See Some Sweet Sunsets

6/30/14 

Hey there everybody!

Well this week was a guddun.  Real interesting but good at the same time.

First off I’m not sure what is going on but I am having some of the strangest dreams ever.

Second off for all of you out there who know what a hipster is. They are spreading.  I met my first full blood hipster here the other day.

I have got my Brazilian companion into the habit of saying, "Man."

We were invited to an 11 year olds birthday party. Lets just say that 11 year olds singing karaoke in English isn’t really my thing...

This week we were riding our bikes down a dirt road when behind us we heard something running at us.  We turned around and we saw 3 wild stallions tracking us down. We quickly got off the road and waited til they passed.  When they passed we started up again.  We crossed another road and then they came out of nowhere and started chasing us again.  Haha one of them started doing the bucking bronco thing.  We figured in this moment that it is probably best if we get far away from them.  Far far away.

Also this week we had our power go out for about an hour.

And then the next day it went out for the whole day...

...And the next day...

...And the next day...

... The good news is that we only couldn’t use our space heater... and our fridge, water heater, lights, phone, microwave, or shower.  I felt like I was camping. It actually was pretty dang fun going to sleep in the pitch black with my sleeping bag and having to kind of wing it like in the golden days.

So the lesson here.  If you like to hike and camp.  Just go on the mission. You get to hike around all day and talk to the other people on the path, eat oatmeal and see some sweet sunsets.  

I love you all.  I am happy to be here, looking to help somebody.  I know that the Big man sent me here for a reason, so I will just keep on hiking along looking for it.

Well, that’s all folks!

Love,

Your little friend,

Elder Merkley 

Love At First Sight

6/23/14

Hey there everybody!

Well, this week was a guddun.

I saw a girl trying to start up her moto this week and trying to be a good samaritan we went over to try and help her out.  I asked her if I could do it and she said thank you and yes. So I pointed at the starter thing and said "I kick down this one, right?"  And she said yes.  So I summed up all of the brute force that I could calling on he man and kicked down that starter pedal....with such force that I broke it off....

As I awkwardly came to the conclusion that I broke part of her motorcycle I realized that it still didn’t start up.  We met eye contact for a couple of seconds like a movie where they see love at first sight. We just have to replace "love at" with "you broke" and "first sight" with "my motorcycle” it was an uncomfortable situation for a little but after many apologies and offers to fix it she told me that it has fallen off before.  I’m not sure if she was saying the truth or just to get away before I broke something else.

This week we also had the opportunity to start up seminary here in San Clemente.  My companero and I are now officially the new San Clemente Seminary teachers, with a class of 4 kids haha I hope that I can handle it.  Any tips or strategy’s to get the little monsters out of the hallway in their seats would be greatly appreciated.

Also because we started up our seminary our Presidente of the Rama is friends with a 70 named Elder Crasnocelski (I have no clue how the heck to spell it...) So anyways he came to our church and talked to us and all of the kids.  It was dang sweet and he talked to us about 1 Nephi and caught us all up to where we need to be.  Man how lucky am I?  He told us that the next time maybe we can go on divisions.  Woo!

Other funny things that I saw this week:

A fly was bugging this guy on the bus and he tried swatting it a couple of times but he couldn’t get it. When it landed on the window carefully, quietly leveled his hand, like a cobra waiting to pounce on the little mouse… and then I realized that he had his cellphone in his hand.  He jabbed at the fly trying to stab it... but sadly he missed.

Well.  I love you guys.  I hope that everything is well.  I miss you but I know that the Lord needs me here right now.  

Be safe, keep working hard.

Love

Elder Merkley

A Quick Dip

6/10/14 

Dear everyone-
This week was a good one. I don’t really remember anything but I’ll give it a
shot. I got your package mom. Thanks a ton for everything. I ate the two
chocolate bars in like 3 seconds because they melt if you don’t.

During the week a little storm came in and by little storm I mean pretty crazy. Within
like 2 hours the streets were filled with water. We jumped into a member’s
house to wait it out but I got a call telling me that President wanted everyone
in their house. So we were making our way home pure soaked. We are in a lower
part of our area and I suddenly realized the water was up to my waist. (I’m
not kidding.) I decided I’d take a quick dip and doggy paddled for like 15
feet. My comp thought it was pretty funny. Way luckily (and I have no
clue how) my scriptures didn’t get wet and our phone still works. My bag
went completely under water while I was swimming (oops). I realized it was
kinda dangerous to be out in the storm so we took a turn up the street and
got the heck home. Other than that not too much crazy stuff happened.

On Sunday the sisters and us had a tag team baptism. It was pretty good. My
comp and I cleaned the font out and it was kinda crazy because we cleaned
it out real good and then filled it up with water. But little caterpillars
started climbing out of the drain and there was like 15 of them in the font
and out before the baptism. Luckily I whipped out a rake and raked them all
out.

Dan

Elder Horseman

6/16/14 

This week a little something called the World Cup started and that’s all that everybody talks about.  Soccer’s pretty dang sweet but I have never been a die-hard fan.  I just want the United States to win so that I can rub some sweet sweet victory in the face of some of the people here.  Real Christ-like, right?

For reals this week we just traveled a lot. 

Monday was P day, completely normal.

Tuesday we traveled for 6 hours to go to a conference.

Wednesday we traveled to Mar de Plata for 5 hours and slept over there for the night.  I was trying to pull a john and bring as little as humanly possible. It kinda backfired but kinda worked at the same time.  Imma just saying I’m blessed that I can sleep through anything.

Thursday we went to a super super sweet conference with a 70 named Elder Vinas.  We talked about Christ and how He atoned for us.  It was super super awesome and I invite all of you to think about what Christ’s sacrifice means for you and study it a little bit cause it completely blew my mind.

After that we got on the bus and hit the road for another 5 hour trip full of beat boxing, clean rapping Elders, showing pictures, and playing whatever crazy game that we could possibly think of. 

When we got to our stop we hopped off of our bus and then we ran to our other bus that we had to catch and we saw it pull away and drive off without us into the distance like a balloon that floats off into the air.  We did the George Michael walk back to the other missionaries and had to stay the night in another area again.

Some other important news I just finished off my 2 kilo of oats in 6 weeks.  1 kilo is 2.2 pounds.  That means that I’m eating a good old 2.2 pounds of oats in 3 weeks.  

Just call me Elder Horseman Merkley

The last important news that I had was this morning I woke up and I sneezed so hard that I saw stars. Cool story huh?

I love you guys.  I’m praying for you.

Love,

Elder Merkley

Birthday Week

 6/9/14 

Hey there everybody!

All right so here’s the dirt on last week why I didn’t write.  First it was my birthday so we went to have a district activity that was a good hour trip there and another hour trip back so we lost a couple of hours and then we didn’t have time to write. Anyways I am here now writing about what’s going on this week and a bit from last week.

First, last week.  We have a super super sweet investigator named Neli.  She kinda reminds me of a grandma Shirley who was drinking a lot of coffee.  She is super awesome. This week we saw her walking in the street with another grandma who was crying.  We pulled over and started to talk to them and the sad grandma said that she lost her husband.  We tried calming her down for a good 30 minutes and said prayers and told her that all will turn out ok but it wasn’t really working.  So we asked her what we could do to help her out. 

We went all over looking for her husband, including going to the hospital and waiting in line for 20 minutes to ask if he was there.

We didn’t find anything so we had to return empty handed.  When we got back they told us that we could keep on going and that they are going to keep looking.

4 days later we saw Neli and she told us that when they got back to the house of the grandma the husband was there the whole time and that a friend of the grandma told her that she forgets alot and that this is a frequent thing. Haha I love older people.

Besides that it was my birthday! We cooked some tacos and ate outside of the church and our President of the Branch, Presidente Magariños, is a dang baller and gave me one of his medals that he won in a marathon that he did.  Man he is so dang nice I can’t even tell you.   Haha also he is teaching me how to dance.

I cut my own hair now.  

My companero and I don’t know if we have gas from a tank or if it is lined here so we have been eating cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the last 7 days haha.

 It’s a good thing that I really like oatmeal, right?

Thanks for everything.  I love you all. I am praying for you all and the big man is watching out for you.  Be safe.

EVOL,

Elder Merkley

Did You Get It In a Cereal Box

6/2/14

Hi.

This week was pretty good. I don’t know why but we just found a ton of people with smoking or drinking problems. Like we found about 5 and all of them want to change. I realized how sucky it would be to be addicted to something. One guy named Antonio was walking in the street. He called out to us and told us to go into his house. He was shaking way bad and was telling us about how the doctors were telling him he was going to die because of how much alcohol he drinks. He told me while he was waiting he just left the hospital praying to god He would help him when he saw us. We´ll see what happens with him but he’s in pretty bad shape. So pray for Antonio ok?

In other news my watch broke this week. I was kinda bummed but to give you guys a taste of how rich this area is when I went to the Bishop’s house to eat, his wife saw that my watch was broken and started laughing. She asked me if I pulled it out of a cereal box while the bishop when into his room and just straight up gave me a way nice watch haha. We had stake conference this Sunday here and three Areas of the 70 came. One of them was the uncle of my comp so that was pretty cool for him.

Well take everyone love you guys a ton-Dan