Alma 30:3-4

Hola familia,

Well transfers are in 3 days and I am leaving yet again. I'm not to sure where yet, but I think we find that out tonight, but that doesn't really matter to yall since I can't email you between then and next Monday. I do know that I am going back to Spanish though, so there's that at least.

This week was pretty eventful - we had a fun 4th of July; I had Spanish conference; I nearly died; and it rained like 50 inches this week.

On Tuesday the only things to report really was we had another lesson with Will and one with Sally. Will is pretty difficult to teach, he already knows so much and is very intelligent. But he's not really using his intelligence to his advantage, because it's hard for him to feel the spirit and doesn't pray about what we are teaching or about the book of mormon, but he does pray about a lot of other different questions that he has. So we're not too sure how to handle him, he just really needs to have some spiritual enlightenment . The lesson with Sally was really good, we read the BoM with her and she seemed a lot more excited to read it and seemed to understand why it would benefit her. So we recommitted her to reading it again.

Wednesday was 4th of July. We had a couple of parties that we went to and had some really good times and good food. First we went to a parade. And if there's someone who doesn't like the 4th of July or doesn't appreciate it, then they can come right on down to Newberry. The street that the parade was on, each house was decked out and had food set out so that people could have snacks and water as they walked or golf carted through the parade. Strangers were talking with strangers, friends with friends. It was all very cool. Part of the parade there was a firetruck that was spraying water from its hose and created a water party in the street. One of our potential investigators invited us to come sit with them and watch the parade from their sisters house. And then we met all of their family who were all very nice. Then after that we went to the potential investigators house for lunch BBQ, and that BBQ was as if it was from a movie that you would watch about a perfect family and all. They had all their family there, one of the sons of the family brought all his college friends down for it. A boyfriend of one of the daughters at one point broke out his guitar and started singing songs about Jesus. Everyone had a very thick southern accent. People wore America colored asocts. It was all very picture perfect. Plus there was some really good southern BBQ and desserts. Then after that we went home to do some studies and such, visited some people to wish them a happy 4th of July, then went on to our next party at a returning less active's home on Lake Murray. That one was very fun as well, there were a lot more members there, but there were some extended family members of the family that invited us that weren't members as well. There was some very good food there as well. And every man there had served in the military, one in the army, one in the marines, and one on nuclear submarines, so we heard all about their cool war stories too. And that was about it for that day.

Interjection: I just got word of where I'm going, I will be going to the Greenwood 1st ward in the upstate. I will be going with Elder Powell, who has been my favorite companion thus far (Charleston). So I am super excited about it. We are also going into a brand new Spanish area, and we are staring from basically scratch, which will be a challenge but will be super fun too. And I've heard that the ward there is super awesome and that the area is super fun too. So I'm super excited now and will basically be counting down the hours.

Thursday was the famous Spanish conference. Last conference we made goals of baptizing 6 people and finding 140 new investigators. Which we hit both of those goals. We baptized 10 people and found 141 new investigators. So we had fun congratulating ourselves for that. And we talked a lot about how we can continue to improve the work and such. It was fun to see everybody again and all that as well. Then after Spanish conference we had another lesson with Sally which was super good. She recognized the spirit, learned why it is important to ask for guidance in her prayers, believed the Joseph Smith story, and commited to go to church. Plus she had finally read some of the book of mormon. So it was super good.

Friday we went to help our former bishop move in the afternoon. Then we had dinner with one of the members, while there it started monsoon raining again, except it didn't let up in 30 minutes, except kept raining for about 3 hours. At the members house we had a bop it competition which I came second in. I had to hide my competitive frustration from the members. Then we shared our message and played with their kids and gave a blessing as we waited for the rain to let up as we were on bikes. Plus the father is Brazilian, so I practiced my Portuguese with him. And by practice I mean speak the 10 or 14 words that I know to him. Then we went to another appointment with an older member. Then we tried to knock a little bit in the rain.

Saturday we had gotten a call early in the morning to go fill up the baptismal font. So we did that and brought our bikes with us so we could bike around that area afterwards. The church is on a super steep and long hill, that's really fun to bike down since you get going so fast. Well my bike doesn't have any brakes. So it's a little less fun. As we were coming down the hill Elder Elmer slammed on his brakes to turn on a street. I also slammed on my brakes, but nothing happened. So I tried to turn a bit out of the way, but failed and slammed into his back tire as he was turning, and I hit the ground with the force of an elephant falling from the empire state building and slid a couple yards too. My first thought was aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!?!?!! Then I was like what part of me is broken. Then I realized that I was okay to stand up and then I hobbled around for a little bit, until the shock and adrenaline wore off and realized that I was in a lot of pain. So I sat back down and started taking inventory of my body. My whole left side hurt quite a bit. I then looked at my bike and saw that it was in pretty rough shape as well. Half of my left pedal is broken, I only have a half a pedal now. My seat is super ripped and messed up. The frame is super scratched. My body isn't broken but it is quite bruised. My shoulder has a large bruise, my elbow has a large bruise, my hand is super road rashed, my thigh has a big bruise, my knee has a big cut and bruise, and my ankle has a small bruise. My shirt was super ripped up and torn. It was quite the situation. So we biked to the nearest member, which was the ones we had dinner with the night before, and had him tend to my wounds. He poured some hydrogen peroxide on my knee and hands. Bandaged me up and we were back on our way. We saw some former investigators and potential investigators and said goodbye to them that day and that was about it.

Sunday I woke up and was very sore from the day before. We went to church and had Sally come and she said that she really enjoyed it and would love to go again. She was also invited to a pot luck thing this week, so it was all very cool. Then later we went to our ward mission leader's house for lunch and said goodbye to him and everything which was very good. Then we had studies and went over to the templins for dinner that night, which was also very fun. Ten we went to brother torres house to say goodbye to him. And that was about that day.

Today we are both spending a lot of time packing and will later say goodbye to Jeff who we were teaching when I first cme into the area.

That is about all, one scripture that has helped me out this week is in 3 Nephi 5:13: "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus  Christ, the  Son  of God.  I have  been  called  of him  to  declare  his  word  among  his  people,  that they  might  have  everlasting  life”. It has helped me realize that I have been called to be a missionary for one purpose. To open my mouth and declare the truth about Jesus christ, so that I might bring eternal life to others. And that doesn't just stop with missionaries. We all are disciples of Jesus christ and we all have been called to help bring others to gain eternal life.

Elder Bertoch

Moving on to the monsoons

July 2, 2018:

This week not much happened. However it quickly turned from South Carodesert to South Carorainforest. It's rained just about every day. And I'm not talking about little drizzle here and there, but I feel like I'm in Thailand or Indonesia and we're just having monsoon rains. It'll only last for 30-45 minutes but it will cause panic. Every time it happens everyone thinks that a tornado is coming. Which is not rare in this part of South Carolina, we actually have a member here that built his house right on tornado alley and his house has been demolished by a tornado twice. They're both pretty cool stories though because both times the tornado destroyed everything except the 5 places where they had food storage.

This week wasn't very special. The only part really worth writing about would be the lesson that we had with Will on Tuesday and my interview with president. The lesson with Will went really well. We had come in and he apologized because he was not able to read the entire plan of salvation pamphlet that we gave him. But his definition of finish and ours was very different. He had read the thing and went to the back where there's this section: Study for Yourself or something like that. He had read almost every scripture on there and had made many many notes about it. He used the pamphlet just like the Prophet intended those pamphlets to be used. It was awesome. He flipped out whje we told him we had a living prophet. He was like, where to I find all the things that he's taught. So we directed him to his last talk on personal revelation and he was like, "YES I need this in my life." so very cool experience and probably the most solid guy we have right now.

Fridays were interviews with president. I had prepared a lot for it as I very much wanted the Newberry Spanish and English area to open this week. So I wrote down my game plan. I had a vision, goals, plans and 25 reasons why. And I told President all about it in my interview. But he said that it couldn't happen this transfer, but next transfer he will consider it. But he did tell me I'm done with the English work and I will be going full time Spanish this next transfer again, which I am very excited about.

Love yall 

Elder Bertoch 

IT IS SO HOT!

June 25, 2018

First off I'm going to rant just a little bit. IT IS SO HOT. Yesterday it was like 100 degrees and raining. It rained and it was still hot. And we were biking so that just made things worse. And let me tell ya, it's not getting any better, it just keeps getting hotter and hotter. Its supposed to just straight rain all this week, but that doesn't mean things will cool off like in normal places, nope, it's still high 90's and climbing. Every time that I ever talk with a member or something they only ever tell me that it's going to get worse too. They're all like "Oh you cant even be hot, it's not in the 100's yet" or " Why are you sweating so much? It's not even humid yet." Yesterday when it rained it steamed when it hit the ground because the ground was so hot and after it stopped raining there was just this thick layer of fog, from the steam. If you don't hear from me next week go ahead and assume that I melted.

Anyways now that that's over with, we had a really good week this week. We met with a lot of different people, had some cool miracles happen, and had a really good lesson with someone.

On Monday we had dinner with this guy who hoards food and stuff, because he is a prepper and a chef. You know those cool waffle machines that are giant and you flip it around after you pour the batter in there and it makes really light and fluffy waffles, he made us waffles with that thing. After the dinner he also gave us like half his food collection, so we will never go hungry again. After we were done at his place, we met this guy named Grady, and taught him all about the BoM and he loved it and said that we could stop by again this next week. 

Tuesday was our exchange day for this transfer, and since Elder Elmer is the district leader, we went on exchanges with the zone leaders. We had a lot of appointments set up and the day was filled up. I stayed in our area because I am cursed to do that forever I guess, I've never exchanged out of an area. And one by one our appointments fell through. Until we were left with nothing. So we went to see a less active member who is the sister of one of the recent converts in the west Colombia branch. And we stayed there for a while until she finally committed to go to church and to pray, and she did go to church which was really cool. And then we went to stop by some other different people and did some other things and that was that day.

Wednesday we exchanged back and we had a lesson with Jaime but it didn't really happen. Jaime is a very interesting man because he's read the book of mormon at least 30 times and knows that it is true. We gave him a new book of mormon about 2 weeks ago and it is already super marked up. But he wont do anything to change the way he lives, so it is very interesting. Then we had a lesson with a guy named Shamar and introduced the Book of mormon to him and got a return appointment with him as well. Then later we met the famous actor Peter Iacangelo, who when we first met him told us that he lived a very interesting life, and told us to google him. So we didn't know if he was a war criminal or on the FBI Most Wanted list or what, but it turned out really cool. If you don't know him, he was in movies like Fight Club and some other really old movies. He right now just recently fought off Luekimia for the 4th time and is pretty humble and is really searching for truth, and we are the messengers of that truth, so we've talked with him a couple of times this week and he accepted a Book of Mormon and all, so very promising there. That night we also had a really good lesson with Sally Potts, a member couple joined us and we taught a really powerful Plan of Salvation, and Sally was saying that this was just what she needed and she is very excited to learn more.

Thursday we had dinner with a part member family which was really good, the non member is so active in the church to the point where we basically treat him as a member. So we shared the Dare to Stand Alone video with them and they we're really touched by it.

Friday, not much happened.

Saturday we had a yard sale at our apartment so we helped some of our neighbors move things down to the sale place and then we helped our main neighbor man her ten tables of crap, which was where I also learned I'm a great salesman, because I sold a lot of junk, like a lot of junk. Then later that day we went down to Saluda, but not much happened there. I was able to teach a quick door stop Plan of Salvation to a hispanic lady and she seemed a moderate amount of interest from the lesson so there was that at least. 

Sunday we had stake conference which was really good, there was a huge focus on ministering and missionary work, which we were really excited about. Then we went over to the Acostas for dinner, he was the presidente of our branch in west columbia, but his sister is in our ward, so they invited us all over for dinner. Then later we met with Carrie and had a good lesson with her, she's reading the book of mormon, but she doesn't understand it very well, so we're thinking of ways to help her understand it better. Then later we met with a man named Will Davis who is a very smart man and loves history, about the bible and other ancient records that have to do anything about God or Jesus. So the Book of Mormon is very interesting to him and he loves it. He's been reading it for a little while now and he really seems like a prime person to accept the gospel and get baptized here soon. One other thing that was cool was that Jeff went to church as well, so at least we have some progress there.

That was about all this week, I'm trying to get back in the habit of writing longer emails, so go ahead and cheer me on. Love you all.

Elder Bertoch

Photo with the exchange missionary

Father's Day Ties

So not too much went on this week. We really only had two super eventful days. Wednesday and Thursday and I guess yesterday was pretty good too. Wednesday was the most eventful day that I have had in a long while. We went on this hunt for this pretty solid guy that was a referral from some other Elders. But all we had was the street that he lived on. So we started to walk up the street and as we did we met this lady sitting on her front porch. She has a lot of connections with the church (her mom and her best friend are members). She's had missionaries in her life for 50 years, and one day they just stopped coming - until we showed up.  The day we showed up was the day after she had just had questions about temple work and the spirit world. So we were able to answer those for her and chat for a while. Then later we had a lesson with a girl named Maggie that went really well and she committed to reading the BoM. Then after that we met a man named michael who seemed super solid and we gave him a plan of salvation packet to read and we found out later that he did and believes it and wants to talk more, so thats pretty cool.

Thursday was zone conference which was really good, we focused a lot on being more christ-like and moving to higher and holier places in the mission by doing the small and simple things each day.

Sunday was fathers day and we had a really good church session. We helped out in the aaronic priesthood so that the deacons and teachers could ask questions about why it is important to serve a mission. Then after church the biggest family in the ward, consisting of 5 or 6 separate families, invited us over for lunch, and they fed us good.  That was really the first southern cookin feast that I've had and it was soooo good. Then after that we have a lot of leftover ties in our apartment left by other missionaries, so we went and handed out ties to everyone that we could think of that was a father, and that went really well too. 

That was really all the exciting stuff that happened this week. Love y'all.

Elder Bertoch

Hay Fever

Hola Familia,

So, not much has happened in the days since I've last emailed. 

On Thursday we did have a huge service day helping probably the coolest member in all of South Carolina, super funny guy that makes it a point to be best buddies with every missionary that comes through. He is currently planting a lawn, though, and had these giant acres of dirt all around his backyard. Probably around 3 acres maybe more because I'm not sure how big an acre is. And there were thousands of big rocks in the dirt. And we had to remove the rocks so that the grass could grow. So we did that all morning, from 9 to 12, in 90 degree weather. Luckily it wasn't too humid though. Then after we removed all the rocks he recruited us to help him some more that the night.  First we went to a lunch appt with a sweet old couple in the ward. There they fed us a 3 course meal with salad, steak with potatoes, corn and squash, and then key lime pie with ice cream. So it was a good thing that we worked hard that morning because I would not have been able to eat all that if I hadn't. Then when night approached we went back to help out Brother Reid. This time he wanted us to unroll hay bales onto his yard and spread the hay around to help the grass grow. I learned that I was really good at that. That took about another 3 hours but brother Reid bought us milkshakes as payment so it was totally worth it. He also promised that he would take us mountain biking one of these P-days so I'm looking forward to that as well. 

Friday we saw our 2 progressing investigators Carrie and Jeff. Carrie is doing really well and committed to read the BoM each day, but Jeff said that things are starting to get a bit overwhelming and he needs a couple of days or weeks to take a step back and just sort of soak everything in. His fiance is still coming to church though so that's a good sign.

Saturday we did service for this 95 year old woman that we're good friends with. While we were there we saw someone else that we have been trying to see since I've been here and he invited us to dinner so that was cool too. 

Sunday we had church which was really good. After church we had a lot of finding and I used my Spanish to try and see a less active that really only speaks spanish and then we knocked around them and I talked with someone long enough for them to agree to having the hermanas come back so that was cool too. We then saw a former that was really excited to see us and eagerly made an appt with us for tuesday, so that was super cool too. 

That was all, I guess quite a bit actually did happen. We're the only Elders here for a good 30 miles, so P-days aren't gonna be super fun, but besides that I'm loving it here in Newberry. President said that he is considering opening this area up and that's why I'm here, to be the scout about whether or not it will work. So I'm hoping that it will happen soon and that I will be here when it happens.

Elder Bertoch

Transfer to Newberry

I finally have an e-mail from Jackson that I can post.  He didn’t send one after Mother’s Day, because we got to talk to him.  Then the next week he just sent me an e-mail requesting a couple of things.  Last week’s e-mail didn’t have much information so I didn’t post that one.  He was just disappointed that he was going to be transferred to an English area.  Fortunately, he seems very upbeat now and happy in his new area.  It sounds like he has opportunities to speak Spanish still, so that’s good.  Sounds like the hardest thing is the heat and humidity.

Jalene

Hey yall,

So I send this email, out to you all 2 days late, but it was worth it since I'm writing it right after I was able to get the spiritual boost of a lifetime, obtained by going to the temple today. I was able to do an endowment session, and initiatorys. It was super awesome to get to the temple again, since its been almost a year since I went my first time. And it was super cool to be with all the missionaries together too. I sat by two of my former companions in endowments, Elder Powell and Elder Mar, so that was super cool. And it was super awesome to see everyone again as well. 

This week the big news was me being transferred into Newberry, which happened on Thursday. Newberry is super cool, its pretty weird, but also just an incredible area. Its one of those small towns where everybody knows everybody, including the missionaries. It seems as if everybody knows who we are, and most everybody here are super friendly to us as well, which is a huge blessing. Its also a place where the only people that live here are people that were born and raised here, which leaves the average age here about 70 years old. But that's totally fine, I love old people. 

My companion here is Elder Elmer, I'll send another email with a picture of us included. He is from midvale UT and I will be killing him this transfer, he only has 5 weeks left. The heat has really been hitting us hard here. We bike most days, and its usually 90 degrees with 100% humidity. So you start sweating the second that you walk out the door. The ward here is super awesome as well. I made a great impression this past Sunday with them as I bore my testimony and threw in some good old Bertoch humor with it. So they all love me as well (not trying to brag). We also have a lot of hispanic members in the ward and so I have many chances to still speak spanish, which is super awesome as well. I usually get to speak spanish at least once a day. Plus we are starting an English Class up here as well so that'll help too. I'll only be english here for this transfer, we have an odd number of spanish missionaries this transfer, and another elder is coming out halfway into the transfer, so who knows if I'll even stick around the entire transfer. 

We have one investigator who is very serious about getting baptized, he doesnt have a date yet because he needs to get married first and cant do that until the 18th, so we dont know when he can be baptized yet, but so far he has read the BoM every day and has committed to doing everything we have asked and gone to church for 4 sundays in a row. We also have a couple of other people we are teaching too, so we are usually pretty busy each day. 

That's about all that has happened here. Until next time.

Elder Bertoch

Hey fam, 

Nothing really new or exciting happened this week. I really can't remember anything from this past week. We spent more time teaching the torres.  Right now they are on track to be baptized the 28th so that's really cool, besides that not much more happened. We did do a family home evening with the torres' and afterwards we played a game, and whoever lost the game had to do a dare. Well, I lost the game a lot, so I did some pretty awful dares. It started out easy, like take a bite out of a lime, and eat a jalepeno, but later got ridiculous like take 5 spoonfuls of a 20 habenero hot sauce, and eventually eat 2 habeneros straight back to back, so my mouth really took a beating really quickly, but I did it and I can comfortably say that my mouth is now completely immune to any hot stuff. I later ate some really hot sauce and I couldn't even feel it so that's cool. 

We also had zone conference, which for the most part was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that we are now able to go to the temple twice a year, as a mission. So we don't know when we will be going first, but since we are going that's super cool. 

Cinco de mayo was also this last Saturday so we went to a couple parties that we were invited to, and that was really fun too.

Thats just about it for this week. 

Love yall, 
Elder Bertoch