Transfer To Ushuia - The end of the world. Comodoro Mission one year Anniversary

Dear Family,

First of all I want to thank y´all for all of the updates and the emails. I also look forward to getting the package from you guys. Sounds like all of you are doing well and that things are chill at home. The news from me this week is that I´m going to go to Ushuaia. The end of the world. It´s going to be totally awesome to see there and to be able to see snow for the first time in over a year. I still can´t believe that I will have been out in the mission for a year in less than three months. The cool thing is that I am going to celebrate a year in Ushuaia. It´s going to be totally awesome. I look forward now to 20 something hours on a bus and a good long nap. It will hopefully be a nice trip. 

Elder Sirrine with Comodoro and ocean behind.

Elder Sirrine with a favorite member Brother Adrian

My new companion is Elder Crespo. I´ve heard a lot of interesting things about him so we´ll see how this transfer plays out for me. And that is really the only thing that I have done this week. OH! I totally forgot that my companion and I found a totally awesome investigator on Saturday. He lives in a tiny little trailer and he is totally ready for the gospel. We invited him to church and he came and brought his family! My comp is really happy and I think that this investigator can be baptized in three weeks. It´s totally awesome to find someone like that. I just hope that my new area is going to be as awesome as the area that I am now leaving. I´m not happy to go but at the same time I´m sort of ready for a change. It´s odd. Love all of you tons and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, 

Michael

One Year Aniversary of the Comodoro Rivadavia Mission

Dear Elders and Sister                                                   June 20^th, 2014

It is hard to believe that the Argentina Comodoro Rivadavia Mission will be one year old July 1^st, 2014.  The time for us has been wonderful.  What we have learned from the wonderful missionaries that we have met the great members and the wonderful people of Argentina has blessed our lives. We arrived June 28^th, 2013. In preparation for the mission Sister Rogers and I both were very busy up until the final week before are departure I performed may last ankle reconstruction 3 days before we went to the Mission President Training. Sister Rogers conducted her last PTA meeting the same week.  I was pretty sure we might miss our plane to get here.  However we did arrive at EZEIZA. There was a baggage strike. We waited 3 hours and finally got our bags and headed to the area offices for orientation. That night we were here in Comodoro Rivadavia. We met with President And Sister Lovell for a short time and we were off for this great adventure.

We quickly realized the size and diversity of the mission. In the first two and half weeks we were in every zone and met every missionary.  We drove from Trelew to Rio Gallegos.  We flew to Rio Grande and Ushuaia to begin the work. When we got back to the mission home and realized the quality of missionaries that were working here we felt blessed.  Also the great training they had received from good mission presidents and the strength of testimonies that each had would help the new mission to get a quick start.

In the past year we have traveled more than 200,000 km, had 8 district conferences, 6 stake conferences, 2 missions tours with area presidency members and 10 zone and interviews conferences with missionaries.  Whew!!!  There have been 300 baptisms many lessons and great spiritual out pouring. We have gone through 6 assistants.  There have been or are 214 missionaries 4 have gone home early. We expect 61 in the next 3 months and only 10 will leave. We will then have our full complement of missionaries at 200.

Elder Sirrine's most recent Zone Photo

As part of the mission we want to give each of you a remembrance. Your zone leader will give that to you we would love to give it to you in person. It is a privilege to serve with you in the best place in the best mission in the world.  Let's make the next year even better.

The World Cup is in full swing please be careful. When there are big crowds do not join in the celebration avoid the crowds in the streets.  Make yourselves aware of the schedule. The first rounds began last week and the final are on Sunday July 13. The further Argentina advances the larger the crowds will be.  It is after the games that it is most dangerous. We are missionaries first not fans.

I think it is important that while we are now serving full time as missionaries that we realize the responsibility that we have.  Elder Nelson said we are the fulfillment of prophesy.  Prophets from all generations have looked to our day.  They foretold of our iniquity, our lust of self, call good evil and evil good. They saw wolves in sheep’s clothing ready to tear down goodness.  They saw lovers of wealth, unnatural affection, they saw communication from the roof tops they saw our wars and rumors of wars.  However above all of that they had hope in us that by way of the Savior and the restorations of all things that every knee would bend and every tongue would confess that Jesus is the Christ.  It is an unbelievable privilege to serve at this time. History of world has never had so many missionaries serving full time.  You are part of that history making force.  The challenge that is in front of, each of you is to give all (D&C 4). God wants all of your heart might mind and strength not part but all. I want you to go home tired with having worn out yourself in the work.  I want you to have no regrets.  The measure of your success will not be in the numbers of lessons or less actives activated or baptisms it will be in your satisfaction of your service.

Now is your time to serve and now is the time of The Lord.  Christ is our leader.  We are His righteous force. We are his voice.  He will sustain us. I am honored to be your mission President, we will have miracles.

With Love

President Mark Rogers

June 23, 2014 Baptisms Coming Along

Hey family!

I´m doing fantastic now. For the camera it´s not worth going to the cops because the kid has already sold all that he could and we´d need documents saying that we are legal and I don´t have all of those yet. So, I´ll just wait ´til the package gets here. The only thing that I want is fun ties. Colors are getting boring. I would also love to get an American Flag or something with the flag on it. The states is doing really well in the Mundial and I want to be able to show my pride for my country. Also the Argentine flag. Please and thank you.

Also, thanks for all of the updates about the family. It sounds like you all are having a ton of fun and that things are all going well with you. I´m glad that you are all happy. =) It´s sad that Courtney didn´t get married in the temple but I hope that one day they´ll make it there. As for the zone baptism, Daniel and Maria haven´t come to church for a couple of weeks. They´ve been building their house and their baby got sick for a couple of days. But, Maria made it to church yesterday and it was awesome. The only problem was that the meetings yesterday were more boring than normal. I still hope that she felt the spirit and that she´ll want to come back. We also had a new investigator this week. Her name is Angelica and she almost made it to church yesterday. We went by her house to pick her up because it had rained and the mud was really bad but she said that her husband wanted to go out somewhere with her and that she didn´t have time. So we´ll just have to see how it all turns out. She also said that she´d be willing to be baptized if she gets a testimony so now my comp and I have work to do. The saddest thing is that we´ve got transfers next week and president told me that I´m going. I´ll know on Saturday where I am going. It´s going to be sad to leave this area. I really like it here.

Elder Sirrine is wearing a black ski hat just left of the Elder standing in the back

Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina

Also, today we went to Rada Tilly to celebrate the anniversary of the mission. It was way cool. We had an asado, played soccer, played card games, played a bit of volley ball, saw old friends (I saw my MTC comp for the second time since I got to Argentina) and we also got jerseys with the mission logo on the back. They are way cool. I´ll send you a picture when I get one. So we spent the whole day out there having fun and celebrating. And just recently we´re back in Comodoro. The other really cool thing that happened this week is that things have been better for us. Last week I think we were a little bit down and this week we´ve just been doing good. It is very true that the fourth week of the transfer is always the worst week. I don´t know why nor how to avoid it but, if you make it through to week five then the transfer finishes off amazingly. It´s freaking awesome. Love you all tons and hope you have a great week! 

Love, Michael

Robbed at Knife Point

Dear family,

I love you all tons and I loved hearing about all of the updates of the week and I always enjoy the thoughts that you send in your emails. This week the coolest things that happened to me were that I went to Rio Gallegos for two days to do paper work and I got to be in a bus for 20 hours round trip. Saw some good movies and some that were really boring and while I was there I got to meet some really cool missionaries and meet up with some old friends. It was a fun trip and I am now officially legal in the country! The other thing that happened to me this week was that I got robbed. It was a drugged out kid with a knife that took my companion by his backpack and robbed him of everything and then he turned on me. We´re both fine and we managed to get the majority of our stuff back because he threw it all down on a hill but I lost my camera, again, and my comp lost his backpack and his coat. 

So, if y´all want to send me a camera I´d love it. If not it´s about 2500 pesos to buy a good one here. And that´s really about all that happened this week. I love you all and miss you lots. Have a great week!

Love, Michael

Open House in the Chapel, President Interviews

Dear family,

This week has been interesting for me. We had an open chapel on Saturday which is where we open the doors of the chapel and invite all of the people that we see on the  street to come in and see the chapel to learn about what we do. It was really cool to see all of the stands that the different organizations set up to teach the people about what they do. It was really cool to see all of the youth out in the street with my companion and me doing contacts. I don´t think that this will be an experience that they are likely to forget one of the young women had two funny experiences with a gay couple and an atheist. It was hilarious to hear her talk about it. We also saw a car crash and went to take them Malta and see if we could help. They didn´t want anything but I did give one of the little kids a picture of Jesus that helped him to stop crying. I totally loved the experience and I just wish that I had brought my camera to take pictures of it all. I know that there are pictures on FaceBook but I can´t get in to look at them all. So, we´ll see if I can get the members to pass me the photos or to friend me on FaceBook so that I can find them myself.

New Comp Takes a Nap

New socks and a U of U blanket

Cool Art by Elder Carmona

The other cool thing that happened to us this week was that we had interviews with the President yesterday. They taught us a whole lot about how to be better teachers and how to improve our prayers and the prayers of our investigators. The two questions that Hna Rogers asked us were, "How are you praying" and "what are you praying about?" Those definitely made me think a bit. She told us that we need to pray about every detail in our lives and we need to do it out loud. Because our Heavenly Father wants to hear from us, He wants to know what all is going on in our lives and what we`re doing. It was really cool to hear that and to learn from them. I swear that every time we have a conference I come out with a whole lot that I need to improve and a whole lot of ideas of things and ways to teach investigators and members. It´s totally awesome. I absolutely love my mission! I love you all tons and miss you lots! Hope you all have a great week and that Zander and Isabel enjoy EFY. Love you guys!

Love,

Michael

Noche Blanca and Daniel and Maria on the 21st

Dear family,

New Comp Elder Carmona

This week has been a slow one for us. We haven´t had much luck doing contacts and even less luck having visits to teach people. We did have a totally awesome FHE with a less active family though. We played games talked about everything under the sun and they gave us an amazing dinner. They are the Gelvez family. They have a daughter that is going to be 9 in July and they still need to baptize her so we´re working with them to see if we can get them to come to church and be able to baptize her. Also, Daniel and María are almost done with their house and have accepted to be baptized on the 21st of June. It´s going to be totally epic to see that happen. We´re also planning as a zone to have a ¨Noche Blanca¨ which means a group baptism more or less and we´re trying to get 10 baptisms. We´ve got the people to do it too. It´s going to be epic if that actually happens. 

Hermana Bollwinkle and Allen

Elder Sirrine Artwork on P-Day

The other cool update from the week was that we have an hermana in our ward that is helping us learn how to paint. It´s totally freaking awesome. I´m halfway through a painting in 2 hours more or less. It was a ton of fun to do that. We did it with the sister missionaries of my ward too. And that´s really all that we have done this week. Also, I´m totally fine, the dog was behind a fence and I didn´t hit it. Also, 90% of the dogs that I see in the street love me and let me pet them. It drives my companion nuts. He can´t figure out why they all love me. Also, he just barely started his mission.

Love you all tons,

Michael