Are there April Showers that bring May Flowers in Argentina?

April 15th.  I love Elder Merrill's P-days! I love getting his weekly letters! I miss him, but I'm so glad he is doing well. You go son!!

Good question mom. Sort of….First off, I´m doing great, things are nice and calm here. We had a pretty relaxing P-day, it was just going to the store to buy groceries and then off to the apartment to sleep. We cleaned a lot today too. That´s funny about Sparky, what a dork. (I was telling Elder Merrill that our cat Sparky will wake me up at 5:40ish and bug me until I get out of bed, all so she can have my warmed up spot and go to sleep. She is so naughty!)We have some pretty clear skies here today too, but the big thing is that the weather changes at the drop of a hat, so it could be nice and cool one moment, and then rainy and cold 25 minutes later, and then humid and sunny 15 minutes later. It´s a little weird sometimes. But the weather has cooled down a lot lately. It´ll get really cold and then by October it´ll heat up again. So as for April showers, we haven´t had a lot, but it can come at anytime.

           In the area that we work, there´s a lot of trees, and grass, but only in the outer areas of the city. I haven´t seen much of that inside the city, just dust and roads and cars. But the miles and miles of fields are pretty nice. I can´t see any mountains where I am, but the area near the river here is filled with hills because it slopes down to reach the riverbank. We don´t get a lot of dust storms here.

           I´m glad to hear about the lady who got baptized, that´s always fun to hear about. When I get back, it´ll nice to know that the mission has success in all places and I can see that after 2 years of being away. The most important thing I have learned with new converts is to make sure that they have a friend in the ward. That´s easy in a ward like ours.

          I enjoyed the 2 pictures you sent me of Stuart and Brad! Both on the computer, classic. It looks as though you changed the computer room slightly so you had a place to put Stuarts’ computer. The house is more or less the same though right? Well, primary is going well, that´s good. I have to teach about the priesthood and the restoration more than any other lesson I teach, so I have that completely memorized. Let me know how it goes.

     Thank you for always sending me letters of support and encouragement, as they always help me to carry on. I´ll be home in 10 months though, so I don´t have to carry on for too much longer! It feels so fast at times. I promise that I always try my hardest to do my best and although it’s tough at times, I know that I can do this. I want you to know how thankful I am to have such an amazing family and I pray for you guys everyday! I´m always thinking of you and I can´t wait to see you all again! I´ll see you around and I love you all!!

                                               -Elder Ethan Merrill 

April 2013 General Conference woohoo!

April 8, 2013 ~ Here is Elder Merrill's weekly letter. I forgot to ask him if he watched conference in Spanish or English. At any rate, I'm glad he and his fellow missionaries were able to see it and enjoy it and have their testimonies of Jesus Christ strengthened.

Hey family, how are you doing? Things are good here, just doing the work like usual. I haven´t had much to do with all conferences and I had to do divisions with another missionary in the other city across the river. So things have been pretty calm this week. I hope things have been the same back home. The weather is pretty crazy here, one day rainy, then humid and sunny, then cold and cloudy, then hot again. It’s pretty interesting at times here. I can´t believe that I´m part of such a large missionary work! I truly believe that we´re part of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I haven´t had anything big or new here, but the work is getting better. And don´t worry, my spirits are high.

I did like the conference a lot. Some of my favorites were Thomas S. Monson and his story about the fire. Another was Dieter F. Uchtdorf and his comparison about light and darkness, and to choose where to be. Finally, one last one was by a guy who I can´t remember, but he talked about 9/11 and how he and his family went to the stake center and they found a bunch of other members there. He then said that the stakes of Zion are a place of refuge.

        You have all your paperwork in to become a teacher again? Well, that’s good, I know that you love teaching. You want to teach middle school right?  You´re also a primary teacher in the church right? Do what you want to do, but I think you could be good at teaching little kids too, after having worked in the primary, but there´s a difference between primary and elementary funnily enough. Y´know, different ages.

       Thanks for your experience about church in Turkey! I was really hit by it and that´s a really good observation about going to church. I want the members here to understand that it really doesn´t matter if you want to go or not, but that it´s a commandment of God, and it´s a choice between if you want to follow him or not. We have about 100 less active members here, so I want to work on that a little. Don´t worry about me, I´ll always keep on doing the work even if it´s rough at times. I know that this work is true even if others don´t and I want people to know at least that, even if we don´t get a chance to teach them.

              I can´t wait until Mother’s day and I get the chance to talk to you all again! Then afterward, it’s a 7 month gauntlet where I have to wait until Christmas to talk to you all again. But, that seems slightly short and slightly long at the same time, so for now, I´ll just focus on being able to call in about 4-5 weeks or so. I love you all! See you around!

                                              -Elder Ethan Merrill

Easter in Argentina

April 1, 2013
It's Easter time and as I reflect on the blessing and miracle of the Savior's resurrection, I want to express my gratitude that my son loves Jesus so much, he is willing to sacrifice 2 years of his life and time to be a missionary. Elder Ethan Merrill, we love you so much and we praise God for your example and courage. Happy Easter son!

How are you doing guys!  Life is pretty good here. Thanks for the Happy Easter! I was given a chocolate egg from one of the members of the church and I bought one today to celebrate. It was a pretty nice Easter overall. I haven´t had too much different things happen besides Easter though. I haven´t seen any April Fool’s fishes, but I´ve been in the house most of the day; It´s p-day after all. (I was telling Elder Merrill that some European countries have an April Fool’s tradition of trying to sneak paper fishes onto someone’s back.) I don´t know if this is true or not, but the other Elders said that the branch president wants to take us to the beach, but it’s a different beach, so that should be fun again.

           I´m grateful for the resurrection too! I can´t tell you how much the gospel means to me now that I´ve been on the mission and have learned so much about the gospel. I bet the neighbors to the church are evangelists. I think that is the most popular religion here in Carmen de Patagones, I have a lot of experience talking with them.

            They say in the rules that I´m not supposed to write anything bad in my letters home. So I won´t tell you how my week was. Nothing bad happened to me, but we just started having a lack of success lately. That´s all I´ll say. No worries, my spirits are high and I read recently in preach my gospel that we should have faith that the lord puts people in our path, so I´ll make an effort to talk with everyone I see. I can´t wait to see if you´re still primary worker when I get back. Are you ready for a new calling or do you enjoy where you are?

             I´m glad that you still have a lot of contact with Jess and Brad, I want to still be able to talk with them and stuff, like before they were married, I wrote them a happy anniversary letter. I can´t wait to see what Kyle´s quilt looks like! I really enjoyed mine, and I know Stuart did too. They don´t have any traditional meat for Easter I think, but there is the Holy week here in South America.

             Well, even though it´s raining, I´m going to work in another hour. If you´re there, sweet; If not, don´t worry, I´ll see you next week. I love you lots and tell the family that I´m doing great! See you all next week and have fun! (Here´s a hug from me.)

                                                          -Elder Ethan Merrill 

Same town but new companion

March 25, 2013
We are winding down the month of March and hooray!!! It's time for another letter from our wonderful and dedicated missionary! Yeah!!!

Heya!

        We got a new rule today. We can communicate with friends, priesthood leaders and our converts with E-mail now. They gave us an extra 30 minutes of computer time too! So now it’s an hour and a half instead of only an hour. That’s good, because I was always running short on time with all the letters that I usually wrote.

          Aside from that, the transfer ended too and now I have a new companion. His name is Elder Perkins from Colorado. I think we´ll do good work here. I´m still in the same area. My week is pretty good. Meat is kind of a special thing for me, I usually get this ground beef thing for tacos once a week. But it’s nothing special. I´m glad that you got the pictures! Yeah… I fell in, but it was all good fun. Yes, I´m watching what I eat and drink, no worries there. I don´t drink soda nearly as much as I did before, practically never now.  But yeah, I´m in good health.  I do need to go visit the dentist this Wednesday, so we´ll see how it all goes.

              So Kyle can drive now huh? That´s so cool! and slightly scary...I haven´t had much practice since I´ve been on the mission, but I can´t wait to go home and drive again. Sometimes it feels good just to take a drive. I´m glad to hear that his talk went well. 1 year of talking to random people and I´m still afraid of public speaking. I wrote Jess a happy anniversary E-mail. I hope that they enjoyed Hawaii.

           I´m excited for general conference. This is indeed my 3rd and next to last general conference as a missionary. The last one will be just before my 21st birthday I figure. I really can´t believe how fast the mission has been up to this point. What we did last time when I was at general conference was we had our own separate room where the English-speaking missionaries could go to listen when it wasn´t being translated. This time, I´m not sure if there´ll be enough English missionaries that they´ll care, so maybe we´ll go watch it on a computer or something. I´m excited to hear where any new temples will be built too.

             This is all that´s been happening this past week, I hope that things are good back home, and I hope that you´re all doing well! See ya all around!

                           -Elder Ethan Merrill