New Companion in Greenville

Hey y'all,

This week was pretty good. I did lose elder Powell this week which was sad, we are cursed to only serve one transfer with each other, but me and my new companion elder Hobbs do get along well though.

Monday was a day full of packing, because we were moving apartments both of us had to pack. I have collected a lot of stuff out here and each transfer its getting harder and harder to pack. But alas I was able to make it work. After packing we went out to a lesson with a member referral named Toribio. The lesson went really good, we taught about the restoration, and were able to commit him to read the book of mormon. Then afterwards we went over to sixtos' house for a final goodbye with elder Powell. There he got a present from Viridriana, which is the coolest sending away present that I have seen, and we talked a bit before leaving.

Tuesday we did service for a widow in the ward who is leaving to Mexico this week. We went over and mowed her lawn and trimmed down her bush. While I was mowing her lawn though I leaned up against her trailer at one point and I look down a bit after and I see a huge banana spider on my leg. It's safe to say I have never internally freaked out more than I had right there. I held my composure on the outside, but on the inside I was dying. Just look up a banana spider if you want that thing burned in your mind forever. The things are creepy, and they are all over here. They're bigger than a tarantula and they're black and yellow and terrifying. I hate it, but they're only here for the summer and then they disappear, so I'm just counting down the days until fall. Tuesday we also went over to the Prestegui's and talked about the tree of life with them. Then we had English class which went well too.

Wednesday we met with the bishop to talk some logistics of a fireside we are planning, and also to talk about Bibiana and Viridriana and how we could progress that along. We are planning to do a big Spanish fireside on the 30th of Sept. It was decided that I will be giving a talk there, as well as one of the Spanish members, and the bishop. Hopefully we can get a bunch of less Actives there and motivate all of them to coming back to church. Then we went with the seneca sisters to a lesson of a guy that only speaks Spanish that they have been teaching for a while. We took over in the lesson and realized that this guy hasn't retained anything they have been teaching, so we have taken over teaching him from now on.

Thursday was the big transfer day, we woke up early in the morning to drive to the stake center and met other missionaries there. We said goodbye, then I waited with others there to get our new companions. Then around 2 they finally came and we met and matched up and drove back to the apartment and then unpacked and got to work. We're unable to work too much though, becuase we are nearly out of miles and we can't drive anywhere except all the necessary places these next couple of days. So on Thursday we went to an appointment that fell through, and then we went to English class and that went well.

Friday we had dinner with one of the Spanish speaking member's family. He was telling us about his crazy mission in Mexico city. He had been emergency transferred 3 times and none of them had been his fault. One was when he was on the cleanup crew, another was when his companion was doing things behind his back, and another more or less when the guy he was training went home early and he just stayed the rest of that transfer alone in his area. So for 5 weeks he didn't have a companion. He told us a bunch of other stories too, and let's just say I'm glad I'm not in that mission. Then after that we had another appointment with Toribio, sixto tagged along this time and we had a really good lesson. We even were able to give a blessing to his roommate who is leaving to Mexico soon.

Saturday we didn't do too much in the morning because we couldn't drive anywhere, but later we had a member take us out. We went around visiting less Actives and it was really nice to have him around, made the missionary visits seem a lot more friendly.

Sunday we had church and then had lessons with a bunch of people the rest of the day. We went from church over to Carmen and Santos house and taught the plan of salvation to them which they really enjoyed.  We’re thinking that we'll be able to put them on date next lesson, then we went back to the church because sixto and Bibiana were having an interview with the bishop and we needed to watch over viridriana and Dianne. So we watched them for a while until they were finally done with the interview. Then we went to find the senior couple and begged for rides with them this next week, and we were really persuasive and they agreed to help us out. Then later we went knocking until our lesson with Debra which went good, then we had our lesson with Zach and Yasmin, which went really well. Zach and Yasmin are definitely some of the most golden people I have ever taught.  It’ll take some work with them, but they are super prepared. And that was really that day and the week.

We live super close to downtown now, so today we're probably going to walk around downtown and check out some sights.  Greenville is definitely the coolest city I've been to. Being a district leader is a lot of fun too, especially since I don't have to worry at all with my district, everybody in the district currently have someone on date, and they are all extremely hard workers. Things are going good here.

Elder Bertoch 

Que tal?

Monday we had the Binghams drive us around during the night. We had a couple of lessons that night but both of them canceled on us so we decided to go see one of the active members that we hadn't met with yet. She is super nice and very grandma like, feeding us whatever cookies she had or whatever. It was a very nice visit.

Tuesday we had our last DC this transfer. It went very nicely. We had a funeral for one of the elders in our district that is ending his mission this week. It was a very nice service and we will be sad to see him go. Then after DC we went on exchanges with the zone leader. I finally went out of my area and was with elder Kaufman. It was a little bit of a weird exchange, becuase we are in the same ward, so we went to eat dinner with someone I already knew, and stuff like that. So it was weird to still know what was going on and who these people were that we were visiting while I was on exchanges. But the exchange went really well, we got a new investigator while we were there and we were able to help someone out with their ministering assignments.

Wednesday we exchanged back and immediately did some service for an older widow in the ward. We went over there and washed her dog for her. Then a little after, we went over to this person's house who we offered service to on a door approach, and we went over there and mowed his lawn. After that we went over to the Presteguis' a returning less Actives house. And we were fed there and we shared a little something and commited them to a little something as well. 

Then on Thursday the main thing that happened was we got a call from the sisters in the other ward that one of the less active members that we are both helping to come back fell deathly ill and went in the hospital, and that today was her birthday. So we went and got her a card and brought it to the hospital, but we got there, went to the room that they told us was the correct one, and opened the door, went in there and the person in there was not who we were looking for. So we called the front desk to see where she was, we were on hold for like 30 minutes, and found out that they had no one under that name. So we called the sisters and asked them to figure it out, and then we left. Later though we had the right room number and the right name, and we went and visited her. We gave her the card and gave her a blessing as well. Then we sat and talked until it was time to go to English class. English class was the usual, short lesson and then we played them in soccer, but alas they beat us in soccer this time 😭.

Friday the only thing that happened is we went and met with a less active family for the first time and got to know them, and hopefully we can count on them coming back to church in a few short weeks.

Saturday was the big day this week. In the morning we first helped a member move. And that took a good while, and was quite exhausting since they had the young ones (the missionaries) move all the heavy stuff, and there was a lot of heavy stuff. But it went really well and we were able to gain a lot of good member relations while doing so. After the move we went to the church to help out at a finding activity that the other ward was doing. It was a free car wash/Chapel tour thing. But it didn't work out very well since no one really stopped and the people who did never got out of there car. But it was fun nevertheless. Then after that we helped set up for an after baptism party that one of our Hispanic members was having that day. We blew up a lot of balloons and did some stressful tying of helium balloons and stuff like that. Then later was the actual baptism. At the baptism there were over 100 people that showed up. Over 60 of them were Hispanic, and over 30 of them were less active, and about 15 of them were non members. Then we had the party where we went around and got appointments with every less active there. And invited the non members to church and our English class. The party was a blast, and by every Hispanics surprise there was 3 piñatas there. Apparently, they base how good of a party it is with how many piñatas there are. But is was just awesome to see these less actives that we had tried many times but were never able to see. Then we were able to get appointments with them and everything. It was super cool.

Then Sunday we had church. Sadly none of the less actives that came to the baptism came to church and none of the non members did either. But church was still really good. We had Bibiana and viridriana come. Then after church we went are started knocking doors. We had a goal to find 5 people this week but so far we hadn't found anyone. But later we knocked into a family and taught them the gospel of Jesus christ and they loved it and wanted us to come back. Then a little after that we knocked into this guy from a little island off of Africa, and he speaks Portuguese. And we taught him about the book of mormon and he said that he would love to read it and really wanted us to come back. It's pretty funny though because on Saturday at the move we met a member that speaks Portuguese, and we were joking that if we found anyone that speaks it he would be the first one that we would call. And now we actually get to call him and tell him that we found someone. Then after that we went to someone that we had knocked into a week ago and taught them about the book of mormon as well. So in one day we hit our goal of 5 people. And it was all becuase we never gave up and God blessed us because of that. After that we had a lesson with Bibiana and viridriana and we were able to put them on date for September 22. And that was super cool because it was a huge jump for viridriana who wouldn't even think about baptism when we first got here. But now she's considering it and we think that she is going to really be ready by that time. Then later we had a lesson with Zach and Yasmin, which went really well. We took a member with us and he did a really good job. They even said that they would try to come to church. Something else that happened on Sunday was we got a call from President Innes about transfers. Elder Powell is transferring away to be a ZL in Charleston and I am taking over his spot here as district leader. So it is quite bitter sweet to lose elder Powell this early again, but I'm excited for this calling that I have as well and the chance that I have to learn from someone new yet again.

Elder Bertoch

Hola familia,

This week was cool. Life is good as a seasoned missionary and I say that with the most sarcasm. I still feel like a child and probably act like a child most of the time. But now I'm a child that other young missionaries look at and respect for some reason.

The highlights of this week would probably be when on Tuesday we were playing soccer before DC started and I fell on my leg and pulled my calf muscle and was about out for the rest of the day. I wanted to go without telling president that I had hurt myself, because he had enough of that to deal with, but when we called the senior couple to come and give me a blessing, it turns out we interrupted a call they were having with president, so when the senior couple got to us there was president on the phone wanting to talk with me. It took quite some convincing to let him know that it wasn't bad enough where I would have to go home. Just last week an elder got sent home for breaking his big toe to the point where he will need surgery on it. 

Thursday we had 2 people come to English class finally. But since there were only two we finished the class in 20 minutes. So they were both our age so we decided to play soccer with them. And at one point when I kicked the ball the sole of my shoe flew off and now I only got one pair of proselytizing shoes left. That's why you don't buy super cheap shoes I suppose.

Also on Thursday we found two new people, Georgiana and her daughter Janet. And they are excited to take the lessons and such so that was cool too.

Friday was a super fun day. We had a Hispanic member in Simpsonville invite us to their son's baptism. So we went down there and had a super good time meeting all the Hispanics in the Simpsonville ward. There are a lot of them. There are about 10 active families in Simpsonville and they are all super awesome. We just went from table to table meeting everyone and having a good time. That night was also a different Hispanic members son's homecoming party. He had just gotten back from Chile that day. And he offered to take us out and was really excited to have us here becuase he didn't think he would have a chance to use his Spanish when going out with the missionaries. So super cool day.

Then on Saturday we went to the flea market in the morning and passed out English class fliers there. And we had a really busy day that day, but every appointment except one canceled, but our lesson with bibiana and viridriana went really well and we are thinking we can put them on date next lesson.

Sunday we had an equally busy day, but this time everything went through. Church was super fun.  One of our investigators came to church and even brought her son. We had a really good first lesson with a couple of formers, and they were the most excited to take the lessons that I have seen in a long while. Plus we met another guy that used to have the missionaries over all the time and loved to see us back and invited us over for dinner. And that was about that day.

Today was awesome too. One of the counselors in the stake presidency owns a storage facility and one of his renters didn't pay rent. So he opened up the unit to see that it was full of illegal Nikes. And he invited us over to take how many we would like. So we went and did that today and we got about ten pairs of shoes each. So now I have a bunch of Jordan's and classic Nikes and Gucci Nikes and Coach Nikes and we got matching shoes for the whole district. So it was pretty sick. And life is good. 

Elder Bertoch 

Hey y'all. Super exciting week this week. We worked super hard to hit some hard goals (finding one new person each day) that we had set and we hit them. So we are pretty excited about that and are pumped to do it again this week. I've seen a lot of miracles this week and I have realized just how insignificant we and our efforts are this week without God on our side.

Monday was just like any other pday, except it is now an official mission rule that we cannot take our car out to do recreational activities, only to shop or get our haircut or anything like that. So we will be in our apartment most of the following pdays. That night we did have a lesson with a returning less active girlfriend of Juan. She has been to church pretty consistently for 3ish years and claims this one as her own. But she has never been taught in her own language, so her understanding of the lessons isn't that great. And the only reason she isn't baptized is because Juan has to get divorced from his wife, and the records are in Mexico. And we have been informed that that takes a very long time usually. He is currently in his 2nd year of getting things figured out and says he'll need about 6 more months before it's all over. But they are still super awesome people and love the gospel and are super willing to help us out.

Tuesday we had DC and interviews with president. It all went very well. President hinted that I might be staying in this area for quite some time which I am very happy about. That day we were also driven around by the senior couple that we have in our district and printed out some posters to advertise English class and got them posted around different tiendas. That night we found Juan Carlos. He had been taught by missionaries in the past in Mexico and remembered loving the book of mormon and was sad he didn't have one now. So we taught a quick restoration to help him remember everything and gave him a book of mormon.

Wednesday we spent more time with the Binghams in the morning and in the afternoon visited some less active Hispanics in their ward (or at least tried to, but no one answered). Then we had a lesson with Bibiana and Viridriana again which went really well. We're trying to see what it takes for the girl to get baptized because we learned that she's the reason this whole thing is being held back a bit. Then right after the lesson we went over to their neighbor where a man had just opened up a beer and was about to take a sip before we stopped him and asked him if we could go into his house to teach him a bit. And he looked a little disappointed because he wouldn't be able to drink his beer but he must have felt the spirit because he let us teach him and his family. So we taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and they all really loved it and wanted us to come back. So that was a really cool miracle as well.

Thursday not much happened until the last minute of the night. We had knocked on almost every door in a trailer park and had been rejected by all, until we came across Victor and Lorena. We had a great plan of salvation lesson with them. We told them it would only take 5 minutes, but they were so interested in what we had to say to the point where it took about 40 minutes. So that was super cool.

Friday was a pretty eventful day. We helped a family move out of a very rundown house in the afternoon. The ceiling was falling down, there was all types of mold, one of the rooms didn't have any floors or walls, there were multiple beehives in the house, it was terrifying. But we made it out alive, and we were close to where the former branch president lived, so we went over there and met his family and got to know what the Simpsonville group was like. It apparently has 10 active families there, which is quite a lot. So we have to make it down there one of these sundays. After that we finally met one of the less actives we have been trying to see for quite a while.  She’s super cool and loves the missionaries. Then we found a new person Jessica, and that was that day.

Saturday we went to the flea market in the morning to pass out English class cards. Then we went to a service project to help paint a catholic church. A bunch of missionaries came out thinking it would be a great finding activity, but no one from the catholic church was even there.  The only people helping out were members of our church. But we did it nonetheless. Then at night we tried stopping by a to see a bunch of people we were supposed to have lessons with but nobody answered. Then we went over to knock in a trailer park and found a cool woman there that had been taught by missionaries the day before she had left on an emergency vacation thing to help out her daughter. And she had only been in South Carolina for 4 days. So that was cool how we were led there. 

Then we were called up by the sisters in our district saying that one of their members needed a blessing, and so we did that. It's a Hispanic less active family, but they are all fluent in English except for the dad (who isn't a member). So it was cool to build some member relations there as well. They also had a lot of habeneros at there house and the sisters didn't believe that I could eat them without giving a reaction or needing milk. So I ate one and was totally fine, which made one of the sisters think that they must not even be hot, so she ate them and started to cry and instantly regretted her decision. So to rub it in I thought I would eat another one but instantly regretted that decision. And it was a lot harder not to react to that one. But it was all very fun and built some good relations with all the members of the family. Hopefully we can come back at sometime to teach the dad. And the mom goes back to church.

Sunday we had church and then we had a member come out with us to find, and she was very good at door approaches. We got in and established friendships in like the first 30 seconds. It was pretty cool to watch. Then we had a lesson that fell through. Then we had dinner at a members house and went to a lesson that also fell through. So we actually didn't find anyone that day, but it was still a really good day. All in all, we found 10 new people in one week, which has been the highest of my mission so far. And it was quite the miracle bringer and everything.

That's about all this week. Very good week. Oh and I guess I am hitting my year mark this week so that's cool too.

Elder Bertoch

2 Nephi 32:3

Hey family.

This week was great, a bit slow but great over all. I feel like this transfer is preparing me for college or something. It's just non stop problem solving and figuring out logistics and what will work best in this area and organizing and looking over lists and so much more. It's been quite the hard work.

Not too much to report on of any significance this week. We got 2 solid new people that we are teaching. Milagro and Carolina who are sisters. Carolina was super solid when we first knocked on her door, but her sister was pretty hesitant though and was kinda in and out of the conversation and everything and kinda ended things when she said she had to go. So we came back for our appointment and knocked on the door and could hear milagro inside but she didn't answer. So we left and 10 minutes later Carolina called us and said that she was at the store and that we could come by in 30 minutes. So we did.  Carolina let us in, and milagro sat in on the lesson. We taught the gospel of Jesus Christ with Bible scriptures, they super enjoyed it, and super amazing milagro at the end of the lesson invited themselves to church. So we got to them both in that lesson. They wanted to know what our church was like so they had us sing one of the hymns and me and elder Powell sang all 3 verses of I am a child of God. And they were super stoked to come to church, milagro said that she would bring her husband and her friend. It was super cool. They didn't end up coming to church, they had to work but we'll get em next time.

Brother Martinez, the one who challenged me to find the hidden meaning in 2 Nephi 32, gave a talk on Sunday. And it was probably the best talk I've heard on my mission. It was general authority status. He got up there and as soon as he started speaking he brought in a wave of the spirit. He talked on temples. Which was the hidden meaning in 2 Nephi 32. So he answered the question in his talk, I'll let yall try and find it with that hint though. I didn't get it exactly right, but I got bits and pieces of it. Studying that one chapter over and over again really helped me in lessons though. I shared scriptures from that chapter to everyone we talked to. And got so good at it to the point where I can quote some of them. Namely 8-9. The Lord helped prepare those people with questions that through my study I could answer, so that was really cool. Brother Martinez this week gave me another question to answer, and I'm glad he has because he has helped my studies really mean something and help me truly feast on the words of christ and seek out the answers. This week he asked me why in Mosiah 18:30 it says the word mormon like 7 or 8 times when describing the words of mormon. Because there has to be a reason. To find out the answer I've already looked up at least 20 footnotes going from footnote to footnote. Read 3 or 4 talks. And prayed super hard for it, and I can see the outline of the answer but I just need the words and the revelation to help me fill it in. It's really helping my testimony of the scriptures and of personal revelation. I can hardly wait for next week when I present my answer and he gives me something else to study.

Elder Bertoch 

Ether 6:12

Another week is gone, just flew by yet again. It's confusing how time is working how it is. How come this never happened when I was in school, why does it have to happen when I'm out here. It doesn't make any sense. But I'm really trying to make the most of it.

This week was spent putting a lot of effort in tracking down the many less actives that we have in the Ward here. We have over 150 names and we've stopped by at least 40 of them by now. So far we haven't been able to see any of them, except for maybe 2 households. We also went through and called all of them, and 3 answered. So we have our work cut out for us here. We also don't have miles to do our work super effectively - we commute 10 miles every day to the area that all the less actives are in and then we commute 10 miles back. So we have a lot of situations to figure out here. But it is super fun to be here and we are really able to tell that this area has been super prepared for our coming here. The weird thing going on right now is that all our investigators are super catholic, like super catholic. My whole mission it's been people who tell me that they're catholic, but they don't read or go to church or anything like that. But our investigators now go to church regularly and read and pray regularly and challenge us on all doctrine about the Godhead and the trinity. We have 3 different people who are all stuck on the same problem figuring out that God and Jesus are 2 separate beings. And they all have their different logic on why. So it's gonna take a while before we teach them otherwise, but they are all really cool and are interested in learning and everything. 

Our members here are really cool as well. Everybody loves us and they are all so willing to do whatever it takes to reactivate these people. Life has been really good lately, and things just seem to keep looking up. We have a lot of appointments this next week with different people we met, and everything is really good. Greenville is still really pretty, we went to this park in downtown the other day for comp and lang study, and it had a waterfall and a cool bridge and a lot of grass and trees and flowers and it was super cool, and its weird to because it's just right in the middle of downtown. I'll send some pictures.  

That's about it for this week. Not much else happened of great importance. Someone at church challenged me to find a hidden meaning in 2 Nephi 32 and I've been reading that a lot lately, my guess for the meaning yesterday was wrong, but there is still some cool verses in there and it's becoming pretty cool what I've realized from there and how I've used the scriptures there while teaching as well. So read that chapter and see if you can find the secret there.

 

New Area - Greenville, South Carolina

This week flew by, I feel like I just emailed y'all and it's already Monday again. But a lot did happen, and so things are really flying past and days are so short now and all is happening so quickly and all that stuff. I wonder how it feels a year from now. Anyways...

Monday I can't remember much of what happened at the end of the day, oh I remember. We went to say goodbye to Jeff and we brought the Waldrops along with us. It was a good little visit.  Jeff seemed happy that we were able to come by and say goodbye to him. Then later we went to a less active members house who's husband has dementia and needed a blessing and did that, then we went to fhe with brother Livingston and sister Taylor. Then we said goodbye to them and that was that day.

Tuesday we had DC in the morning and did white wash notes after that. We then went to see Eddie Bledsoe our Baptist preacher friend. We made a lunch appointment for the following day. We then went to the library to do some stuff, said goodbye to some people - idk, it's all a blur.  I can't remember what was done. One thing that was cool is that I had a Daniel and the lions den experience, where we commited to knock on every door on a street. But one of the houses had a guard dog in the lawn with a shock collar on for the invisible fence. So we decided to go for it and right before we went up to the walkway, which just had to be like 100 ft long by the way, I looked at the dog that wanted to rip out our throats because of what we were wanting to do. And I commanded it to sit and it did and it stopped barking and just did this little head tilt thing. And I started to walk up on the walkway and got about 10 ft to the door until I was right next to the door, and then I let my pride get the best of me because I turned to my companion and said something like "wow look how good I am" and the dog immediately started to bark and get up and look very angry. Learned quite the lesson on humility and knowing when it is God's power, because I immediately repented and started to pray the hardest I ever had in my life. The dog didn't sit down again but it did walk away, and as we moved closer to the door, it would charge me only stopping a few inches from me and then walk away again. Well I wish I could tell you that when we got up to the door and knocked this guy answered and said "what my dog has killed everyone that has tried to knock on my door how did you do it" but no one answered the door, and we had to do the exact same thing over again when walking back. And then we had a cool spirit with us the rest of the night since we were able to exercise that much faith to not get killed and have a guardian angel with us. 

Wednesday was our last lt proselyting day in Newberry. We had lunch with Eddie, said goodbye to some people, went to mutual, and said goodbye to more people. And that was about it. 

Thursday was the day of transfers.  We left Newberry and made our way to the transfer building. There I saw everybody that I have known and found elder Powell.  Then I said goodbye to all 17 of the departing missionaries, and we went on our way to Greenville. Greenville is sick, it's so pretty here, there's actual hills, and there are so many Hispanics here. It's quite the promised land. We got to our apartment after getting lost quite a bit and started getting familiar with names of people that we had and all. Our calling here is pretty confusing. We cover the entire stake, but want to focus mostly on the Greenville 1st and 3rd wards as well as the simpsonville second ward. We are Spanish and English for the first couple of weeks and more when we need to help out the other elders in our area. We are supposed to focus on reactivating the members that used to make up the branch here. 

We seperated the Hispanic people from the non Hispanic people one night and there are 149 Hispanic members in the 1st ward alone. So we have quite the work cut out for us. Plus we have 2 progressing investigators of a part member family left here for us, and they are super cool, they took us out for tacos Friday night. They are pretty solid, the mom just has to get married to the member dad, but the dad is thinking of going to Mexico for a while to visit family and won't be here long enough to go through everything to get married. Saturday we went to a child baptism in our ward and met a lot of the members. The members here are really cool, a lot of them speak Spanish since they served missions in South America. We met our two strong hispanic families in the branch and they are super awesome to. Their testimonies are super strong and have offered to do all they can to help us reactivate the people on our list. We've tried to see a lot of the families on the list and have only had luck with one of them, and got a new investigator from it since it was a less active part member family. We did a bit of English work last night and drove through some really pretty parts of the country. 

Today we spent the day playing board games and such. 

Elder Bertoch

P.S.

This might be my favorite area so far and elder Powell is still super awesome. 

1. The house of the terrifying dog experience

2. Saw a cool golden eagle while driving. #mountainvistarepresent

3-6. Cool sunset with fields

7. Cool jungle forest.