New Companion and Study Time

Dear dad,

 

Elder Sirrine and a big potato

I don´t have a cd player yet but I think that the misión is going to give us one. Thanks for the updates on the Ward and you guys. Also thanks for the thought. You guys are awesome. This week the only two things that really happened are that we put a baptismal date for Maria Elena our investigator and she accepted it! I am super excited and I think I´ll have a baptism in February. That´ll be way fun. And the other cool thing is what happened with some drunks. One group was outside a bar and when we stopped by to talk to them they offered us any drink that we wanted I could have had any sort of alcohol that exists. But we just had water and some Sprite. We also taught them a Little about what we do as missionaries and who we are. They were some funny people. When we tried to leave one of them took a picture with me. I think I was the first north american that a lot of them have ever seen. That was a lot of fun. M y companion is Elder Sarmiento, he´s from Chile, he´s 20 years old and he is a convert to the church. The thing that I love the most about him is that he has an extreme love and knowledge of the scriptures. He is teaching me to love the Bible and now that I am studying that I am falling in love with it as well. I didn´t realize that the scriptures were as awesome as they are. This is an amazing thing for me. We had our Ward misión leader tell us that my gift from God is that I am humble and have an extreme desire to learn. He told me that I have grown a lot spiritually since I got here and he thinks that I´ll start to grow even more rapidly now. He also said that i will be a big help for the church and have a successful misión. He told my companion that he has the ability to memorize the scriptures and know where the references are and to explain them. That was a very spiritual and awesome moment for me. This week has been really cool and I look forward to this transfer. I think that things will go really well for me here and that this área will start to grow. Love you guys tons,

Elder Sirrine Cooking

Study Time!

 

Love, Michael

Talk With and Evangelist

Dear Dad,

Christmas Dinner at a Members House

One of the pastors that we found is named Mario Coronel. He was a taxi driver for a while and has been a pastor too. He also said that he´s spent some years doing missionary work in all of South America. He told us that a couple times in Chile he´s been beaten, robbed and had all sorts of scary things happen because he wanted to preach the gospel to the people. He was also way understanding of us as missionaries trying to teach to people that a lot of the time don´t want to listen. I think that the coolest thing he told us was that the reason he did and does missionary work is to give back to Christ. He has memorized and marked all of the references in the Bible that talk about the crucifixtion of our Savior and whenever he brings someone to the gospel and helps someone else find Christ he thinks of it as giving back for one drop of blood that Jesus shed or one of the times he got hit with the whip. That was one of the coolest things that I have heard about why someone does missionary work. It´s all to give as much as we can to God. Because God has everything and gives us everything so the only thing that we can give to Him is us. We can give our time and our talents to help the people come to Him and we can give our hearts to his service. That´s my new goal as a missionary, to give to God because of all that he has given to me. To try and be the best that I can so that he can be proud of me and so that I can be proud of myself. That´s my new focus and because of that I have been doing a better job as a missionary. When we do things because of love we always have the desire to do them. The greatest motivator is true love. Love for God and love for our fellow man. That is why the people that have Charity will be better off in the ressurection. Because the most important thing to have is Charity.



Christmas dinner close-up

Love, Michael







Elder Sirrine's District in a Van Elders Only

New Year's Dinner with Zone

 



Elder Sirrine and his District

 

Dear Mom

 

 

Thanks for the updates from home. I will definitely take better care of my camera when I get it. The updates from this week are that my companion is going to leave at  o´clock today and that I don´t know when my new companion will get here. This week we´ve had a lot of good lessons and I actually found two new families that sounded like they´d be interested in learning more about the gospel. The problem was that when we passed by to actually teach them they weren´t at home. I also found two Evangelical pastors this week and both of them were way cool. They are happy to sit down and talk to the missionaries because they believe a lot of the same things that we do. They were also awesome because they know how hard it can be to preach the gospel to the people here so they were supportive of us and are willing to share soda or food when we pass by. They were some really cool people. My new companion that is coming is going to be a Chileno and his name is Elder Sarmiento. I think that this next transfer is going to be rather interesting and I know that I´m going to miss Elder Salas a ton. He´s going to Tierra del Fuego to be a district leader now. That was pretty cool to learn. It´s sad to see how empty our pension is now with only my things out. I look forward to learning a lot in this next transfer and I hope that everything goes well for you guys at home. I haven´t had time to buy a pillow yet. I will hopefully be able to do that sometime this week or next week. Thanks for the advice and I will be sure to do the best I can. It´s alright, I think there will be a couple of Gringo missionaries coming. We´re also getting a new companionship because we´re opening a new area this transfer so I´ll still have people to speak English with. Lots of love.

 

Love, Michael

 

 

 

New Years Eve With The Zone

 Dear Mom,

Thanks for the awesome update. I loved it. I had a really cool New years this year. We got together with most of our zone in the stake center and played ping pong, soccer and Uno, we also had a lot of really good chicken and had a lot of fun. It was a good day and I really enjoyed it. Happy new year and I love you guys a ton. Two other thoughts 1: Feed my sheep is apaciente mis ovejas or give peace to my sheep and 2: mercy is misericordia which is like the misery of the lamb is mercy for us.

Love, Michael

 

Elder Sirrine's Trelew North Zone

Dear Dad,

Thanks for the update and the cool thoughts. Those news stories in your other email were awesome and hilarious. This new years was way cool because we got together with all of the missionaries in our zone to play around and we all ate a really good chicken dinner. We also shared one of the coolest spiritual experiences in our lives. My companion gave a blessing to a woman who had never had a child that she would get pregnant and she did! But she lost the baby afterwards because she smoked and drank and stuff which was way sad. My cool experience was that in the MTC one night we were talking with my district and one of the Elders told us about his friend who had committed suicide. He said that in the MTC he had felt him close and in one of the letters from his family his mom told him that the mom of his friend said that that Elder had another angel watching over him. That was one of the most spiritual conversations that I´ve had with people. It was intense. At midnight there were fireworks everywhere here. It was kind of crazy to stand out in the street and see all the fireworks go off. I don´t have any pictures of that to send you guys because my camera got stolen this week. And I did everything I could to track it down but it hasn´t come back yet. I´m leaving that up to Heavenly Father now that I´ve done all that I can do. So, if you want pictures I can look for a camera here and if you send me money I can buy one or you guys could send me one and it would just take 6 ish weeks to get to me. However you want to do that just tell me in an email. I´ll keep my eye open for any good cameras that I can see here and I asked my companion to send me the pictures he has from new years and from Christmas so we´ll see if I can get those to you guys today. If not know that the reason I can´t send you pictures for a while is because I don´t have a camera. The transfer ends on Sunday and I am not entirely sure how I feel about that. I know that I´m going to miss my companion a ton and that it´ll be weird to have a new companion and possibly a new area as well. I´m sort of looking forward to what will come this week. As far as the work and other things go for us we´ve got a group of people that we have started teaching a bit but they aren´t progressing a ton and people are starting to come home from vacations now. So, things are starting to get a bit better for us and I hope that they continue to improve. I´ve got hope that this area will start to progress this year, the ward is making a renewed effort to do their home teaching and to be actively helping the missionaries. We now have someone that is in charge of the lunch calendar and we are not going to lack for lunches if the relief society can do anything about it. It´s cool to see how the new year brings a new energy into people. I hope that you all have success with your new years resolutions and I am looking forward to the things that this year will bring for me as well. I love you guys tons and miss you all a lot.

Love, Michael

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Elder Sirrine's district lighting fireworks

Dear Dad,

Thanks for the message and everything. I love you guys tons. This year my Christmas was good but it wasn´t very special. I spent Christmas Day with my district. We played soccer and ping pong, messed around with fireworks and we ate lunch together. There was nothing that was open on that day. It was terrible because we don´t really have food in our apartment right now. I have a video of what we did with the Fireworks but it´s too big to send in an email. I´ll see if I can send it to you guys another way. I´ll try putting it on Dropbox and from there kendall will be able to see it and show it to you guys. I´ll let her know that she has it on Dropbox too. I´m also putting the video I took of the fireworks on Christmas Eve. That was pretty cool to see even if there really weren´t a whole ton of fireworks. The people here have been saying that it´s less and less every year and I think the problem is the price of the fireworks. They are expensive and a lot of people don´t think it´s worth it. I still thought it was really cool. One sad thing that I have realized this year is that Christmas is actually a harder time for missionaries. At least in my area, because the people all leave for vacations or they are excited just to celebrate, drink and have fireworks. It´s sad that they don´t have the spirit of Christmas and that they don´t realize how important it really is for us. The family that we spent Christmas eve with is a very less active family and I think they have also started to drink alcohol. I felt really awkward being there and they had a lot of friends and family come that neither I nor my companion knew. It was awkward and we were both happy to leave but the food was amazing. My companion has the pictures of the Asado that they cooked. I´ll ask him to send me those because I didn´t feel comfortable asking for a picture. I will get pictures of what we do for New Years though. I think that will be a lot better because we´re going to spend that day with the missionaries in our zone. I hope that will turn out better than  Christmas Eve did. I´m pretty sure it will. But, after the awkward party with the family we went and spent the night with our zone and played Uno til about 3 in the morning. That was a ton more fun! I love the missionaries! So, my Christmas started awkward and ended good. I also had a lot of good food so I can´t complain. I´m still loving Argentina and loving my mission. Miss you guys tons and love you all lots.

Love, Michael

 

Youth Soccer Players

Dear Mom,

Thanks for the email and the updates about the family. I hope you and Dad enjoy your anniversary. Have a wonderful year and I hope that you guys are able to achieve all of your goals. I miss you guys tons and love you all.

 

Love, Michael

Merry Christmas

Dear Mom,

Thank you for the updates about the family and how you are all doing. I will see if I can push it back til 9 your time but we´ll have to see how it goes. Right now I know that it´ll be between 8 and 10 your time so just be ready as close to 8 as you can and be watching the computer. I didn´t know that that was the story of the Christmas talent show. That is really funny. Thanks for sharing it. Yesterday in our interviews with President Rogers we did a little activity where we read the Christmas story and sang all the songs in Spanish. It was way cool and I really liked it. I definitely felt the Spirit and it gave me a new appreciation for Christmas. We ended talking about the gifts that we can give to the Savior and how all that he asks of us is us. He already has everything and has given us everything so all that we can give to him is our all and as missionaries we are doing that for the 2 years or 18 months that we serve Him. It was a way cool message to have. Hope you guys all have a wonderful Christmas and that you enjoy spending it together. Wish I could be with you and I miss you guys tons.

Lots of love, Michael

 

Missionary tool for teaching the youth

Dear Dad,

Thanks for the quote from Elder Holland and the update. I appreciate them both. I also really appreciate the pictures. It makes me smile when I see you guys. The update for me this week is that I had a member in the ward here that we have become really good friends with recently doing service tell me that I have lost a noticeable amount of weight. I didn´t realize I had dropped that many pounds. She also gave us a cherry pie for dessert yesterday after lunch. It´s interesting to see how the Lord has provided for us. Every day that we haven´t had a lunch and when we don´t have any food in our apartment someone always gives us a meal. And yesterday our planned lunch cancelled on us right before church ended and we were going to head over there. But this family, the Carota family, was right there and were able to give us lunch. We have been doing a lot of service for them the last couple of weeks because 90% of the people here have left for their vacations to visit family and friends for the holidays. We really can´t find anyone in their homes anymore. The Carota´s however haven´t and probably won´t travel for a while so we´ve been able to do stuff with them. They´re really good friends of ours now. I have also learned a lot of the things that you can do with cherries. Because here in Trelew it´s Cherry season so everywhere you look people are selling Cherries and families have tons of Cherries. Hermano Carota got gifted about 6 crates full of Cherries that my companion and I have helped him pit and prepare to make Cherry Jam and other things. He made one recipe that is called Dulce de Cerezas which I don´t think translates to English very well that is just Cherries and sugar but when cooked tastes like it has cinnamon in it. It´s way good. But, right now I am about done with Cherries for a while. They´re good but I can´t eat too many for too long. I´m sick of Cherries. The only other cool thing from this week is that we had our interviews with President Rogers yesterday which were awesome! I love talking to him and he was super helpful with answering all of my questions and giving advice. His wife also told me that I look a lot tanner than when I first got here which is good to know for me. I didn´t think I could really get tan. We also talked about how our training is going and if we would change anything about the intro to the mission when we first showed up. I told them that the program for training is really basic and boring and because our little DVD player has been broken for 2 weeks we haven´t really been able to follow it too much but I have done all of the things that I was supposed to do anyway which is cool. Outside of that not a whole lot is going on here. It´s almost Christmas and I still don´t believe it and I am still hot every day. Wish you all a Merry Christmas and I look forward to talking to you guys tomorrow. 

Love, Michael

 

 Dear Dad,

Thanks for setting up my Skype account and for giving me the information. You guys are the best. The Zone is going to get together on the 25th to do something for the whole day I think and I´m pretty sure that we´re meeting up on the 24th after midnight to watch the fireworks and be together. It should be a lot of fun. I am going to be skypeing from one of the internet cafes. I think I can push the time to between noon and 2 p.m. my time. Anything other than that wouldn´t work for us because at about 5 we´re supposed to be with the family we´re going to spend Christmas with. So between 8 and 10 is when I´m going to Skype you guys. Look forward to seeing you then.

Love, Michael

 

Teaching the Local Youth Soccer Players

This info was sent to me (Dad) by Morfar and I sent it on the Elder Sirrine:

Dear Elder Sirrine

Just a little south of the "end of the world"

WASHINGTON (AP) — Feeling chilly? Here's cold comfort: You could be in East Antarctica which new data says set a record for "soul-crushing" cold.

Try 135.8 degrees Fahrenheit below zero; that's 93.2 degrees below zero Celsius, which sounds only slightly toastier. Better yet, don't try it. That's so cold scientists say it hurts to breathe.

A new look at NASA satellite data revealed that Earth set a new record for coldest temperature recorded. It happened in August 2010 when it hit -135.8 degrees. Then on July 31 of this year, it came close again: -135.3 degrees.

The old record had been -128.6 degrees, which is -89.2 degrees Celsius.

Ice scientist Ted Scambos at the National Snow and Ice Data Center said the new record is "50 degrees colder than anything that has ever been seen in Alaska or Siberia or certainly North Dakota."

It would be fun to be down there now at the peak of summer. But maybe not so fun in mid-winter. These temperatures are at the south pole so it's a little toastier in Ushuaia.

Elder Sirrine's Zone: Trelew North

Love always Dad

Dear Mom,

I think I might bring them something. Thanks for the suggestion. I hope you guys all have a wonderful Christmas. Christmas here is not the same as in Utah. I´m starting to get used to it though. I miss Christmas though, I miss it a ton. Love you guys tons and know that I miss you and you are all in my prayers. Love you guys tons!

Love, Michael

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 1:41 PM, <sirlinda@comcast.net> wrote:

Hello Michael,

It is so good to hear that you have a great family to spend Christmas with. That is definitively an answer to prayer. You should bring something to them as a family - like a box of chocolate or something the whole family would like. Your companion will probably help with a good suggestion. Love you lots and we look forward to hear more updates next week.

 

Lots of love from Mom

  

Two Zone conference with Elder Zeballos and President Rogers

 Dear Dad,

Thanks for sending me that. it´s a cool update. My updates from the week are rather short. We have spent a lot of time playing soccer and talking to a group of about 20 teenage kids that play on the field behind the chapel. I think that some of them can play better than some professionals. These kids are amazing! And they have been teaching me to the point that I am able to play near their level. It´s pretty awesome. The only problem is that injuries will happen. i jumped up for a header, which scored a goal for my team, and landed bad. I hit my knees on the concrete so hard that I still have bruises a week later. But we got the point which is good. My companion and I are now really good friends with those kids and they´re starting to listen to us as we teach a little bit about the gospel. They all are Evangelists and so they have some crazy odd beliefs and odd beliefs about Mormons too. It´s a lot of fun to talk to them. On Thursday we said goodbye to Enrique as he went off to Tucuman to visit his family for the holidays. He´s going to come back in about February which means that I´ll probably still be here but my companion won´t. This transfer ends on the 12th of January. 

The other things that happened this week were that we found out that one of our investigators is a smoker. Neither my companion nor I knew about it before. It was funny because we walked up right as she was about to light her cigarette and she quickly tried to hide it. She´s also traveling until January so we won´t be able to teach her for a while. Seems like everybody is traveling right now. There were only 28 people in church on Sunday counting my companion and I. Our numbers have dropped a lot. We were talking to one of the sisters yesterday and she said that she felt sorry for me starting my mission in an area with people that are so cold and closed off. But, as far as I feel I´m doing alright. I figure that if I keep working and trying the Lord will bless my efforts. We only receive blessings after the trial of our faith, Right? So, I´m going to keep working, studying and praying and the Lord will come through when the time is right. I´ve still got faith and hope.

Another interesting thing that I´ve done this week was to teach the Christmas story to someone that didn´t know it before. I didn´t realize how much I miss the Christmas spirit that there is in Utah. It´s really weird how the people celebrate Christmas here. They party all night and have fireworks. I think it´ll be interesting to see the Fireworks and I look forward to having an Asado that day. Asado is like barbeque, lots of really good meat and food. It should be awesome.

One question for you dad, we have an investigator that is living with a sister and they aren´t married. He is trying to get divorced with his wife but she lives in Tucuman and the woman that he´s living with is now two months pregnant with his baby. What should I do to help them? We talked to our ward mission leader about it, he knows a ton about the gospel, and he said that they need to split up or neither of them will be able to progress in the gospel. It seems harsh to do that to them and I think that they´re doing alright now. I just don´t really know what I should do. What do you think?

Love,

Michael

P-Day, Soccer Ball and Gangs

Dear Mom,

I´m glad that everything is going well with you guys and that you´re all enjoying the Christmas season. Thanks for the updates of the family and everything. I hope that all goes well with Zander being a ref. I hope that things go well for you and the choir and for Naiah. It´s cool that she´s playing the piano now. Up til two days ago I thought I wasn´t going to have anywhere to go for Christmas but now we have a less active family that has invited us to spend Christmas with them. I think it´s going to be a lot of fun. The oldest daughter of that family is preparing to go on a mission some time in the next year I think. She´s been going out with the sister missionaries and everything. I think that if she does go on her mission her family will activate. I just hope that all works out well. I´m looking forward to spending Christmas with them because even if they aren´t my family they´re still an awesome family and I love them. It´ll be interesting though.

The only other update that I have is that I bought myself a soccer ball and that we´ve got a group of like 12 youth that we´re talking to about the gospel. They come from the streets though so they´re a more rough crowd and the language they use is far from clean. It would be cool though if we could teach them. I don´t know how that´s all going to pan out. Hopefully for the best.

Love, Michael.

Elder Sirrine's Planner

Dear Dad,

I think it would be awesome if my next transfer was to Ushuaia. Then I could see the glaciers and the lighthouse at the end of the world and the area would be much safer and probably greener. I think that would be awesome. Thanks for the updates and the scripture, I love getting them both. It´s awesome. A typical P-day starts with study and then around noon we head out to go to the cyber where I email you guys. After the cyber we meet up with a couple other missionaries go and eat and then we play soccer or some other sport in the stake center. If we aren´t playing a sport we´r out buying food and all the other things that we need for the week. At about 6 we´re back at the pension and then we head out to work. I haven´t gone to the beach yet but I have recently heard about a really beautiful beach that´s pretty close. We may go soon. I think I can carry mace but I don´t have any and usually if you crouch down and look like you´re going to pick up a rock the dogs will turn tail and run. The arcades are like a normal arcade in the states maybe just a little more beat up. The Cybers are just buildings that have a lot of computers and a little bit of privacy so you can do what you want without everybody else seeing. My investigators are doing good. The only problem that I have right now is that they need to go to church. One can´t go because she´s got health problems and because she has to babysit her grandchildren and we can´t swing by to help her because then she feels obligated to go and doesn´t like that. The other just needs to get divorced and remarried and then he´ll go. He feels a bit of shame to assist now because he can´t participate in the sacrament. But I think that things are going well with him getting stuff ready to for that. I´m not sure though.

Spanish Dragonball Z Cards

My cool experience for the week is that we did divisions on Tuesday and I went to the other area in my district with Elder Caceres. He arrived the same time I did but is from Chile and so can speak better than me. With him I had like four or five lessons and we did a couple of contacts. It was a productive day. They have an area called la mil which means one thousand. It´s an apartment complex that is kind of like a maze. It was kind of crazy walking through there. I think there are also a lot of gangs in their area too because we heard a lot of noises that sounded like bombs or gunshots. It was a lot more ghetto than my area. But, it was a fun experience and it was cool to talk to him. We also watched a video called the Butterfly Circus which is a really cool inspirational movie. It´s like 20minutes long and I think it´s on Youtube. You guys should watch it. That´s all for this week. Love you guys tons!

Love, Michael