Oct 31, 2011

wow brielle is huge!!! that awesome i hope i get to see her again when i get back though she probably wont remeber me. i also am looking foward to see all the family but you know its halloween! totattly didnt remeber that that event was coming up till last night i was talking to some elder in my district and hes like oh yea and holloween tomorrow! wow! so i bought a can of pringles to celabrate! . also because i have some money left over from the last apoyo i stalked up on all the stuff the house needs soap, matches, oil, trashb ag got it all! im pretty proud spent the money wisely.

this week was pretty great. we found two escogidos and they are amazing! richard y debora! there cousins and a referance of our baptism from last week super into it. they want us to come back every day. so in a week , well they also read or memorize todo so in a week we´ve taught them almost everything or all the basics. so for a month maybe well just teach the more advancded and adotrine. and were teaching crismelin apperantly she was sent to the capitail three days before her baptisms so yea shes supe rinto this. and she remebers everything, we just have to wait a month to bapptise her to make sure shes really into this. work is ststarting to really pick uip in this area. and the branch is starting to take some real inicitive. and trying to find ways to fix it s problems . sorry my spelling and everything is horrible this comp is supe rslow so i have to type and wait 1 min for it to show so its really hard to go back and fix or to see if im typing it right. so imma just type and hope you all can read it:) but yea there the boasses of our investigators.

oh so its getting close to election time of year! so what does that mean!? party time! hah for campaigning in a city its jsut a gaint party! we were sitting in church then we hear one of the usualy gaint loud speaker trucks roll by with the guys theme song then we hear a ton of nosie and a ton of screaming and siriens and motors runnign and non stop of his song helocopters over head, from the inside it sounded like the end of the worlld! hah screaming sirens honking loud music it was like wowza! coundlt hear a thing in church though.

so we go out side and its just a non stop! line of peoplepilled on to cars and motors and everything endless line of it and everyone had danilo hats flags posters and the had hundreds of people walking throughing his posters around a and it was just locura! so transfers next week! ill tell yea if i stay with my comp or get my 8th companion! not including the ccm or mtc with that itd be 11th! wierd eh?

oh and HAPPY BDAY TO JOSIE!! what an old farty wary! so no way that baby will be born on my bday huh? would´ve been cool have a club goin me brant and the e new kid.

i like those costurms is it wierd living in a three man house? imagine when jordan leaves! the two of you and thats it. wierd... 6 to 2 in less then 4 years... welp this comp is slow so imma end it hear,

love you all and hope you all choose the right and say i say hi to a few of my favs you know who they are;)

oh and tell me how dads test goes.

Love yea,

Edler ZElasko,

Oct 24, 2011

so hear christmas starts super early. like most everyone has a tree up already and lights are

going up in all the better houses. so theres not that many lghts going up but thers a few out there a it looks like most people want to put up at least a strand.,
oph guess what!!! were getting super lucky!! on the 30th of october we should have.... take a
guess.... thats right 24 hour light!!!!! isnt that awesome! itll be soo wierd always have light! most
people say theres no way thats going to happen but theyve been working around the clock to get it up. and its way higher up so itll be harder to steal and it looks like it has a little protecter. lets hope it happens. then all well wait for is 24 hr WATER! though it seems like our landlord is stealing water out of our water tank... have to remeber to keep it locked never leave it open.... 24 hour light.... itd be a dream come true...

I told you it got stolen, it was at the end of my last letter :) they broke into the house and took it

those dirty rascals them;) o mejor dicho dirty trash cans full of poop! imma so watch that movie

when i get back! but yea its stolen i got me a new one though :)

Yoeli got baptised!!

wooo! hes a stud. better then half of the members to be honest. hes one of the few kids that go to seminary always is thers saturday to clean the church and yea a stud and hes been giving us a reefence at lesast once a week for the past couple weeks. stud.

we did a service at the president of the districts house.

we were there from 8 til 12 working the till 2 eating and waitng to leave. it was a BLast though i can honestly say ive never sweated that much in my entire life. i acctually had balls of sweat dripping off of my face. and one got in my eye and it stung!! i dont think ive ever experienced that before. but yea it was fun. the whole time oscar was saying yup were going to make you all dominicans bvefore you leave this country

. all we did was like a landscaping thing. we got all the rocks and dead plants out then we brought more rocks into the area dug a lil ditch and made a mini wall. with concreate blocks and just a lot of hauling dirts and rocks is what it was. but they made an amazing muro after. and i had my first aguacate sandwich it was alright.

oh i definatly chilled with that dog for a while.

and onm a hammock! so comfy. felt super good after hauling dirt and rocks everywhere for 4 hours.

wow JD shot himself.... wow that took a long while to get a hold of someone. good thing it didnt hit any bones that would of been rotten! truely rotten. but did he get any stiches or should it heal rather fast?
is dads Pt test this week or next? lets hope fhe passes.

um so the transfers almost over. it FLew by! hah i almost wrote it FLU by!
darn the last two dont want to load.... ill try in a second.
loves yall Elder Zelasko

Oct 17, 2011

this week was alright we worked hard but this area... its tough. oh and guess what??? we got DVD players! we are now allowed to listen music in this mission! its awesome!! for sure.

i just set up my christmas tree a couple days ago hahah i was trying to get rid of junk im just carring around and i found that and figured im for sure going to be here for christmas so i set it
up. its a nice touch to the house.
so wme and my comp had a big discusion on culutres and we figured out why they shower so
much here. its because its beat into them since a child hood to take 2 or 3 showers a day. plus
almost a necesary because here its way dirtier like half the roads are out of dirt and you sweet
jsut sitting all the time. like right now im sweeting and all im doing is typing. i figure when i get hom ein october imma freeze todeath. speaiclly because my clothes are made for hot climate and after using them ffor so long theyll be worn down to be a little thinner. so hopfdully its warm when i get home;) but no reason to think about that still got a bit of time to not even worry about that.
but yea we finally got our branch to think about making a mission plan. they have no plans in almost anything. though weve been doing lots of meetings with them and now theyre learning

there responsibilities more. and mostly putting it into action.

but yea love you all

Elder Zelasko!

ok so these are a few pics if they ever load.... internet is slow here. um one is my comp now Elder Wilson. the other is me and Elder Vargas. he lived with me down in Los Alcs now hes my ZL here that was on an exange.

the other two pics are of the familys thats are getting bapitzed in a week so thought you all should see them they studs. the on ewith all kids is Joel and emily then joel walked down with us to his dads house where we were

teaching his dad and sisters. Jessica leoury acantara and margalis. Joel was a bit sad but hes a stud i didnt manage to get a picture of domingo and his family but there getting baptised next week as well! isnt that AWESOME!

lright so this is of my journey

this guy is the first thing you see when you enter sna juan, the last 30 mile mile markers are like that super cool but inbetween its just giant vast ness like those other pics

the one of me is me by myself on carribe tours till someone sat next to me.

hey nvm ill jsut send them next week bnecvuase we dont have enopugh time but something to look forward too eh? :)

a few pics i took from some other cameras so they load fast except the last twoo take forever! haha but yea next ill try to see if i can send pics from my trip to the middle of nowhere... AKA las

matas hah were so far out here. in the middle of nowhere.
just the one left.... si se puede!! or can it.... dun dun udn hm....
its still going.... which is that... i think thats group golf i may just not send that one. takes too long.

Beach Clean up

Library

Oct 10, 2011

The above pictures are from some sort of elcipes thing we saw

from Don gregorio

(In response to a a picture of some baby onesie's being made for Josie's kid. )lol! This baby is goin gto grow up such a nerd! hahah lets make sure it gets into climbing as well so itll have a chance in the world;) cause you kniow with out climbing no chance in high school right;)? But those shirts are legit!

oh i dont know if i every told you or not. you know that thing great grampos gave me when he returned from his misison in chilie? I'm pretty sure he gave that to me right? any way it looks like a dradle or a top thing. its called a trompo here and i totally know how to work it now. i bet
that one ¨dances¨so well. and if its a good one itll hum super loud when you spin it. i have a cool one at this home. its not painted or polished up like the one he gave me (us?) but it can hum so loud. i want to learn the trick but there kind of hard. well for me at least. the kids in the street
however there all boss at it and when i dance it there all like YA this gringo sabes. I do like to be
a sabe gringo.

the new area.... well this area is special its super weak so what were doing mostly instead of trrying to find new people is trying to find all the inactives and reactivate them. trying to procelite the branch before we just keep throwing more people into something that cant support what it even has. so like 60 percent of our time is inactives, meetings with the leaders to help

make plans and 40 finding news.
but the area is just some old farming town. super close to Haití super cool- but yea
my comp hes cool. hes an Art history major... so hes smart. but we get a long just fine.
send a pic.... i can send you a pic from about three months ago when i was still in don gregorio.

two areas ago now. but i look the same im sure.

About Catie Longan...wow ASL!!! thats sweet! shell be the person sitting next to the tv in the mtc signing away i watched them a lot baptism if i got it right is just two thumbs up then turn em bth to the right quick then back up. and friends is your ring and pointer finger in a cirlce on both hand s hooked toghther? though she already knows ASL right? so she should be boss at that.

um let me see about pics. i dont have my cvamerea on me right now but i might have one on here.

love you all
Elder ZElasko

Oct 3, 2011

From an email sent to Jeremy - "Oh and Josie has been really sick the last couple weeks. mostly in the mornings and afternoons. She went to see a doctor and they said she has a growth in her abdomen. So now she has to start seeing a specialist. They expect the growth to continue growing for about 9 months. After which the problem usually resolves itself. If they need to they do something called a c-section and take it out. Doctors will be keeping a close eye on it for the next while. We will keep you informed if we find out anything else."

Back to your regular scheduled Jeremy letter

I´mma be an uncle!!! woot! so called it! i was saying since i left watch josie is going to get married and have a baby before i get home... and imma be an uncle imma be that babies fav uncle do i have much comp on the other side of the family? is there a lot of them or a few? gotta know about compition you know... i should congrat her but imma just talk about how cool itll be to be an uncle when i get bac ;D yea thats super cool, of course i got it from that paragraph:) i got it from mostly mornings then as it went it was like WOH awesome! hahah send me pictures of her prego thatd look super funny. pregnat in spanish is emberasada that word always makes me think of emberassed. haha shes emberesd! i cant spell.
So Now im in Las Matas de Farfan. a little comunity in the middle of no where. and wow it was a long time to get over here. from one end of the mission to the other! and they forgot to take me to the first bus so i had to wait around for 4 hours and the sent me alone! haha that was wierd 3.5 hours alone though i was on a bus for it but stll wierd... though some women sat by me and wouldnt stop talking. though ill admit it was nice to have someone to talk to but occasionly i wanted to look out the window...but she kept going. but she was suer cool.
then after that 3 and a hlaf hour trip i had an other hour long bus ride to this place a little ghost town that looks like it should be modern but its not and almost no one lives here. its wierd. just looks like a beat up ghost town... im in the middle of nowhere.
confrence was Amazing! we watched it over internet. good thing about technology no waiting for tapes. just for it to load. hah it was cool. the Prophet seemed pretty happy. Hello(wait for 20 seconds traslator kicks in)Hola.. haha super funny. then like wyoming temple.... i think ill dedicate that one. but yea i liked it- and i just realized my last confrence is my last sunday in the field- and in three days i have a YEAR!! wooh but its planning day so thats bum all well;)
but yea one sad thing about dbeing transfered is i went from have two amazing families and a third one progessingf awesomly and 15ish people in church to here 1 15year old and a couple iffy people at best... but its not important whos teacfhing them just that someone is. plus here is a nice oppertunity to help strengthen this branch and get rid of the apostsy thats going down and find people who are ready for th gospel! wooh

im trying to pick up some french and creol is like o livre de mormon or something like that.
i got some basic french going ;) i can say um darn i forgot hevanly father. its like pépe celstial or somthing... jours is days église de jésus-christ des saints des derniers jours
aww yea;) but yea

Love yall
Elder Zelasko
oh and tell josie felicidades!
:D
I mma be an uncle!;) hahah youre going to be a grandma!!! haha ol´fart;;))

Sept 26, 2011

hey hey!
so you all will never guess where on earth im getting transfered to!!! id say try but you dont even know any of the cities. well im going to matas de farfan !!!! thats in san jaun! litterally thirty minutes from haiti with a little traffic!woot! ive been wanting to get close to haiti my whole mission, now i can tottally pic up some french too!
sad note though.... I´m Leaving ALL of my investigators!!!! That STINKS i was loving watching them progress. but the important thing is not who is helping them but the fact someone is helping them and them deciding to follow this path so when i get the pictures of those two families( All 11 of them! ) getting baptised in two weeks imma be jsut as happy if i was accutally there to see it my self. and these two families are as dedicated to this as anyother family in the world if not more then most members here! I love these two families theyre a bunch of bosses. but adelante right? now i go to be a padrastro of Elder Wilson out in san jaun! im soo pumped!
this week was amazing. we had all of them go to church AGAIN! and were getting them to start doing noches de hogar and there starting to start there own things to help them intergrate more. like starting a prayer schedual and stuff like that! studs all of them.
claro not as studly as my own family. speaking of which how are all of you? everything sweet? oh so i just realized this is my fourth area my 7th companion and about to hit a year mark and conference is right around the corner!! wowza.
But yea nothing much more. we went golfing this Pday not golfing but driving range. it was sweet but i had to use a righty one and by the end of it i was accutally alright with a righty club. super fun but $$ haha

oh the Dominican Republic.... gotta love the people....
but yea talk to you all later then:)
Elder Zelasko
Ps loves you all.

Sept 19, 2011

Yea i heard about jd getting his patriartichal blessing! thats AMAZING!!! im soo pumped for him!. so he from the same one as all of us then? haha

I'm gonna pick up a few chinese words here. tonss of chinese pica pollos here. all of them have a chinese family hangning out inside.

U of U won hahaha I'm gonna rub that in my comps face.... he loves BYU and hates U of U though im thinking of going BYU or Lds Business college.one of the two.

so about my investigators, I Love them! there all going to church and theyre all a couple of bosses. and we went to a beach clean up activity and guess who went 4 of our investigators!! jessica and lowery and joel and his son. jessica and lowery are SUPER into this. they loved young womens and church and they went to a family home evening with us too. with joel and emily alos!! acantara has lost almost all intrest so that stinks. but domingo and kika are still going super super strong! bishop even anounced there wedding in church! imma finally see my first fam married then hope joel and emily can follow that same day. have a gaint two wedding party. i love it! in church we´ve had to start an investigators class. we got joel and emily there and domingo and kika and maria then jessica and lowory and the two daughters of kika are going to young owmens then there brothers are going to young men and then we have like 4 more going to primary! i love it, feel great to see all these people progressing. though you still have those people searching just to try and destroy the religion in lessons who think they know a ton about the bible then you lose patience and though you shouldnt you pull a few scriptures and leave them like what the... and may have crushed there faith in there church. thats not our job to go crushing faith. but some people...;) naw we dont do that...:D haha kidding right. but yea things are going great,
oh so the service. super fun we cleaned the beach we were in this one little area right and we were cleaning and clening and after like 3 hours of cleaning it still looked HORRIBLE but we had about 3000 pounds of filled bags of trash... we wieghed em. and im poretty sure i got in the DR new;) there was a camera on me a while;) haha na.
oh you wanted a story so one i did forget to tell you all, was that me and my comp we were on our way home right and we go into the pica pollo real quick because were a little early so we were going to see about talking some dinner home. and we see some chicken hearts and liver.... now i wasnt into that at all but my comp was like We should sooooo do it! say the word and well do it.. in the end hes like fine ill just do it. then i was sitting there and in the end we ate some chicken hearts and liver. its just super chewy and taste good. but thats one story short. but its sounds cool to say i ate a heart. hah
Love you all choose the right and all that jazz.
Oh what kind of pic did you want for the new letter?
ELder Zelasko

Sept 12, 2011

wow Go Jd what a Stud!! Proud of that Guy, I´ll so chip in to help pay for his mission as soon as i get a job. I´mma find him some sweet ties to take on his mission! its (the mission) going to be AWesome! hes going to LOVE it!.
Yea i was acctually wondering that the other day too if i could still do the Flag, you know getting fatter and all, so i tried it and i cant do it as long but ican still do it. though one arm pull up and a few other thing i could do are out. so i got to really take advantage of that 30 mins in the morning to work out. can he do it?
Na im not discouraged at all things are acctaully going Great out here. the work is starting to really flow again. I´ve just been a little tired, were starting to work harder. i really like it. like for example this week was stake confernce and we had Two HUGE families go to church!! one of the families was domingo and kika! we´ve been working with them since i came to this area and now they finally have a BAptisimal date and marrige date!!! and there whole family came to church all 6 of them!! then we had Joel and emily come to church as well! and we just put a date for them to get married and baptised too!!! and Emily keeps bragging about how she went to church before a while back and how shes going to be baptised in it! and her two daughters came to church and joels two sisters came with him too! jessica and lilian. and there both reading a TON of the BOOK of mormon! and lilian is taking about wanting to go on a mission haha and all that!!! there all just a gaint family of escogidos its AWESOMe to work with them, and Pres was there at the stake confernce and we inturduced him to all 15? of them and he took pics with them and said hell come down some time to teach a lesson with them with us. so thatll be a bit nerve racking having to teach with Pres right there. haha but i like this pres WAY more he involes him self way more with the missionaries. he even went through the temple with us!
yea and we went to the temple!! super Amazing! I learn a lot each time and it always makes me want to learn more. but becuase we went to the temple today is only a half pday so thats why im writing a lot earlier. we have a lunch appointment in an hour or so then a ton of citas so... yea. but this week was really one of my best weeks.
haha claro im writing in my journal! haha i filled up that little black one you all gave me for christmas and ive a little bit into another one. I´m just always joking about stories to tell you when i get back, though if you want when i get back i can read you some stories;) hah Ill stop messin with you. but na im for sure writing in my journal, though my memory had acctaully improved a lot. especially with names and directions. super hard to write directions here. its not just street blue house number 4. its 1st side street of the 2nd side off main rode, blue metal house behind big red house of wood. stuff like that. theres absulutly no orginization here. they just throw a house where they want and out of whatever they want.
I accutally had a dream the other day the Jd got called to this mission and that this guy in my house was training him and me and him were house mates. it was cool and his comp was dominican which means he learned a lot of spanish in the MTC,CCM. but it was pretty fun. though when i get back thats probably be when hes leaving right? hes got a year? and i got about a year as well.

but love you all
Elder Zelasko
CHoose the right and all that jazz! :)

Sept 5, 2011

Hey Hey,
so this week was pretty alright :) man i got so much imma tell you when i get home;) ;) but na we just had a pretty sweet week, we are now teaching three families. one has a marrige fecha and the other two are goign to have one soon, we´ve been working so stinking hard for the one to have it. the husband has been in it since the beginnig the wife on the other hadn we dont know what was her deal. but what ever it was we got her to pray about it and well now theyre getting married!!!! Im pumped for them.

so chase is out in the mission field? huh! that crazyness!!!! out in africa, he should sing shakira its time for africa! my new fav song i cant wait to get home and listen to the whole thing.
hes goign to have a blast out there in AFrica, i have this one giaint tree i walk by on the way to a campo and i always think of it as my africa tree because it looks like a stereotypical africa tree. so i think there's my africa, its boss, and theres a few other places i pass by and think like theres my virginia, my germany my california. i got pieces of all the missions of my friends usally there all just random junk but its still fun.
um there was something i was going to say but i forgot. um.... so were going to the temple this friday!! im pumped.... this pday almost wasnt a pday to help prep us spiritually for the temple, but for some reason its now the Pday after the temple so im guessin its not to prep us spiritually like i was told but for something else.... interesante... haha that reminds me of my old comp elder pimentel hed always like like interesting right? or super cool right? or deep right? hahah he was a cool kid.
but hey imma write you all next week its almost time to go to the market for food.
love yall
Elder Zelasko

Aug 29, 2011

hah Elder schaffer... did you add him as a friend on facebook for me? He's a cool guy so if he ask you should say yea. Yes, this area is super third world. Rice and beans, rice and beans all the time.... or rice and salami or rice and salami with beans. hmmmm.... and pasta a lot of pasta. Pasta is cheap. We can make cheap sauces too, if you want. But it's better to do full out dominican spaghetti. Throw some corn, ham, ton of cheese, onions, peppers, and a couple flavor things and some ketchup... super good.

I'll ask a few people to see if there are dominican nativity sets around here. Though im sure I can ask some guy to make one out of wood if you want a lot of people are super creative and in Ocoa theres one guy who knows a TON about wood I can just write one of my people in the Bani zone or Ocoa and ask about it. But don't let these people hustle you they love hustlin people. so watch out. Which reminds me we were teaching some guy who makes like ceramic plates and paints them into scenery and i was going to buy one off him or was thinking about it and i was like wow this is super cool.. pointing at one and hes like well its yours. hah I was like what? but yea ended up with a cool plate. now im thinking i may have told you about that last week. im not sure if it was this week or last. butyea... but yea third world country but in some areas it doesnt look it as much. you get use to it and it becomes the norm. so im all use to it. its normal to me. we were all talking about how when we get back its going to be like WOW look at all these richs house, what we get to go inside... wow all the streets are real and the houses are orignized. what is that??? aircon?? no way? padded cusions for the church... indoor gym!! with real wood floors? no way.... yea its going to be a culture shock. but fun. and awesome. but i got time. got to work harder to deserve it. only have about 13 months to work my butt off.
oh so we get to go to the temple in 10 days!!!!! woot!
but yea this week was a little disapointing. we were on top of the world. 17 progressing people or at least on like the third cita, all said yea well go to church. yea had like 6 fechas. then bam church.... 1 person in church 6 fechas dropped and a most fired us the next day... guess we got to arrogent. and that agency got to them. all well... well work harder this week.
but yea love you all
Elder Zelasko

Aug 22, 2011

I have something like 3 friends who have friens coming in. I met Bro and Sis ford the other day at transfers, super cool I told them to write sande to say i say hey but i tihnk they forgot. Though i still need to call them for a new plack... hmm

my new comp elder brezack. He's legit. I love having an american comp it is seriously the best. And I got my wish he wants to be obedient. So we're going to be obedient and work super hard this transfer though. This mission is differnt then most missions in many ways. For example the rules say take up to an hour for lunch then one for dinner. We just have from 12 to 2 for cooking lunch because rice and all that jazz takes so long to cook. But after getting Bob's letter I want to try (what he did) that out, leaving all day. So what I convinced my comp to do is one day a week were going to do a super day where we just fill the day up with citas and a lil time for contacting for the next day claro. But then well just leave from 10 to 9 and eat at a comedor for lunch super quick then get back out and teach till 9. and slowly imma try and do it everyday. But I'm starting off slow . My comp's not to fond of that idea but, its going to be great.

haha two bug bites... itch dont it? But dont worry you get use to it. You should see my ankles.. Though i dint know we had mosquitos in colorado thats wierd.

But this week was pretty much great i love having an american comp. Not to be mean or anything but, dominican comps in general are way tigre meaning they dont like to follow the rules in any way and it makes it way hard to be a good missionary you just spend your time saying hey no.
But wow the mission wow. I love it. We got major guidence this week several times. You'll have to read my journal when I'm 60 because its a lot to type. Just know God realy does answer prayers about whatever you need help and guides you always. He loves us for sure. but i have to go for now I love you ALL
Oh Im not sure if i can send a reply to EVERYone who gave me a postcard because there is a ton and a few more showed up this week and time is very very limited. so ya im going to try it just may take a while for you to get a response:)
Love you all
Elder Zelasko