Service project for handicap kids

Happy B-day Keira! I cant believe how big she is getting... every day bigger and bigger. In the one pic with mom, she looks like Kayla. And wow that is quite the set for the Christmas pageant. I hope everything goes well with that. As for the Christmas phone call I think it will probably be at like 3 or 4 depending on who calls first, which will probably be him, we will talk more about it this week and ill get the precise hour.

Today was an awesome day, we did a service project in a school for handicap kids. We played soccer with them and sang/played the guitar with them. There was an elder who was really good at drawing and he spent the entire time drawing the kids (he had a big line). Then i busted out the pics of the fam, and everyone just swarmed me. It was so funny... they would take the pics out of the album and all that stuff. I had such a fun time being with all of them. Then there was this girl in a wheelchair, and she would not stop looking at me. So i talked to her for a while and then moved on to another station. Ha... well she talked to my zone leader Elder Trent and said, "I like that one. Will you go tell him?" Ha... so he came over and told me. We both laughed and we kept switching stations. I started playing soccer and my other zone leader came up to me and said that girl in the wheel chair wants to talk to you, so i went over and she just said, "you play soccer very badly, you need to think more." So i asked her, "About what?" and she said "I dont know. What are you thinking about right now?".... I was like, "I dont know...I guess my nieces." and she got mad and started rolling away. So I ask her what I should think about and she just pointed to herself and says, "Me" Ha!... it was funny. She is 13 and her name is valeria. She didn't want to talk to me after that and every time i would look over at her she would look away really fast. Ha! Oh goodness. It was a funny experience. Then we handed out presents (some wards from the states sent us 2 suitcases full of presents and the 2 zones with the best service projects got to hand them out... we won) It was really nice to see these kids get a present each. It makes me sad to think that it might be the only present they receive this Christmas. I was so happy to spend a little time with them. They are all such angels.

As for my favorite scripture, I think it might be d&c 82:10 or 58:26-30 where the lord says, "Who is he to justify sin?" It is a very interesting scripture that made me think.

Good luck with the pageant. I'm sure you all will do great. Sorry this is so short the computer is giving me problems. I'll send pics next week cuz this one doesn't have the usb port.

lvlv

elder schupple

Wow those are some crazy pics of the cultural hall. I remember that fountain thing for Britney's wedding. I remember it was quite a bit of work. I'm sorry I cant be there..... :) Anyway so this past week was a crazy one. First thing that happened was exchanges with the zone leaders. I went to their area with Elder Wells (This is the second time I have done them with him. The first time was a year ago when we were in the same district with Elder Jensen... kinda fun huh :)) We had a great day (pretty much the point of exchanges are to see how the elders teach and spend their time) So Elder Wells wanted to see how I did contacts, so I went up to this house where there was a lady washing clothes and a guy just standing watching, I said hi and they just smiled and told us to come in. Ha so we did and it turns out they had listened to the discussions a while back but the sister missionaries never came back! So after that Elder Wells just smiled at me and said, "Good contact elder schupple." We both laughed and went on our merry way, so the exchange went well. Later in the week I got sick. It was not pleasant, lots of vomit and other stuff and fever. So that wasn't so fun, but i got over it quickly. The next day we went to an area that was pretty far out in our area to look for some new investigators and of course right when we got out into the middle of nowhere my tire popped, the tube and the outer part just went boom! It was so loud I thought I got shot. So we had to walk to a bike repair shop, where we asked the guy how much it would cost to fix. He said 50 pesos and I only had 30, so we had to walk to the closest member which was not that close to ask for 20 more pesos. Luckily they had 20 and we got the bike fixed. In some good news, we found some new investigators and so that will be fun. I'm excited. Also this next week I get to do 2 more exchanges with my district cuz there were some low numbers this past week and so I've got to go tell them how it is and all that jazz. So ya that's what my week will be looking like. It'll be fun.

As for the calling thing on Christmas... ya I'll probably just call again. If we going to do another chat room conference call thing I need the number again. If not just tell me where to call.

Love you all for being so great. You are in my prayers

lvlv

elder schupple

p.s. OK...we´ll add in some singing contacts :) love you mom have a great week love you

First week in Glew/ Happy Thanksgiving

First of all holy beard Brad! [His brother Brad is growing a beard for our Stake's Christmas Musical pageant--he is a wise man] Second, nice pics! Thats so awesome that you guys got to go to visit Aunt Bobette and Uncle Mike in Virginia. As for down here in Argentina we had a really normal week. For some reason nothing special happened.
Well lets start from the beginning, First of all I am with Elder Acuña and we get along really well. We have gotten to know each other really well because the members here never feed us, so he cooks lunch every day and we talk, then I do the dishes :) So ya. Um que mas...We are on bikes and the bikes are way old without gears and have old fashion back breaks. Ha! We are always having to put the chains back on cuz they always fall off. It also rained cats and dogs over here this past week. I think that's what made the work go so slow, so we tried to have some fun in the rain one day and had some bike races in the mud (we were already dirty because of the dirt/mud roads) so we just went crazy with that and doing fun contacts. So that night we got back to the pinch and I was calling the district like I always do at night as DL (District Leader) and one of the elders after our conversation said, O ya and Happy Thanksgiving. I had totally forgotten it was Thanksgiving that day, so Elder Acuña and I had some vegetables for dinner and said one thing we were thankful for. Then on Sunday it was just storming like crazy which made the assistance in church (people in church) a grand 24 members plus us, and zero investigators... so that was pretty much the first week... kinda boring, not much going for us. But we are not discouraged I can just feel there are tons of people waiting for us to clap their house. But its a nice area with a lot of dirt roads. Time is absolutely flying its crazy. I cant think of anything else to write, ask me some questions :) sorry its so short I'm just kinda tired and cant think of anything else.

lvlv

elder schupple

Transferred to Glew with Elder Acuna/ Ezezia farewell

OK the monitor in this computer place doesn't really work well. It works...but you just have too keep your finger on the button the entire time to see anything so I will be typing this letter blind this week. First of all to answer your question about the packages no I have never had to pay tarrifs and 2nd thing I was transferred which is sad but it happens. I am now in an area called Glew with a Chilean elder named Elder Acuña, so I'm kinda excited to be able to speak just Spanish now. I'm excited for that.

But lets not get ahead of ourselves. First of all this past week was absolutely awesome. It started when we went to Cristina's house and her husband was finally there. He wasn't very happy. He sat down lit a cigarette and started telling us all the stuff that Cristina had already told us. But he was a little more angry about it. He was mad at god and just everything and everyone, telling us about how many houses of his have fallen down and burned down . So we listened to him talk. After a bunch of this he said he started using cocaine to release the pain and just a whole bunch of bad stuff. Luckily he said he stopped doing that and now he just smokes a lot. On top of all this he is a taxi driver and his car isn't running very well so he's losing a lot of money. So we looked at his book of mormon that was saved from the fire and opened up to Helaman 5: 12. He read it and started crying and got a lot more calm and said wow tthis is talking exactly to me. We had to go to another sita (appointment) but promised him blessings if he would read and pray. The next time we went back with my camera he wasn't there so that was a bummer. We only got a picture with the rest of his family and the book of mormon. I'm sending a whole bunch of pics of people that I'll miss from Ezeiza. When I told the bishop I was leaving, he had me bear my testimony in Sacrament meeting. After that meeting we all went to our classes and during priesthood or at the end of priesthood we started to sing God Be With You Till We Meet Again. Suddenly, the entire ward started flooding into our room. Everyone was singing this song. It was such a cool experience. I felt so loved. After the closing prayer they gave me a bunch of letters and drawings and hugs saying how much they will miss me and how they were grateful for the work I had done in Ezeiza. It was hard leaving Ezeiza.... pretty much everyone cried. I just felt so loved and appreciated.

As for Elder Bednar's visit.... that was a very very cool experience. We were told before hand to read 2 talks from him and then come up with questions to ask him. There were a couple of very good questions and he answered them all of them with just the strongest spirit. When I come home I'll have to open up my journal and show you the notes I took. The first question was a very personal one and he asked us if we would like the true answer. If we did we couldn't write the answer home because there are moms out there that take their missionaries emails and put them on the internet and he didn't want it to be so public. So he took the vote of who wanted the straight forward answer and of course everyone raised their hands "Yes". So he made us promise not to write it home. So I'm honoring my promise and you'll all just have to wait 8 more months till I get home to look in my journal and see what he said :) Torture huh?! :) Well that's pretty much it, I gotta go. Ill take pics of my new area and send it to you cuz it looks like a really pretty area.

'Hope everything's going well at home. You're all in my prayers. I love you all!

Elder Schupple

Elder Bednar coming!

Sorry to tell you... but today I do not have a lot of time to write because we have to go out and work now. Our Preparation day was cut short because Elder Bednar is coming on Thurs and is going to be talking with the west mission and our mission. So that's why we have to get back to work early today....and it's way worth it! So ya the update this week is that we took out a fecha (baptism date) with Cristina and her daughter. The other family members weren't there or we would have taken fechas out with them also. However we did service for her 14 year old son who has a 16 year old pregnant girlfriend. We were helping him build or start to build his house for the both of them. (interesting situation which will interfere with him getting baptized) But we are pushing forward with him and the family and we are still very excited about them. I'll be sure to send pics this next week when we have more time. I miss y'all a lot and cant believe how fast time is flying. The church is true and we can live together some day! Isn't that great?! :)

lvlv

elder schupple

The Book of Mormon miracles

Happy early Bday mom and yes I got the package. It was a wonderful surprise, and is Joe Mcgrath going on a mission if so where? Brad is looking very..... scary in his Halloween costume. Did he go out with some friends or go trick or treating or just use that in the house? Other than that all those pics are so great. I cant believe Bobby and the Cluff boy are already home and that Steve Branham will be back in just a few months! This is crazy! Time is going way fast, and how great that you saw Mrs Miller and Mrs. Rosko... def 2 of the nicest ladys on the planet!

OK I have a lot to type and very little time to do it so lets get started. So we went to Cristina's (the house fire/ book of mormon lady) this past week and got to know her. She said she had been listening to the elders a couple years ago and then for some reason stopped. She told us that the other day when she stopped us she had seen us a few blocks away and really wanted to talk to us about her Book of Mormon experience and stuff but decided not to because we were 2 or 3 streets ahead of her and she was a little embarrassed too. But as we kept walking she said we were taking the same streets she had to take to go to her house and when we stopped and clapped a nearby house (another investigators house that wasnt there for our appointment) she came closer and closer and really wanted to say something so the girl she was with helped her out and told her to just talk to us so she did. And now here we are passing by her house and teaching her whole family who all love the Book of Mormon. The amazing part of this story is that the night Elder Holladay and I got lost and were looking for this other investigators house I was so frustrated at the time. I have been in Ezeiza for 7 months now and I know my area very well and so at the time I could not believe that I was lost. Little did I know we were supposed to get lost so this lady could follow us and now listen to this wonderful gospel again. God works in mysterious ways. When she told me what had happened and I told her how we had gotten lost she told me another story of how a while back she had a dream, and in this dream there were a bunch of religious books. She said that a hand (she thought it was the hand of God) took her hand and put in on the Book of Mormon. This lady has had so many experiences and answers regarding the Book of Mormon and she started sharing her testimony of it with us. It was a very cool experience this past week. It was just a great testimony boost on how I know the Book of Mormon is true. I really hope I stay for another transfer so I can see them get baptized.

Hope everyone is doing great and all is well at home, your all in my prayers.

lvlv

elder schupple

PS: tell Brad to write me! dang it!

Baptismal interviews, baptisms, Miracle of the fire and the Book of Mormon

Awwww my nieces are soooo cute in their Halloween costumes and wow dad and mom lookin..... ummm....young again in your 70's duds..... ha no jk but your both looking very skinny so very nice. As for this past week it was crazy like always :)... new experiences. First of all I did my first interview for Ezeiza B and that went well then I asked this sister who would be doing her baptism. I asked if her brother could and she said no and the bishop said he couldn't and neither can my dad. So I was like ¨Oh OK well how about elder Calderon or Adair?" and she said, ¨No you¨ Ha surprise! (I had taught her once or twice before we split the area so she kinda knew me) so I asked the zone leaders if I could and they said yes so I baptized her this past Saturday. It's always fun. Speaking of this past week; it was a very good week for us here. We found a bunch of great investigators. One guy took a baptismal goal the second visit for Sat the 21st so he has a lot to learn and stuff but it'll be really great. I'm excited for him and for Elder Holladay to get these experiences of the good and the not so good. As for Elder Holladay he is doing great in the language and he is talking a lot more in lessons and helping me to remember little things especially like doing contacts because those are one of my least favorite things to do. So he's helping me keep those up. So ya he is awesome. This last Wednesday morning we had a little scare. As we were walking there were these three guys and one of them asked us for a peso so he could buy wine. I told him no but he started following us saying bad words and telling us to give him a peso and our money. So after saying no again he gave my bag/butt a kick. I turned around and he backed off and we kept walking as he kept yelling bad words but luckily nothing happened. We went on our way and had a great day. Then after that I had to do 2 more interviews that went well. OH something that was cool this past week was this lady who came up to us and started telling us that she needed to talk to us. She told us that her house had just burned down and she lost everything except this one book she had that someone gave to her a long time ago. It turned out that this book was the Book of Mormon! Everything in her house burned down but this book was untouched by fire or water from the firefighters. How awesome is that miracle? So we have a cita with her this week and I think that she will probably get baptized in a week or so. So that's exciting. Well got to go. Hope every thing's good.
love you all.

lvlv

Elder Schupple

Challenging week

Ha wow! There is so much is going on at home. That's great stuff. This new week in Ezeiza has been a pretty difficult week for starters and it made me way sad cuz it was going so well before. And now that poor new elder Holladay is here it looks like he might not get any baptisms while he's with me. I cant stand the thought of that so ya this past week I think I have worked harder than I ever have in my mission. It's mostly because things started to go bad at the beginning of this week. We went over to our fechas house and she just told us she was not interested in listening to us anymore, after everything was going so well. So we talked a little and she was pretty set on not listening to us so I accepted it and set up a dinner where we would thank her for her time and make tacos for her and her family (Where she is going to change her mind about listening to us and after that we will find the husband which we haven't been able to do so far) So ya that's the plan of action as of now so we´ll see how that goes. Then the next day I got some very good news that I was going to do exchanges with ELDER JONES! (MTC companion and zone leader) Yay! We finally were going to get to teach together again! So we had a great day planned. However when we went to all of our citas everything fell through so we ended up just doing a whole lot of walking and contacting... but it was still way fun. During this time we found out that one of our other fechas picked up and left and we don't know where they are. So that was another bummer. We are pushing on tho so no worries because we have focused on the area and the work and are working really hard so the lord will bless our efforts. As of now or yesterday we found another family who we are teaching and they have quite a bit of potential so I am way excited for them. Elder Holladay is doing way good learning the language very fast and doing very well with his contacts. We did divisions the other day so that was a really good experience for him to go with a member to some citas. Other than that everything is going great. I am very excited to be with Elder Holladay because he has a great testimony and he is very smart so he is helping me and the work a lot.

I love you all hope everything is going great your in my prayers

lvlv

elder schupple

Pres & Sis. Asay with Elder Holladay and Elder Schupple

Here's the new missionary welcome picture of Elder Hollaway with President Asay and his wife and his trainer Elder Schupple. Elder Hollaway just flew in to Argentina from the MTC and is from Pennsylvania. WELCOME ELDER!

New companion: Elder Holladay from Pennsylvania

Ha! You don't have to get me anything for Christmas. I'm all good over here plus I bought this ring here that says 'faith'. It was cheap so i got it made a while back. I'll have to send you a pic of it (the guy measured my middle ring to be 9 1/2 but I'm not sure if that is the same for the states or what so ya.... plus I cant print anything off because the place we are at does not have a dang printer, sorry mom) Speaking of pics I'm really sorry to tell you that the computer I am at right now does not have a usb drive so ill have to send you pics next week. However I can tell you about my companion-- his name is Elder Holladay from Prom Pennsylvania. He is 20 years old, birthday is in April and he went to BYU for 2 years studying computer programing. He is way smart and understands a lot more than I understood when i first got here. So I'm sure by the end of this transfer he will be teaching me instead of me teaching him. He gets frustrated with himself because he can't understand everything but I try to assure him that in time he will.... probably in 2 transfers or something like that, and plus hes only been in Argentina for like 6 days so i think his biggest trial will be having patience with himself, but I'm sure he is going to do great. With the faith he has I'm sure we will baptize all of Ezieza before I leave. Oh and guess what? We have the same middle name. How crazy is that and it was his mom's maiden name or something like that. So ya that would be crazy if somehow we were related or something.
As for this last week we have been rockin it. We didn't have any investigators at first because I gave all of them to Elder Calderon and his new companion so that they could have stuff to do. As for us our mission this past week, it was to find new investigators and let me tell you we accomplished our goal. We found 13 new investigators and took out a baptismal date with this one lady. We are way excited for this next week and am sure we are gunna rock it. I hope everything is going great with everyone. I'm praying for you everyday.
love
elder schupple
PS i learned that I'm only supposed to use gmail, so my new account is austinschupple@gmail.com spread the word :)
love you all and I'll talk to you in a week

AWESOME transfers! Trainer & District leader

I'm really glad things are going well at home. I pray for our family every day... ha pretty much every prayer I add in a little blessing for the family and reading this letter I can see that heavenly father has answered my prayers. I am so grateful for the family we have and for all the experiences we have had good and bad. Heavenly Father really knew what he was doing when he formed this family. I'm just grateful I was lucky enough to be put into it... definitely one of my greatest blessings.
Anyway transfers: Elder Calderon will be taking the south side of Ezeiza with Elder Adair and the north side will be me with an elder I don't know yet. Ill meet him tomorrow when he gets to the country so that was pretty cool. I'm way excited to train. Im also going to be a district leader and to add icing to the cake, Elder Jones (my mtc comp) will be my zone leader! Yay! I'm seriously so excited for this transfer. The only thing is that all our baptismal fechas are Elder Calderons, so we got to get to work on the north side but I'm not worried. This area is absolutely awesome and we are gunna baptize tons so no worries. As for some sad news Elder Rice left me and went to the coast. I'll miss him... he was a fun elder but I'm sure I'll make new friends. Right now I'm with elder Steinkuler (lived with me in the mtc old time friend) who is also going to be training so we will get to do some teaching together tonight which will be cool.... I'm excited! Ha everything is just working out so nicely and I'm loving it. Summer is coming up on us so I'm kinda excited for that kinda not cuz I sweat a lot but I'll prob lose some weight which is good. So ya this last week was fun. I don't have my agenda so i don't remember the things I was going to write but it really doesn't matter because I don't have much time anyway. 'Hope everything continues to go well.
Love you all so much
Elder Schupple

Awesome Gen Conf!/ Ezeiza being split...I'm STAYING! /

Ahhh! I have soo much i want to write and so little time. Ok first of all conference was seriously amazing. I absolutely loved President Eyrings talk the first session (im not sure if you guys went but it would be a really great thing to read for FHE... also Bednars. I just heard both of these talks and thought about the fam. I dont know why but this conference made me think so much of the family. So ya maybe ya'll could read or listen to those talks and see how we are doing with the topics. Another thing that I wrote down was a question of how we are doing with our callings and if we are going to the temple enough. So many times its easy to just kinda ignore both of those things but I can testify that both of those things will bring soo many blessings to our lives.
I'll have to just leave it there for conference. This past week we were walking down the streets and we saw this inactive member walking with her kids so we stopped them and said hi and made an appointment to go by, but before we left the little girl pulled me aside and said, "Elder Schupple I dont know if this is bad or not but the other day my mom was really stressed and she smoked a cigarette." I love little kids. This girl is 9. I love how she was caring for her mom by tattling on her. Sometimes we need a tattling so we can recieve a little kick to repent. We did exchanges this past week and I went to another area with Elder Rice. When I got back Elder Calderon informed me that when they were at Marias house she told him that her younger brother might have diabetes and then she went to the doctor cuz she wasnt feeling very good either and it turns out she has something on her heart. Satan is doing his job by testing their faith right after their baptisms. We are going to go by and teach a little about priesthood and blessings this coming week then fast for a day then give the blessing. I dont know what it is but the past couple weeks I have been thinking a lot about priesthood and for some reason my faith has been strengthened a lot. So I'm kind of excited for this upcoming blessing.
In other news we are teaching the old couple we found the other week and they are progressing very nicely. Pablo came to conference and really liked it. So ya we are way excited for them.
OHHH!!!! I forgot to tell you, im staying in Ezeiza! President told me in interviews that hes going to split Ezeiza and send 2 more elders. So Elder Calderon and I are both staying; I'll get the north half and he will get the south half (the part with almost all our investigators, but thats ok...Ezeiza is so great we will find a bunch more in no time). We will be living in the same apartment which isnt exactly big but we have four beds so we are all going to be here. This is what president's main concern with spliting the area: 4 elders in an apartment can be hard with obedience and feeling the spirit, but I'm positive we will do great. I'm just worried about keeping it clean.
So ya hope you like the pics....there is lots of soccer from elder rices camera and then today from mine. I'll try to get more pics in white shirt and tie but I just always forget to take pics. I'll get better with that.
Love you guys so much
Elder Schupple