Pictures from last couple weeks

Smilken and me under a sign. yea were a couple of tigers. Smilken leaves with us all the time for work he's a bacano..

This the entrance to the cave. The cave was quite big especially the back cavern but, too many bats for my liking so i didnt stay to long back there.

This is me and Elder Smith exploring the big ol' cave. Super fun.

28 Feb 2011

Hey hey
This week was AMAZING! Yea we went to the temple and that itself was amazing, but what’s even cooler is what happened after the temple. So who do you think we'd happen to run into in the middle of the pacific? And just happen to have the right session time to have them come out right after us?

We were all just sitting out side the temple getting ready to leave then, um Elder ... I forget his name but he’s the secretary for the Caribbean presidency comes out just talks to us for a second says well today we have a special guest in the temple today, he’s coming out right now actually, were all like oh cool... then he just says something like yea Elder nelsons a pretty cool guy then walks off... ha-ha were like WOH wait ... THE Elder Nelson?

So we decided we could wait a second or two. then about a min later Elder Nelson just comes on out looks back in holds the door for his wife and The WHOLE Caribbean presidency and temple presidency and Elder Snow of the 70 presidency and yea were all just stared at him and he stared at us for like 5 mintues then his wife said yup looks like missionaries to me ha-ha. but yea

At first he thought we were all from the ccm (MTC) and said oh I'll be going in to talk to all of you in a second but then once he told him he shook all are hands and said hi. It was AWESOME. Ha-ha, we were SOOO lucky to have gone to the temple at the exact same time as him. Wow.

So that was a pretty good experience in itself. But unfortunatly for that we had to go to bani for the night becuase were so far out from the temple. And because of that, we had to fire six people and the next day we didn’t get back until five or six so we had to fire six more people. So that after noon we just taught our progressing people in La Barra. But the next day was just running around trying to apologize and reschedule people and then going all the way to the Barra again...
Going to La Barra branch really makes you miss real church and real hymns. Because that place is just a GIANT primary. When they sing no one really knows the hymns so its just yelling at the top of there lungs and singing like senor te nesecito, they make that one sound like some kind of Indian tribe song its actually sounds almost cool but yea, and everywhere is just rushed and well defiantly a very new area trying to grow up, literally.

But the good thing about that is every Sunday we have five people there woot woot and there all progressing still! Especially Rosanna she reads everything and she even took notes once! She’s awesome. However the other four think learning is just memorizing a line and not even the significance of the line. There's gregorio, tyson, wellington( we actually starting to work with his family a little bit which would be awesome if that worked out) then daneri. though lucky we've been working with that problem and now there actually learning stuff and can explain stuff, but every time we go they all try and impress us with stuff they’ve learned. Like we haven’t taught Word of wisdom yet but there telling us what kind of stuff we shouldn’t drink or eat. Ha-ha, it should be fun. Unfortunately though we had to push gregarious baptism back a week, because he skipped church but I think we would of had to anyway because not to be mean but he has a harder time learning then the others but we've started to find a new method to teach him that seems to be working better for him to understand it better. Which is good, I just hope my new comp can follow that method.
Speaking of which... I'm getting a new comp! Tuesday or tomorrow. He’s a Dominican, unfortunately, I still can’t remember his name it’s kind of hard. Elder A.... something.. but yea I hear he doesn’t speak a lick of English so... yea its going to be a hard transfer, and by the end I'm thinking ill have some really good spanish, hah hopefully at least, I'm sure there’s still quite a few kids in my old Spanish class that still have better spanish then me but, we'll see after this transfer :)

Did I tell you all I'm officially 160lbs and probably over now so I'm guessing that’s why my pull-ups went down... ha-ha but yea started working out a bit harder to prevent any more weight. Cause then it will get out a control and nasty. then maybe it will look like my shirts fit me;)

But yea nothing really happened this week it just flew by... what happened more had to have happened.... we had a personal record amount of teaching this week, just because we have progressing people.. But we defiantly did a lot better this transfer then last. Our lessons with member doubled and without them went up a good amount too so yea nothing. Oh megalina and Wilson... Still not married! Those two just need to go to Haiti and work something out. But their daughter nesira we finally got her to take a baptism date!!!!! she’s always been talking about how she was baptized in the catholic church we always explain about authority and how you need it so woot con that! Um yea and she’s had all the lessons been going to church with her mom every time she went, she’s 22 by the way not a lil one. But um yea....
oh yea so this may be a reason I gained a TON of weight last month I did the math and on average for that month if I remember right I ate something like 700 cookies like Oreo size... I was addicted to those. But I got off them and am slowly finding healthier snacks in the colmados that are still cheap but filling. I'm gonna miss colmados when I got state side, (good thing I have a while till then eh?) But yea colmados really have anything you need and are on every single corner, you just go in grab what you want put the money down and leave.. There is no line process if you wait in line style you will never get to by what you want. Never will you stand there all day. Though some guys are nice and be like no el primero. But others its fight or flight. but yea we never have to carry snacks around, you think hey I'm thirsty you turn to your left run in and grab one give the money and you’re down, hungry same deal, in and out you have what ever you want right there at all times, its kind of like 7 11 but smaller and no line. So were afraid were going to go stateside grab stuff put money on the counter and leave and they’ll be like hey there mister! Best not be stealing my stuff. and a lot of the colmados don’t count but trust you like I gave paid our colmado guy in 1s and he will for the most part ask X amount right I say yea he gives the Dominican arm and we go our ways. I love our colmado guy he’s awesome. funny too. we actually ended up contacting he’s house one day that was diffenrent apparently he lives in pueblo abajo about a 10 15 min walk away usually the people have there house connected to there house. not far at all. but yea I think that’s all
Good luck everyone and have a good week, live life to the fullest but choose the right, and all that jazz or at least something to that tune.
But love yall
Elder Zelasko

21 Feb 2011

Hey Everyone,
Long time no talk, um this week was actually awesome! Presidente gave us a huge boche for our numbers being low, and said either we are not working or the members aren’t. Then President Wally also gave a huge boche. In addition, pres said if the 6 of us didn’t have at least 45 lessons together, he’d take 4 or all 6 of us out that week. So this week the members have been working super super hard! This week has defiantly been our best week. We had as many references this week in one day as many as we had in all of the last transfer! We are afraid that pres will think were lying about our numbers because of how high they are compared to last week, but its just because of the members working with us now.

I think I'm going to be good at public speaking by the time I get back from my mission, we constantly teach huge groups of people. We hit a record with how many people we have taught at once. We were down in la barra and teaching a reference of President Wally’s, so he was there and he said to bring the members we were working with because it was a joven (young man) we were working with so she came a along, (chiquita) and then the women whose house they use for church for some reason decided to come along too. So I guess three of them don’t count. However, after every lesson we taught. the people followed us to the next one... it was Super awkward! hah but anyway at the last lesson we sit down with this kid and his family and then the 6 kids that were following us sat on the side of the wall. (were teaching it outside) so were up to 15 people there, and occasionally people walking by would just stop and see what was going on some would stay others would leave, eventually though we had 28 people just hanging out just listening in on what were teaching! Hah 28... it was a ton of people but luckily it was the first lesson and we teach that one all the time so I actually knew all the words I needed for that one and didn’t look like a fool. I felt bad for the kid because when we asked him questions everyone would just look at him to see if he knew... it was probably super hard for him to feel the spirit or anything. Because of how many people were there, chatting in the back at times and you could tell he was nervous because he’d keep looking at all the people but his mom just mopped the house so we couldn’t go in and leave everyone else. But he must have liked the message a little bit because we got a return cita.

Yea that kid lives in la barra, and well there’s three areas to Ocoa la barra, parra and the pueblo. One companionship assigned to each one, we live in the pueblo and parra and barra are both about a 40 min walk from it on either side. We’re assigned to parra but for some reason Wally gave us the references for the barra so we went there for church and wow that building is small! And had a TON of ninos and there is a primary but with sacrament. There had to be 60 kids in there. Maybe 6 adults but yea so now I am now working all three of the areas. We I've decided to just call Ocoa in general our town and the other missionaries are just visiting.

Things here are still messed up, you know how in the olden times husbands could be like hey you wifey no mas de esto! Por que I’m the man and I say so. But now it’s not as so. here they still talk like that. I was talking with chiquita on the way to parra and we started talking about dancing and all that turns out she knows a ton about it and she was even the head of a dancing club and her dream was to go dancing on those shows and stuff but her husband said she couldn’t dance anymore because some times dancing costumes were too reveling or something, I suggested just more clothes when dancing but she said she tried but he still said no. jacked up.. but yea she still happy at least though she’s got three kids O’Neil is my favorite he’s the youngest and a Picano! I love him every time he sees me he’s like z-lako! ha-ha and one time he’s dad gave him this huge sweet bread thing and he just holds it out in front of him and has HUGE eyes and just rotating it in his hands just says Diantre! Hah but like the whole way he said it and his face was super funny.

Last P' day we went to the waterfall! In addition, by it there’s huge cave! Well basically, it was the best pday EVER! We were all in the cave and bats would just occasionally just dart out from somewhere and elder Jimenez said he was hit in the head by one. I’m bad at telling stories but it was super super fun.

This pday we had to come to bani and spend the night here so we can go to the TEMPLE tomorrow! But what stinks is we have to fire 6 citas today! In addition, we didn’t have time to stop by and reschedule. (Sorry my spelling has gone down so much) and all 6 of there are people that are actually progressing. Which really stinks that we can’t go teach em. But hopefully they’ll understand it wasn’t our choice to fire them.

Speaking of investigators, megalina and willson still are not married! He said he’s going to go to the embassy in the capital this week to see if he can do something there about it... so fingers crossed there. I contacted them my very very first day and 12 weeks later still trying to get them married. He’s slowly making progress though. But with colera in the way in the border and money in the way of travel its super hard...

Out of those 6 references in la barra 6 seem like there super super legit! and were haven’t gotten new pamplets in forever so we ran out and for one of them we had to leave the word of wisdom for the first cita because Wally made us give one. But she read it and said yea... I’m living this already I tried cafe and don’t really like it, cafe is huge here so we were like YES! Ha-ha and as a first cita pamplet too! So either the 12 of March is going to be a day full of baptisms or going to be a really let down of three weeks to come... but I got faith in em they all seem super super ready for this. Some even the first few things they said to us are when can I get baptized and when can I go to the temple. Ha-ha pretty cool I think.

But yea feel free to write me,
Love yea
ELDER ZELASKO

Feb 7, 2011

It’s crazy in two months I'll have a quarter of my mission done, its going fast. I need to work harder, though this week was my comps and my best week for teaching and stuff even better then last week.

Unfortunately our investigators don’t want to go to church! Then again the place were contacting is a bit far from the church, its about a 15min walk to san Antonio which is where Claris lives. Then about 10 mins after that to yackaline. Then about 15mins more after that to jaun y martiza, so about a 40 mintue walk for the last people but still hahah its worth it to go to church right?

We offer to pay for a motor for them so they’re just being lazy. Though we need to think of a better way to teach to inspire em to get em pumped about going to church hah but well be working on that...

oh so were a little farther from the last people we have been contacting and we wound up by the river we cross to go to Parra just way down it.Its leads to san louis. So we decided it would be faster to get to san louis if we just follow the river instead of going through town. We decided to follow it. We were going quickly when the side we were on runs out of room to walk. So we had huge gaps you had to jump with more water flowing into the river. hah So we had to keep trying to jump those and after a while of doing that the gaps kept expanding.

Then this guy who was herding his cows walks buy us. It was intimidating at first because this huge herd of cows with some nice horns was walking toward us. After walking through them for a while its was like, ok we're fine. A while after the cows our side of the river completely ran out of ground to walk on, so we had to cross the river. The whole time its getting dark and drizzling... adds to the story hahah This was one of my funniest nights. I felt like an adventure man, like Indiana Jones or something... Anyway the path, we were now walking on, after a while ended up just being a piece of land in the middle of the river. So, it also ran out of land to walk on as well and we had to cross again. We always crossed over to the right without thinking, which was putting us further from where we wanted to be.

After we crossed the river that time it was completely dark and still drizzling. And it turned out the side we were on, had on one side had a nice cliff, we were at the bottom off the cliff I cant think how to describe it. It was like a wall on one side and the other side quickly ran out of land. We were way out from the city along the woods and we see this house, it popped up out of no where. It was literally in the middle of no where. They tell us if we climb up and walk a little there’s a bridge that crosses the river. So we climb on up and walk a little and we get to the "bridge". haha Best bridge I’ve ever seen! haha It’s just a step latter down the side of the drop. Off it leads to three or four rocks in the water we can jump from to cross the river... haha so FUN! Haha It was a night of adventure but, in the end we got to our cita (appointment) and they fired us... haha That’s just the mission... The short cut ended up being longer but, was fun.

So Elder Aguero baptized his first person and we went. haha This guy Louis, the quietest guy you will ever meet, rarely talks. He’s also a pretty hefty guy. Anyway when aguero goes to "dunk" him, for lack of a better word. The guy didn't want to go down... he just took a couple steps back then went down but his foot was way out. The second time he wouldn’t go down all the way, third time Aguero kind of pushed him more but his foot came up again hahaha each time they tried explaining just bend your knees. Aguero kept trying to give him hints. Fourth time though he finally got it but each and every single time he was super hesitant to go under so this last time I guess aguero was getting tired of this so haha everyone said it looked like he like tackled the guy and shoved him under. hahah as soon as he was done saying what he needed to say it was like WHAM! Under... not even a second to think. The guy after didn’t even act like anything went down. hahah Most would be like embarrassed or something but Loui, he just sat there with his usual smile and nice and quiet haha he’s awesome.

This water is usually cold and one time McMahan was baptizing someone but, her foot came up and she was like no, no I’m good its cold I want out. They tried explaining that she needed to redo it cause it wasn’t valid. haha But her first initial reaction was funny she’s like na I’m good. haha but she did, just a funny story...

oh so the other day I realized we have 6 missionaries in the house and we have 3 plates two of which are broken and 3 bowls one has a crack down the middle and 2 cups and 5 forks 6 spoons and 2 giant sharp knifes and one smaller sharp one and 13 butter knifes... haha its a pretty random assortment for 6 people and no more then 2.5 can have cereal at the same time haha need to buy more..

We were contacting the apartments a while ago and we went back to teach this one family but, they were sitting out with there friends. It was just like one or two o'cock and they wanted to stay outside because the power was out and the fan didn’t work.. So we taught them outside and they didn’t have enough seats. We didn't want them to stand, so 3 of us stood and like 4 sat with an extra chair... Some of the people just really wanted you to take their seat. Anyway.. we were teaching them and people starting listening in from the over walks and stuff. haha A man state side told me, if you have to talk to a huge group of people about the gospel, he'd be like, ha! yea... or about if I had to talk about anything for that matter. But, I felt like a legit preacher there. Just a bunch of people staring at me, me talking about the importance of el libro de mormon! haha So weird... I think it's just in English that I have a hard time talking in front of large groups.

We were walking through the park and saw this huge group of white people... ha It was weird. So we stopped to talk and I was NERVOUS I don’t know why. At the apartments I'm like ok this is just an other day. But with the Canadians its was different. I don't know why but it turns out they were here building houses for a week. You could tell they weren’t here too long. We asked where they were staying and said someone said a town about an hour away called Ocoa. We were already and defiantly standing in the Ocoa park. haha They were super nice and really cool. That same day we meet 2 Japanese Jewish people and a Norwegian Jew. haha It was really weird, like international day in Ocoa. Everyone was super nice, the Canadians especially. All and all really fun.

None of our investigators went to church... except Wilson! He’s a tight guy but, just needs to get over to Haiti to get some papers! Every time we go over to his home now they make us juice... so good! Except last time they made us one that’s supposed to be really good with milk powder in it... They put a bit much in it and it tasted like I was drinking straight baby milk powder or something it was horrible. I just had to grin and chug. haha

Love y'all!
Elder Zelasko
OH PS the moon is smiling tonight!