I, like missionary work, am alive and well!

Family!!

Hey, I'm still alive, and always have been alive and well. I don't know why my email didn't send last week, but I wrote it, and it should be sent now.

How are you all?! Fhew. It's good to hear about all the things happening at home! How exciting with all the farewells! If you would, like I said in the previous email, tell me where all of these wonderful missionaries are heading off to and also, their addresses, and emails would be appreciated. Thanks so much.

Well, transfers were again this week and guess what!! Can you guess? Haha, okay, not really exciting, but, surprisingly enough, I'm staying in the same area, and with the same companion. Haha, the President is inspired…The president is inspired, I keep telling myself. No, but it's not too bad. Now that I've done all those scary things once or twice they're not so hard. Growing is fun.

Well, you know how I said that we were going to get new Elders? Well, I kind of lied. Not by my fault, but by misinformation, or maybe even by a change of plans, but however it happened, the Elders that we expected to get, are sisters! There will be 4 sisters and my companion and I in our ward.

The months are flying by. I cannot believe it. It's almost Christmas! It's going to be weird having Christmas without snow, but we'll make do. Maybe I'll find some shredded coconut... haha. Family, do you want something for Christmas? It's pretty expensive to send stuff home, but I (think) can do it. I'll think of some wonderful argentine things. For me for Christmas? Did you hear conference? Do you remember how one of the apostles gave us a challenge to invite just one person to receive the misionary discussions or help reactivate someone and bring them back to church before christmas? If you wanted to give me one thing for Christmas, it would be to take that challenge.

Prayerfully think of a person. Look at this. The work is moving forward, but not without the members. Missionaries need members. A prophet of God has called you out. So will you do it? I know that you’re probably thinking that I don't know you’re reading this right now, and you're probably right. Your thinking "Ha, he thinks he can commit us with an email". Well, I can't make you do anything, just ask, but God sure would be proud of you for taking the challenge, and I will totally accept it as a Christmas Gift. The worst thing that can happen is someone says "No, thanks." But the best thing that could happen is someone receives eternal life. That's all. So do it, would you?

I love you all,

Elder Bradley Turek

P.S.Skyller, yes you can use my rope if someone else isn't using it, but only if you're super careful. I don't want you or her dying. Her name is Mally (short for Maleficent, like the dragon on that one disney show.) Use her wisely; take a class at the The Front. www.thefrontogden.com They are awesome there, and know tons. Most of all, be excellent, and shoot me an email about all of your adventures and how your mission was.

November 10 Adventures

Family and Friends,

Another week passes here in the Patagonia.

In the next two weeks we are going to receive EVEN MORE MISSIONARIES! This mission is growing and growing. Because of such things, the President told us to split our area to open up a new area for another set of elders! We´re going to have 3 sets of missionaries in this ward: Two sets of Elders and one of sisters. It´s exciting.

That´s what a large part of my week has consisted of: thinking about splitting the area, and finding an apartment for the new elders.

One day there was a big wind storm so we just stayed inside all day. We went through the ward directory and counted up all the members that live in each barrio. A barrio is like a neighborhood and they kind of divide the city into barrios. We had so much information on our map. There were sticky notes, and little home made marking flags for families, and investigators, and points of interest, and orange string pinned up marking our ideas for limits of each area. It was crazy.

After a lot of thinking and information crunching, and praying, and asking, and praying, we came up with a plan.

Also, this week we´ve been looking for a new apartment for the new elders. It´s pretty rediculous to think about. Me and my companion are two white kids walking around in a foreign country calling people and talking to realtors looking, trying to rent an apartment. Haha, its fun. But we´re doing it, we went to three or four inmobiliarias (realtor office), but we haven´t found what the mission needs, where the mission needs yet.

I keep hearing about a bunch of the boys in our ward leaving on missions, but you keep failing to mention where! So let me know where they´re going, could ya? Also, if you have their addresses, that would be appreciated as well.

Going to that pottery place sounds awesome! Also, it´s good to hear that some dating is going on. Keep up all them good things.

Okay, fun thing: Last week we were able to go to the main city of Neuquén and they have a Walmart there! It was crazy. They had a lot of stuff you´d expect Walmart to have, in other words almost everything, but it´s not American Walmart. They even had the brand Great Value Jam. But other than that everything was Argentine. We went a looking for manteca de maní, or Peanut Butter, and we searched and searched down every aisle. Finally in one little corner we found the two brands of peanut butter that exist here. It´s not Jif, but it´ll do. I bought some and have been eating it ever since. One thing I found very delicous, is a peanut butter and mermelada (jam) cracker sandwich. See the picture attached.

Well, keep on keeping on, family, I love you and I know that you pray for me all the time. Thanks, I need it and appreciate it. I pray for you all, too. 

Elder Bradley Turek

P.S. Dad, how cool that you got to have dinner with Robert Redford, and that´s pretty crazy that he has a holiday, now. Did you ride in a limo or have any other fancy fanceries to tell about? About the pictures, yes, email would be fine. I can put them on my handy-dandy 16gb SD card and use my handy-dandy SD card reader to get them printed or put them on my camera. A photo of the car, photos of you guys collectively and seperate, photos of me doing things (climbing, with friends, at camp, half-marathon, etc.), a photo of nutmeg, a photo of the house, photos of places that I/we frequented, photos of the property, pictures of what you guys are doing right now, (Garden, halloween, thanksgiving, christmas, yoga, school, football, double dates, snow food, homework, the fam, and such) photos of anything that I might bring up in conversation. Check dad's computer for pictures (\Brad) and check my facebook too; give mom her camera and let her rip.

Nov 4th ¡Doble Gringo Poder! (Double Gringo Power!)

Family and Friends!

Thanks so much for your letters and emails.

How was Halloween? Here it passed by almost unnoticed, but I did see one person with a knife through their head headband-costume-thing the day after. 

It's cool to hear about the snow and such that are gracing your lands up there in the north, when it's getting hotter and hotter here each day. It's like I'm on the other side of the world or something. 

Changes, changes, changes.

Well, how do I say this. I had two companions last week, one gringo, and one Peruvian. Now, because of something one of his past companions did, my Peruvian companion, who I've been with my entire mission here in Argentina, had to leave. 

That left Elder Farnsworth from SLC (who just got here 4 weeks ago) and I to fend for ourselves. President Lovell appointed me the Senior Companion, but gave Elder Farnsworth the responsibility of continuing the "First 12 weeks" program with me.

Before this event, I'd only had one day without my companion, a day where we did exchanges with another companionship. 

Haha, it's been fun. Luckily, the Lord has prepared me for this. I feel pretty confident in my ability to speak and understand spanish--still have a long way to go--but without a native speaker to lead the way, we're doing the best we can, and I've been surprised with how well it's gone. 

It's been a baptism by fire, but we're learning quick. Yesterday we had an excellent sacrament meeting where lots of youth bore their testimonies. After Sacrament, we found a member who could go with us and went off to work. Normally this lady and her non-member husband are never there (like I've been to this lady's house almost every week my entire mission and never seen her husband or gone in her house), but lo and behold when we arrived, her house wasn't there. They had taken their house apart and were rebuilding it bigger. , and thanks to our member friend we were abWe found them rebuilding their house to sit down in some lawnchairs and finally have a short lesson with these people.

I often get too excited/nervous and sometimes I just can't say things as clearly or correctly as I need to, but the lesson went pretty well and we have an appointment for the next sunday.

This was a blessing because we haven't been able to find a member and have a lesson with investigators for a long time, and really we haven't been able to get much accomplished in the last few weeks, so yesterday was great.

In other news, when we have to make our own food I've been trying to cook with all the food groups, have lots of vegetables, and excellent, wholesome foods . I love me them wholesome foods. Attached is a picture of an example of breakfast: Bread, defrosted by the microwave, an apple, and an egg also courtesy of the microwave. We have drinkable yogurt in 1kg bags here, too. And we can't forget about the avena (Oatmeal). Almost every morning I have myself a bowl of oatmeal, and my former companion and other people here think I'm crazy (in that I habitually just eat oatmeal) and that somehow I'm going to get sick because I'm not feeding myself very well. I don't think they understand very well, haha. 

Also attached is a picture of an example of a homemade lunch. A plate of arroz integral (brown rice) and a shredded carrot salad dressed with lemon juice. Yum. The rest of the time at members houses we almost always have some sort of pasta with meat and bread and gaseosa (or soda).

Also, the other week we were helping one of the members build their house and one of the things they needed was a septic tank? At least some sort of deep hole. 3 meters deep(10ft). We dug with a pick axe and flat shovel for as long as we could and then when you couldn't throw the dirt out well enough, we started lowering two buckets down on pieces of hose to take the dirt out. We only got to about two and a third meters. It was good, hard, hot, work and I was sore for a few days and won a few good looking blisters on my hands.

I love you all! Thanks for your support and prayers,

Elder Turek

P.S.I heard about the incident with the car... haha, aren't mistakes fun to learn from? Brett, Tyler, I love you, but it would be nice if that car was there when I got home. ;) There this thing called a brush (I know there is one because I bought it) it's good for removing snow from windshields. Use it. There are these other things called eyes. You know, those moist holes in your head. Turn your head and use those too. ;) Just be safe; your safety is priority, but very near to that is that of the car. :) 

I'm super proud to hear that Brett got As and Bs in Math (Thank you, Skylar). Also, fun to hear about Mom and how you're totally digging your yoga class. Are you just super-flexible now? What's your favorite pose? Dove? Crane? Warrior III? Camel? Let me know how your classes are going. 

Kyla and Cody, I hope your doing well in school and learning tons. Remember that knowledge is the only thing that we can take out of this life, so learn lots; it will pay off. I love you!