November 23, 2014

This has been a really good week! A lot has happened. Elder Burgos and I work so good together. Last Sunday we had 5 investigators at church! WHOOO HOOO! 

Let’s start at the beginning of the week: We had a Family Home Evening with a hermana and an investigator. It was so much fun! So, as you know, I love to play with poi lights. I have been using my light show skills for missionary work! It started out by me giving Elder Burgos a light show and he thought it would be a great a idea to share my talent with the members and investigators. Turns out that everyone loves it!  My trainer in California didn’t like the lights and told me to send them home. So I am happy that Elder Burgos sees the potential this talent has. He thought it would be a really good idea if I did a light show for our investigators for Family Home Evening. So we put the song “Never Cry Again” by Dash Berlin on their speaker system and turned out all the lights. They were so confused and said: “What’s happening, what’s happening?” Then they music started playing and my poi lights were on. I did the whole show to the song and at the end – oh they were like: “Elder Malzl! Oh incredible!” They were amazed and asked me to do it again and asked me to do it again next week, and “bring that again tomorrow!”. You know, this talent seems to be a pretty good missionary tool. Elder Burgos’s idea to use it as a FHE activity, was actually very good! It really worked, because afterwards, the brother said: “You know, I think I’m gonna come to church this Sunday.” He never had wanted to come to church. Never. It’s crazy how this visit made him want to come to church. 

Also this week I had the opportunity to do another light show for one of our investigator families. We brought them over to a member’s house and there I did a light show for them and they were blown away – their kids were like “Wow! Bastante! Wow, Elder Malzl!” It was loco! They now want me do participate in the talent show of their ward, so I guess I will do that. I also got to play guitar for the first time since I left on my mission in August. Let me tell you, the feeling I got when I put my hands on that guitar was incredible. I played – everything came back to me – it was wonderful! I really do miss the guitar a lot. It used to be the way I expressed myself with all the emotions I had. I used to express myself through music. It’s really hard on a mission not to be able to do that. But it’s OK – it’s only for a short two years.

You know, there is a lot of sadness here in Argentina. Everyone seems to be doing fine, but the more you get to know them, there is a lot more that lies beneath, and often times it’s pretty sad. I’m not going to go into a lot of details about the things that I have seen, but it’s really sad seeing how many problems people really have. And there are some pretty serious problems. On the bright side many people her have embraced me like their own family. 

Safest mailing address for letters:

Elder Mattias Malzl

Argentina Mendoza Mission -- POUCH 

50 East North Temple 

Salt Lake City, UT 84150 

Email: mattias.malzl@myldsmail.net

Missionary Blog:http://www.eldermalzl.blogspot.com/

Safest mailing address for Christmas packages:

Elder Malzl

C/O Brenda Sepulveda-Mena

Sargento Aldea #876

Villa Alemana

V Region

CHILE

(Christmas packages have to arrive in Chile by Dec. 21 and will be delivered to Elder Malzl in Argentina on Dec. 22.)

We made a wonderful dish called nuoqis! It was so good! A la casa de hermana Toro. Un menos activo miembro de la iglesia  

November 16, 2014

It is Nov. 16^th and a lot has happened this past week. The week started off with my first Asado on P-day.  An Asado is a bunch of meat, like Chorizo, which is sausage, and much more. It is smoked on coals. It was by far the best I have had in my entire life. Oh my goodness, it was so good! On that P-day our Zone also met up and we played soccer.  It was pretty much my first game of soccer. Sure I played soccer when I was six-years old, but I didn’t even know how to play soccer back then.  But it was way fun! Everyone was super nice and kind – it was pretty sweet! And I got this amazing ice cream at this creamery place called Milos. I got the Dulce de Leche ice cream con Brownies.  It was by far the best ice cream I have ever had.  Ever!  It was unreal. Upon tasting it, it was like my eyes were opened to a whole new world! I loved it. It was really good!

This week we were helping a family in their Panedria. We helped them make facturas (pasties).  It was a lot of hard work, but it was great!  

We also have a new investigator and we have been teaching him everyday. He is really progressing a lot. I am really impressed with him.  Last night we were teaching him, which was Saturday, and we invited him to come to church and he seemed like super ready. We told him we’d come over here and have breakfast over at his house at 7 am and afterwards we’d go to church. He said “OK, I’m super excited! “ Well, Sunday comes around, which is today, and we went to his house, only not to find him there. We asked other people where he was and they told us that he left last night somewhere and he hasn’t come back yet. We’d try calling him, but it always went straight to voice mail. It was really, really depressing because he was so ready to go.  

But it’s OK, because when we go and teach this new investigator, we teach him at a less active members’ house. She is such a wonderful lady. What ended up happening is that we just had breakfast with her and had some facturas and some hot chocolate, and she had some Mate. And after that we went to church with her. It was so great to walk into the church with her because she hadn’t been to church for a while. She had been attending a different church, some Catholic church, even though she is LDS. 

Anyway, so we walk into church with her and she seemed to feel a little awkward. But what happened, we introduced her to a couple other hermanas in the ward and then she just clicked with everyone. Everyone just welcomed her and she had so many friends – it was great!  Now, this is the best part: We have been trying to get one of our investigator family's come to church past week, but they did not want to come last week, which was pretty sad.  But what happened, just before sacrament meeting started, the other missionaries Elder Quesi and Elder Flores came to us and said: “Hey, your investigators are here! The first thought that came to my head was: “Our new investigator, he came to church? He knows where the church is? Whoa! That’s cool!” But when we walked out there, it was one of our investigator families! I was just so happy. Elder Burgos and I just had the biggest smile in the world on our faces.  We ran over to them and gave the husband a big hug and they were laughing their heads off because they thought it was so funny that we were so happy and surprised! It was great! We sat next to them during sacrament meeting. It was perfect! They were attentively listening, and it turned out that their daughter actually had some friends from school in our ward! After sacrament meeting all the members came up to the family, welcoming them, inviting them to Relief Society and other ward activities. I have a lot of great hopes for this good family!

What else? Oh, we did so much cleaning in our “pension”, as they call the place where we live. I have never done so much cleaning in my entire life. But on the bright side, this pension looks like if the Extreme-Home-Make-Over team had come over and literally had turned this place around. This place is so nice now! I can walk barefoot, which I’m happy about, cause I don’t like wearing shoes.

Anyway, this week was awesome! I love Argentina so much, my Castellano (Spanish) is progressing. It’s also kind of hard sometimes when you are a missionary. Especially when you have a companion who only speaks Spanish and doesn’t speak any English at all. Because you have so many things you want to say. I still have a hard time to express myself in Spanish.  But that’s OK – the weird thing is, even though I can’t communicate fluently with my companion, we still like best friends!  I don’t get it sometimes.  I am so grateful for Elder Burgos.  When we are walking down the streets to get to our appointments we are always walking to a beat and are singing. I am seriously so blessed to have him as a trainer.

Until next week!

Safest mailing address for letters:

Elder Mattias Malzl

Argentina Mendoza Mission -- POUCH 

50 East North Temple 

Salt Lake City, UT 84150 

Email: mattias.malzl@myldsmail.net

Missionary Blog:http://www.eldermalzl.blogspot.com/

Safest mailing address for Christmas packages:

Elder Malzl

C/O Brenda Sepulveda-Mena

Sargento Aldea #876

Villa Alemana

V Region

CHILE

(Christmas packages have to arrive in Chile by Dec. 21 and will be delivered to Elder Malzl in Argentina on Dec. 22.)

Elder Burgos and Elder Malzl

Siesta

Elder Burgos and Elder Malzl

President and Hermana Goates

Barrio Unimev, Mendoza, Argentina

Barrio Unimev, Mendoza, Argentina

November 10, 2014

I am in Mendoza, Argentina right now and it has been such an awesome adventure!  Aaah, Argentina is amazing!!

I arrived here a few days ago on Tuesday, Nov. 4^th.  We set up an apartment with some other Elders, we ate dinner with the President. Super sweet, super awesome.  The next day we got assigned to our companions and I was so blessed to be paired with Elder Burgos. He is my trainer and he is a super cool guy!  He doesn’t speak any English. It’s really interesting working with someone who only speaks Spanish, but it’s really good so I can learn really fast.

A little bit about what’s been happening this week: Elder Burgos and I have an investigator family. We are teaching the mother and daughter of the family.  They are wonderful people. The other day we went to her house and she was laying in her bed and her daughter was there, sitting with her.  We put on a LDS video message and she liked it a lot.  We have been visiting them and teaching them every day.  They  want to be baptized.  They look like very promising investigators. 

Their family owns a business, a paneria, where they make facturas (pastries), and they make pizza’s as well.  The other day, Elder Burgos and I worked from 3pm to 8pm just making facturas. It was such a complicated process. You have to make so much dough and put so much flour and eggs, put it into a machine, lay it out, roll it out,  flatten it, put some margarine in it, roll it up again,  put it back in a machine, then roll it again, cut it, put it on the trays, etc. It’s just a long process.  But the result is really good. Ahhh, the food here is so awesome! So good!

Anyways, it’s so awesome here.  The people here are sooo loving. Today was my first day at church, and I walked in there, and members were like: “Hola Elder! Como estas?” And they gave me hugs and everyone is giving me besos on the cheek, and all the youths, like the twelve-year olds were coming up to me, giving me hugs saying “Hi!” to me.  Oh, it felt like a family!  I really feel just so welcome here.  I love it, I love it so much!

Missionary Wall, Mapleton 21st Ward, Nov. 10, 2014 (Mapleton, Utah, USA)

New mission companion assignment: Elder Burgos and Elder Malzl

Elder Burgos and Elder Malzl

Mission Conference with Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

Mission Conference with Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles 

(Mattias is not in this part of the group picture) 

Mission Conference with Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles 

(Mattias is not in this part of the group picture) 

Safest mailing address for letters:

Elder Mattias Malzl

Argentina Mendoza Mission -- POUCH 

50 East North Temple 

Salt Lake City, UT 84150 

Email: mattias.malzl@myldsmail.net

Missionary Blog:http://www.eldermalzl.blogspot.com/

Safest mailing address for Christmas packages:

Elder Malzl

C/O Brenda Sepulveda-Mena

Sargento Aldea #876

Villa Alemana

V Region

CHILE

(Christmas packages have to arrive in Chile by Dec. 21 and will be delivered to Elder Malzl in Argentina on Dec. 22.)

Nov. 5, 2014

Dear Family Malzl,    

We are happy to inform you that your missionary has arrived here in Mendoza alive and well!

 Following a short orientation and dinner with President and Sister Goates, the new missionaries were then brought to the mission home to do a few formalities, recuperate from the flight and have a brief testimony meeting.

Today they will meet their trainers, receive trainings from the assistants to the president, and have their first individual interview with President Goates. After this they will be off to their first assignment area. I am putting with this email a group picture we took the first day in Argentina and you can even follow the blog of the mission at http://argentinamendozamission.blogspot.com.ar/

May the Lord continue to bless you and your family for all that you do in order to support your missionary.

                                                                                   

Sincerely,

Elder Breinholt

Secretario

Misión Argentina Mendoza

Mailing address for letters:

Elder Mattias Malzl

ARGENTINA MENDOZA MISSION

Cabildo Abierto 161

5510 Godoy Cruz

Mendoza, Argentina

Email: mattias.malzl@myldsmail.net

Missionary Blog:http://www.eldermalzl.blogspot.com/

Mailing address for Christmas packages: (safe method)

Elder Malzl

C/O Brenda Sepulveda-Mena

Sargento Aldea #876

Villa Alemana

V Region

CHILE

(Christmas packages have to arrive in Chile by Dec. 21 and will be delivered to Elder Malzl in Argentina on Dec. 22.)