people, about half the time now, and they understand me 

about the same, some more, some less. I have one kid that understands everything I say, and when 

people at the church don't understand he repeats the same words, just with a better pronunciation, 

and the people understand, which is nice. 

Our favorite scriptures to share are in the beginning of Mosiah, 2-18, depending on what the people 

need. I am liking here, six weeks passed a liiitle bit quicker than the ccm, which I am okay with, 

learning lots, but I have started to have a little difficulty talking in english, so I can't talk perfectly 

in english, and can't really speak casellano either, so it is kinda interesting!

Hasta lunes,

Elder Winkel

Week 10

This week was pretty awesome, and fast. We taught a lot more lessons than we usually do, and found 6 new investigators! We haven't seen pedro since the incident last sunday, but we will probably find him this week. We had tramites this week, pretty intresting. mostly we waited for about five hours. Had a lesson with these invetigators, Abel y Juliana in tongui, they are usually gone, but we finally caught them! Taught a lesson and after they were like, ¨come back and eat dinner with us, we'll cook salmon for you guys¨. This is super awesome cause I am always hungry here, and also salmon is super expensive. I am excited, and ready. Had intercambios this week with the Dl, that was.. different. He's a chileno that doesn't know english, but always tries to speak it. I don't understand his english,and he doesn't understand my casellano. We got along alright. We had a lesson with a investigator, who happens to be a  jehovah witness, and she said that she would only read the bom if she could find a prophecy, without our help, about it in the bible. A little difficult, but my comp is super excited about her. We took the younger chancans, jack y frank with us proselyting one day, jack is 13 and frank is 12. This day was terrible, cause we had 5 appt. fall through, because for some reason every person we saw, or found was wasted. They liked it anyway, so we were safe with that. Had 2 baptisms sat. for these 2 girls in our ward, but they were only baptized late, 11 and 9, so they weren't really investigators, just needed the lessons cause they are older than 8. I met a guy from New York, named oscar, a little ironic. He speaks english, and is super cool. Talk to yous next week.

Elder Winkel

week 9

So this week was pretty sweet. Moises passed his baptismal interview, and today we ran around for four hours and got a wedding certificate for Chencun family, so they have an interview this week. They are our golden investigators, do all the right things, and look for ways that they can be better without us telling them. For New Years we went back to our pension, and watched fireworks until 1. We weren't supposed too, really, but our dl said it was okay since it is impossible to sleep during firework time. If you guys think people back home like fireworks, you are mistaken. They aren't illegal here so everybody buys a ton. The whole city was lit up from 10 to 1, pretty cool, and loud. We met this guy named Pedro, and taught him a lesson, he is a capo, I think, says that he will come to church sunday for sure. Family Falcon, some other investigators, didn't come to church, the dad got attacked by a dog and had to go to the hospital, so that sucked. i am definently getting better at Casillano, which is awesome, for obvious reasons. I think that we have eaten pasta for every meal we have cooked in the last two weeks, which is not super fun, but it could be worse! I still like pasta. Out of time, talk to you next week!

Elder Winkel

week 8

So, this is my second week in Argentina. I have been asked by every us missionary at least 5 times, for each one, how I am holding up and liking it here. A little funny, cause I don't feel any different that I did back home, except a little warmer. We played soccer on p-day with some other missionaries. That was...interesting. Fûtbol is not my sport I don't think. The people here are super cool, and short. i have never felt so tall as I do here, except maybe in young mens and it was me, chase, shawn, and a handful of deacons. The food is pretty awesome, but since they don't have good water we drink soda whenever we are not in our pensione. i have drunken more soda in two weeks here than I have for my entire life put together. The thing we eat most is probably just beef. We eat a lot of pasta and a lot of chorizo also. Christmas was different cause everyone celebrated on Christmas eve instead. They lit off a ton of fireworks and partied all night, and on Christmas they slept all day. Empty streets. We had a christmas eve dinner with familia Coro, and Hermano Coro decided that I was the cook, so I cooked somewhere around 45 pounds of meat for 28 people. It was pretty good, we had two different chorizos, ribs, steak, chicken, cow tongue (which was gross), and some other meat that I liked but didn't recognize. For Christmas we had a service project and met some future investigators, tried to skype but that didn't work, and ate dinner with Hermana Claudia and her family. They gave us Messi t shirts, which are super cool, but a little big. We were able to talk to our families on the 26, pretty happy about that. Our oldest investigator told us that Joseph Smith saw the Devil, not God and Jesus, and that god doesn't have a physical body, and that he was the prophet cause white people are not part of the tribe of Israel. Pretty sad, but Moises is doing a ton better, and is getting baptized in two weeks. Jaime and Christina are getting married, so that they can be baptized in enero also, pretty stoked. Oh, almost forgot to tell you that this girl in our ward asked me to marry her, with the help of her mom. A little awkward situacion. i said no, in case you wondered. I hope you all had a happy Christmas, I like it here a ton, and am learning super fast. 

Hasta lunes,

Elder Winkel

Week 7

Well... I am here in Argentina. I like it here, especially the temperature. Sorry for my spelling, I don´t have spell check, and spanish is killing it. For spanish, you know how everyone says that  ¨that´s not the language they taught me in the mtc¨, well, my trainer told me that this isn´t the language I was taught in the Mtc. Here people speak casa juano, and you can´t understand if you speak perfect spanish. Me padre is super cool, his name is Elder Rosti de Brasil. He speaks english pretty good, which is a major blessing for me. I thought that i would miss music or some other thing most, but no, I miss english most. The food here is awesome, and a little lacking in green things, which is okay with me. We mostly just eat pasta, cause of our area. Me and my comp have El Faro which is the highest baptisms, and most dangerous area in the mission. We have this part called Campo Tongui, I don´t know if you could find pics online, but it is pretty poor. We are not allowed to carry cameras, and I had to get rid off my bag because it was too big and attracted unwanted attention. The people here are super nice, and nobody has called me peche gringo. We have 21 investigators, and 4 with baptism dates. i invited one of them, Moises, who is an amazing guy. The others are roberto, who has been investigating for a year and a half, and familia chencun, who have been investigating for one month. The parents need to get married, but we are baptising their two oldest boys. We flew for 15 hours, kinda long, and I was a little tired when we got here. Our MP is super cool and nice also. We have a walking area, and walk kinda a lot. My shoes are not holding up, but oh well. Someone stole my watch, that was fun. Me padre helps me a lot, and is super excited cause I guess argentinos like americanos. Everyone wants me to teach them english, so we may start a class to get people to investigate. Teach Engilish and the gospel at the same time, and ¨lead them carefully down to¨the waters of baptism. Our house is alright, i am being eaten alive here, because there are kinda a lot of bugs. Our water got turned off today, so we don´t know when they are going to fix that, but hopefully soon.

Hablo con ustedes pronto, 

Elder Winkel

The district leaving the MTC for Argentina

Week 6

So, this is my last week at the Mtc, I got my flight plans on wednesday. We leave on monday 

the 14th at 930am and get dropped off in Argentina on Tuesday at 430pm, so we'll see how 

that goes. 

We had Sister Oscarson,  the yw pres, speak to us, she was alright. I really liked the Christmas 

devotional. 

We had an all day class called in-field orientation that was super fun,we learned a ton of stuff, 

and nobody spoke Spanish at me, all day. 

I tried to send some pics, but they were all exceeding 15mb, and wouldn't send. 

One of our investigator/teachers talked to me and elder Vergara after we had given his 

investigator the last lesson we would give him. He said that he was amazed at how far we 

had come, with 

Spanish and with teaching the lessons. He told us lots of nice things that I wrote down 

somewhere else, and went up ten notches in my teacher estimation pole. 

We got a new girl in our district, and we named her Loco Rojo because she told us a lot of 

impressive but not believable things, like she has a four foot vertical, and speaks fluent Latin, 

and that she won state for girls boxing, etc. The funniest part is nobody believes her, but she 

doesn't notice. 

We are learning subjunctive in Spanish, which is evil. Whoever said Spanish was an easy 

language to learn never did past subjunctive. it's alright though, I'll live. 

 

until next week,

Elder Winkel

week 5

This is my fifth week at the Mtc! We got to host this week, which means pick up new mss and show them around, give them their stuff and where their room/class is. Spanish is killing my spelling, esp. when I don't have spell check! Sounds like grandma and grandpa were the stars of the show this year for sure, I think almost everybody emailed me about their super cool talent! It snowed a ton here and made a lot of slippery ice. After the snow melts on the sidewalk it leaves these little white rocks, pretty weird. Our devotional this tuesday was by Craig C Christensen, he was pretty impressive, talked a lot about who you are going to be when you return from your mission, and a lot about working hard w/ the spirit. I finally got up to 147 here, but it was right after lunch that I weighed myself. We are getting into these complex tenses in spanish that are super hard. I can do present, preterit, and future, but imperfect and conditional are killing me. We had our last lesson with Jose, he said he would be baptized on the 4 of january, but I kinda think he might already be a member. He told me and elder Vergara that we were the best mss he had ever had, super cool experience. i hosted a mss that was 6 8, kinda tall. times up, 

Hasta luego,

Elder Winkel

week 4

Hello, how was all your's thanksgiving? Ours was fun. Dallin H Oaks came with his family. His five year old great grandson is super good at guitar, and his seven year old great granddaughter is super good on cello. He talked about how we need to be grateful for all things, even our adversities, especially if that adversity is the Mtc. The whole Mtc did a service project, feeding children. We made around 360000 meals in fifty-five minutes, most ever according to the mtc presidency. It was fun, we watched 17 miracles and had a talent show. It was almost as good as ours usually is, there was a real live rubber duckie song, a yodeler, a on the spot blues jam. There were some other ones, but those were the best. The blues had one guy come up and ask if anybody was comfortable jamming with him, and then this other elder said he could do it with him. One of them was from provo, and the other was from laguna. This week went by somewhat quicker than last week, we seem to finally be falling into a groove, they will probably switch our schedule to keep us from getting too comfortable. I am learning spanish way fast now, and can teach the lessons for book of mormon, apostasy, restoration, and atonement, although i am no too good at understanding when they ask questions. Fortunately my companion can. On Sunday we had a funny speaker, talked about satan pushing our buttons. He had a volunteer come up to the mike, and he happened to be british. Our speaker burned him alive, and had his companion come up to translate. He also talked about how when he was a stake pres. he was getting a drink at one of those double water fountains, and a little boy came up. There was nobody around so for half an hour he amused himself by changing the water pressure whenever the five year old tried to drink, getting water all over his face. The little boy never figured it out or got mad, he just kept trying to drink.

Hasta luego,

Elder Winkel

week 3

Third week at the CCM. It is getting pretty cool here. I am finally getting used to my schedule and these other people I am around. I haven't gained any weight but a kid in my district that comes to the gym with us has already gained eight pounds! We got three new districts in our zone, pretty cool. It is amazing to see them, and how little spanish they know, compared to how much I know now. Gift of tongues i guess. I have learned a ton here, and can now pray, bear my testimony, and teach the plan of salvation and restoration. We have a TRC investigator who is awesome. He's name is Jose, he is probably 55, and 5 foot 4. Him and his wife are from Honduras. My zone had a hand wrestle competition, and I came in third out of around forty kids, pretty fun. It was okay because our branch president started it. Nobody could beat him, but he didn't participate ibn the competition. To play you stand across from each other and then put your right feet next to each other. You then shake hands and try to make them move their feet while only touching that same hand. Super fun, since it is probably the only competition we have had here. Kim B Clark from the seventy spoke to us, he said lots of pretty cool things, and also gave us 4 things we have to do to be a mega-successful mss. They are 1 obedience, 2 work hard, 3 be worthy of the spirit, and 4, to love the people. The fourth is probably the most difficult for me. I am reading the BOM in spanish, very s l o w l y, but still reading it. WE watched Elder Holland give a cool talk on being worthy. He told us some pretty interesting things. he said Salvation is not a cheap thing, the road to heaven leads through getsemaní,and also why would missionary work be easy for us, and bringing salvation to others when nothing was ever easy for him. We must all suffer a fraction of his pain when bringing others to him. Nearer my God to thee, e'en though it be a cross that lifteth me.

Here is a picture of our district with Hermano Nielsson, he is super awesome, I don't know if you can see it or not, but the link works here. Good luck!

-Elder Winkel

week 2

It is P-day, yay! This week was pretty cool, Sunday was awesome. My whole district joined the choir because you get early dinner. I think the entire MTC has joined the choir. The director is the younger guy who does Mormon tab. I shook his hand, got some luck I hope. We had Elder Hugo Montoya come to speak to us, which was pretty cool. He talked about being nice and friendly to everybody that we meet. He also shared a Yaqui captain's oath, which was pretty cool. We were the Yaqui captains. It talks about there being nothing in front of or more important than your duty. I have gotten a little bit tired of my companion, but we still get along pretty good. I am struggling a little with never being alone, but ill get over it. Never eat anything here that might resemble chocolate. It is not that. The chocolate pudding and milk especially. On wednesday we had super good ice cream, which I appreciated. While here I have felt the spirit stronger and more consistently than in my entire life. It has really strengthened my personal testimony of the Holy Ghost. We study in the same room for 12 to 13 hours a day. I used to think that I could be patient and sit still for a long amount of time, but I have been proved wrong. I start to bounce of the walls after a couple of hours. I have learned a ton here, not the least of which is that a laundry bag is kinda important, for laundry. i am teaching a kid in my district how to wrestle, which is a great way to relieve stress and relax. Almost forgot, on sunday we watched an older bednar devotional to the mss, called character of christ. It was super awesome. He talked about mss being the cookie monster, and did an imitation, super funny, "I want cookie/baptism NOW!" He also talked about how we need to be less selfish and try to always focus on others, like christ did. We need to be genuine, and if we need to imitate somebody, then imitate christ. The temple was pretty cool, but they only have one room in it. 

Love you, talk to you all next week

Elder Winkel

P.S. If you write to me using dearelder.com that would be pretty cool, they send it in a letter to me, and I will have more time to respond to everybody. but just st the MTC

Week 1

Sorry, I didn´t mean to send that last email, I am not familiar with this computer. I seem to have forgotten a ton of things. Most Elders here have remembered to bring laundry baskets and more than one set of P day clothes. I think that I may have accidentally left those cool books Katie gave me because I can´t find them anywhere. This Place is freezing cold. I think it has snowed every day since I got here, if I die before I get to Argentina it will be because I froze to death in my sleep. I got made district leader, so now i have lots of extra stuff I have to do. I leave on December 15th. It is hard to believe this is only my third day, I feel like it has been half of my life. It´s crazy how quickly you forget the outside world here. My companion is a workoutaholic, so we have been doing that every gym day. It´s been fine overall, although I hated the first day and the first half of the second day. We are doing things from 7 am to 10 pm, so we are kept pretty busy. I am suffering joke withdrawal, because nobody here understands my humor, and I can no longer say half of my jokes since they are not super nice to everybody in the whole world and I have to be that. I have found it easier to just be boring and tired at all times. Hope you are all suffering in the rain, and crying your eyes out missing me. (I got my whole district with that spell yes, what does e y e s spell joke, so I got a temporary respite from this world of Mormon puns.)

Hablo tardes,

Elder Winkel

P.S. My mailing address is

Elder Adam David Winkel
DEC15  ARG-BAS
2005 N 900 E Unit 118
Provo UT 8460