They made me cut it and eat the head because it was my birthday

This week was craziness. We did a lot of things and I’m beat! Where to start... TODAY.

I’ve had a lot of questions about what a zone leader does. Basically we do what everyone else does, but we also need to plan for everything the zone does. So we spend a lot more time planning and talking about our zone then our area. The truth is that we focus a lot in the area, but when we are at the apartment we basically call the other elders and focus on their needs. I feel somewhat like a father. For example, today we did a zone activity. We can do one every transfer and we decided to do ours today. We didn’t think that it was going to rain (which it is doing in abundance). So we were going to get together and cook an American breakfast and then play Olympic games. Well, we did eat an American breakfast... at lunch time. So here is what happened. Being the zone leaders we had to plan the activity, see what people wanted to do... decide who would do what and where and when and then verify everyone five million times to make sure it goes as planned. We also needed a plan B to everything. We actually didn't end up playing Olympic games. But we did play dodge ball and ping pong. It was actually really fun and we cooked a ton of food. We made pancakes, eggs and hash browns for 23 people (but like 30 ate)... WITH HOMEMADE MAPLE SYRUP! How cook are we? Two elders in the zone, a sister and I cooked everything. It was really good. We all had fun and got wet getting to the stake center. It all turned out good, but not as planned. So, that is basically what we do as zone leaders. We animate and plan for everything the zone is going to do. We also try to help the elders get to the zone or mission standards. We teach elders on exchanges how to do certain things and try to show them an example of what we are capable of doing as missionaries. We also meet regularly with the church leaders, including stake president to learn their desires for the zone. I don't know... we don’t really do much, we are just normal missionaries when it comes down to it.

This week was my birthday... it was a good one. I got an amazing jersey from a wonderful sister in our ward. It is a blue Argentine jersey. BY THE WAY, Argentina won their first game in the soccer competition... thing (I don't know its name in English). We are not allowed to watch, so we stayed in the pench to plan and heard people yelling and shooting off gun shots every time Argentina did something good. It was exciting and we didn’t even get to watch it. Anyway... my birthday was really tranquil. We didn’t do much out of the normal. The biggest thing is that we went to a members house at the end of our day because she had cooked us dinner and wanted to give me my gift. It was really a fun work day. As missionaries we celebrated it after planning on Saturday. While people were going crazy because we (I mean Argentina) won, we cooked up some genie-pig and ate them... long story. Basically an elder from Peru decided it would be cool to cook me up a Peruvian specialty for my birthday. It took some days to get it all worked out... I’ll try to send pictures. I felt bad, because he bought them alive and then killed them and cooked them. I only saw them alive and then dead... fortunately I wasn’t around for the killing, I would have freaked (this elder also wants to eat Tinkerbell when I leave... NOT going to happen). It was pretty good. They made me cut it and eat the head because it was my birthday... I tried the eyeball... not so tasty... and that is all I have to say about that.

For the lunch we bought hot peppers... REALLY hot peppers. One of the elders said he would give me his scarf if I would eat half of one of the peppers. I was brave and did it... And it was HOT!!! We are talking bigger and hotter than Jalapeno. But I won a scarf! The elders just looked at me with awe as I bit off the pepper. No one thought I would do it... I don’t even know why I did it, but it was fun and funny. The States don’t really have hot peppers.

Well, with all the rain we have a mud pit of an area again. I love it. I got my leather boots fixed so now I can walk around without using huge, bulky rain boots. I’ve learned very well how to walk, run, jump and slide in the mud without getting myself dirty. It takes a lot of skills and practice to be able to walk for 3 hours in 3 inches of mud without getting your pants dirty... :)

This week we had a really good experience with finding. We worked hard all week to find. We contacted more references then in any moment of my mission this week. We also did normal contacts a lot. But by Sunday we had only found 6 and we wanted to find 12 by the end of the day. So we went out to do our normal visits and decided to run by this lady we had found the week before. She wasn’t there, but her husband and other family members were. We had been praying to be able to find people that day because we had really been working our tails off to find and were not seeing the blessings. But once again the Spirit guided us and we found a wonderful new (big) family and accomplished our goal.

Also, we had this family that we have been teaching. We can only see them like once every other weekend. We took a fecha out with the two of them last week and this week we met up with them again. To get to their goal they need to get married. So although we want to wait normally to teach the Law of Chastity, we decided to do it early. We taught a really spiritual lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We knew that the Spirit would be vital in this lesson so we did all we could to invite it. And it came strong. They felt it and when we asked them why they hadn’t got married until now they said it was a money issue... but now that we had explained the Spiritual importance they wanted to change. They made the decision for themselves and are going to make a plan on how to do it for next weeks appointment. I love how the Holy Ghost shows people what they need to do return to God... and I love it even more when people listen to that Spirit.

I’m off... I love you all and will try to send pictures next time.

Love,
Elder Steinkuhler

PS I’ve realized again how soon I’ll be home this week. I can’t believe it... I don’t feel trunky though... that is the good thing, I know lots of you are worried. No worries.