Week 37

      (I, Mom, Kaleen, have no idea what Zac means by Week 37.  Kara Sherman suggests, " Maybe he feels the same about January 74th as the rest of us."  Ha Ha!)

Alright let's see

Monday

Monday night we went to the De Los Santos family's place for an FHE which was very fun. Sang some song, bore some testimony, ate some snack. 

Tuesday

We had our district meeting. We meet as a zone every week and then we split into our districts. It was a lot of fun! Lots of traveling though. We do a lot of good boy freestyle rap as a zone, stuff like "My mom said come home at 5:30, came home at 5:25" Or other stuff like that, super funny haha. That night we hopped back on a bus to head over to our ZL's house to sleep because that morning we had to get in a van early to zoom over to another city for Multi Zone Conference. 

Wednesday

It was awesome to see 2 other zones. The MP and wife were there along with the senior couple and AP's. They all had presentations and we had lunch and did practices as well. 

Thursday

We had like 3 lunches. We were out a lunch in the morning, so a member bought us pick up that we went and picked up, then another member brought us food, then another member called us and told us to come over because they made us lunch. So we went over there and ate lunch then had 2 extras haha savage move honestly.

Saturday

The Yanez family of Peru and Colombia made spicier stuff to try and defeat me. Fools. I cannot be bested in a battle of spice. Try again next week. 

Sunday

We made an improvement. Last week we had 0 investigators in church, this week we had 5! So awesome. We picked up a man named Becho. As we've talked with him in his home, we have learned of his life. Summary: He is just really alone and it broke my heart. To see him at church talking and laughing with members made me so happy! Awesome stuff.

Bullets

- A really emotional experience. We walked past this cute cat just sleeping, and we notice it has ants crawling all over its face. Oh no. To verify if it was dead I picked up a lil rock to toss in its direction, but then I realized it was dried poop and then in a panic I just threw it at the cat and all of a sudden all these emotions were rushing through me. I just threw poop at a dead cat. What have I done. Then a few days later we walked past and it was STILL there. I couldn't bear to face what I had done.

- We found this old lady just chilling in her home. Super interesting. She was super flirty and racist. Hopefully she'll wait for me so I have somebody to look forward to after my mission. She said I have the face of a rogue and that she will have to be careful of me. Then she said my companion shouldn't need a hat because he's black but he's not even black so that was pretty epic. Then she wanted to dance with me. Instead we gave her a pamphlet. Savage move.

- I ate a cow kidney this week, It was on my plate at a members house, I didn't know what it was at the time but I just ate it, it was good.

- I'm on my second to last  ® Old Spice Fresh that I brought from home. Please help.

- I kiss a ton of dudes. The classic kiss the cheek greet is very common here so not gonna lie I just kiss men all day long.

Love, Elder Jerman

Future stay at home dad

Threw poop at a dead cat

Defeated Ares in hand to hand combat

Man kisser

1. God saying hello

2. One of the plazas

3. The De Los Santos boys (Repping Uruguay and Peñarol)

4. Stay at home dad practice

Tut tut, looks like rain

Alright alright alright let's see.

This week was a good one!

Tuesday we had our zone council meeting, it was a blast to meet everyone, and make some friends. Then we did exchanges which was awesome, with our ZL's too! I was with Elder Warner from OK. Cool guy. We talked to literally every single person we could, and we met some awesome folks.

If you had any doubt that this is literally the most chill place on earth, here is some more evidence.

- We talked to this shirtless dude, who had this crazy stomach tan line. This dude was so tan, but there were a couple lines on his stomach that were whiter than me. Stummy tan line. Cool guy.

- We were talking to this dad and a group of kids, one of the kids was just sitting on the grass with his foot resting in some dog poop while chewing on rocks from the road. Savage move honestly.

Alright so this week let's see. We tried to use our washer and then it broke and my load of whites got locked in the machine for the whole day until someone helped us fix it. It was interesting for a second. Something else that was funny, we were walking down a street and a kid passed us on his bike holding his hands in the air. Me and my companion both go "OPA!" And then he loses control and smacks onto the road. I held in a laugh as he gets up and pedals away in shame. Also some guy was zooming around on his moto when his hat flew off, he turned around and when he leaned down to pick it up he accidentally accelerated into the wall and almost had the bike fall on top of him. Cool guy. 

Alright so the reason for the subject, Wednesday just dumped rain. The sidewalk was a river. It flooded into our door, I was just about to leave the bathroom and all a sudden water starts coming under the door. I open up and our whole floor is just water haha. We cleaned it up and a member from the Mission came and put a thingy thing in our door frame to prevent it in the future. We had an umbrella day which was fun. We've been getting to know the members better, which has been good! We have a lot more people to teach and get in contact with now! We met with the ward mission leader again. I love that family, La Familia Hermoso. They are my Uruguayan family for sure. (Mi familia uruguayo)

So this ward kind of has some drama. A lot of people are inactive because of tension between members and past leaders. There is also a little bit of a cold shoulder attitude towards missionaries, so this week we wanted to focus on building a trust and a friendship!

We both gave talks in church, and shared our testimony about missionary work and how we are all missionaries, and that went well. We also made brownies and brought them to church! We had a little set up on a table with scriptures glued onto the brownies, we gave them out to the members. The YW President (the wife of the stake president) told us "You are gaining our hearts" is about what it translates to. It was awesome! Such a feel good moment. The grind continues. In Spanish we say "Vamos arriba!" before we leave the house.

Alright this week was epicly, onto the next. Crazy to think I'll be coming home in only 2 years! It feels like just a couple weeks ago I had 2 whole years left! Man time flies when you put yourself in the hands of the Lord. Love y'all!

Email me if you please - zachary.jerman@missionary.org

Love, Elder Jerman

uruguayo

Emerging Spanish Comedian

Local Savage

Rainy Day / Scenery

This dope traveling magician dude

Big Boy Meal

Big Boy Dessert

Our cute lil brownie setup

Your Boys

Zac's 1st Google Hangout in Uruguay

While talking to us, Zac pulled up his house on Google maps to show us.

Then he took us down the streets.  So fun to see what he sees!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Barrio

Alright folks, let's get started

FIRST - My companion is Elder Llerena from Ecuador, he's doing a great job of training me, we're both new to our area (a whitewash). San Jose, Uruguay. We are the only missionaries here so we are starting from scratch. Time to grind.

Firstly, to finish out the CCM, we did some stuff and some other stuff. Sunday night was kind of goodbyes. Saying goodbye to my Haitian districts was harder than saying goodbye to my family no cap. The reason being it's so much more unlikely I'll ever see them again. Somehow over the couple weeks I had with them I grew so much love for them and such a strong friendship. It hurt my heart to say goodbye to them.

The flights: Mexico to Panama City, about 4 hours, then PC to Montevideo about 7 hours

On the first flight me and an Elder that sat next to me talked with this Mexican feller, cool guy. We talked about a bunch of random stuff and had a good time. He asked us about our missions a lot and also the church so it was an incredible experience. We shared a scripture with him about how the Lord can consecrate your performances (He was going to give a presentation and was nervous about it) 2 Nephi 32:9 I think. We told him to pray also. Cheers Cristian.

The second flight was at night, from 10 to around 6 or 7. I slept some. We flew around a humongous lighting storm, like enormous. I was seeing lighting for 20 minutes straight it was insanely cool and bright.

My first week has gone well. If I were to describe it in one phrase, it would be this: I could literally fall asleep at any time I want, I doubt I would even have to close my eyes.

Here are some common sayings here, I will just spell how they sound

Fua (At first it was strange because it sounds like the beginning of the f-word lol) To express wowness

Tah - Okay/bet

Tranqui as in "Todo tranqui" - Calm as in all's calm

Also they put a finger gun up to their smile when something is cool or stuff like that

Alright bullet points

- Every house has a butt spraying machine, stray away from the rags that hang near it, they're to dry off after

- Acne, it's as if the gods of acne said "You know what, this poor kid's had enough, ease off his face a little bit... but we can't just end his suffering. Target his back, destroy it."

- Dennis Moss, an apology; I remember whenever you would take Jake (Elder Moss) and I anywhere and you would play your favorite christian tunes and christian rock, I thought death would be better. HOWEVER, now I realize it's not so bad (only because it's all we have) Love you Dennis

- There are so many motorcycles here. Like every person. I saw this 95 year old tiny granny just zooming around the other day. Truly a surreal experience. I also saw a family of 6 split up onto 2 bikes. Todo tranqui

- We watched The Best 2 Years in spanish. Good but just so far off from the original.

- Apparently Uruguayos aren't super huge fans of spice, but we were eating at this Peruvian member's house and he slapped down his spiciest jar of pepper stuff. My companion whimpered in fear, fled the house entirely. Bought a ticket to Montevideo and is now in hiding in Argentina. I slammed my fist on the table. Breaking open the jar, and drank the whole thing. Didn't even flinch. (It was good on my rice, I did dump quite a bit on and wasn't bothered by it so they were impressed)

- Something called Mate. It's an herbal tea type thing, look it up. It's pretty good, kind of tastes and smells like a pet store but I will learn to love it. EVERYBODY drinks it here. They carry around specific flasks for hot water and a lil mug with the crushed leaves in it, pour more in and drink it out of their Mate straws.

OUR HOUSE
When we arrived, it was filthy. There hadn't been missionaries in the home for 6 weeks so we did a deep cleanse for about 3 hours, 'twas quite the job but it needed to happen. The AP's helped us and also the Mission President (Escobar) and his wife! They were there because they were stocking our fridge and cupboards. Super cool to see a MP get dirty and clean. It's quite modest, and the one of the AP's was telling me how fortunate we were to stay in this home because apparently it's really nice. My companion later told that he was just saying that to make me think that haha. Apparently there's much nicer houses.

HOWEVER

It was the hottest place on earth when we got here. We had to buy a fan. Which saved us. Then today, we were ultimately blessed. Our Presidente Escobar has been the MP for several months, and has been making some great changes, especially with the housing. SO TODAY we got an AC unit, I cried I embraced the 2 technicians for 40 minutes crying into their shoulders, thanking them in Spanish. A huge blessing. I'm crying as I type this, my companion is holding a bowl underneath me so I don't destroy the wiring. 

FOOD

The food has been great. The members invite us for enormous lunches. Wow they're good. The desserts are good and the ice cream is good and the food is good. You know what I always say, if the food is foody, it's foody. We have a plastic container of Dulce De Leche and I try not to eat it by the spoonful. But but some of that on bread with some bananas on it. Dip that bean into some milk and boom you have ascended to heaven. God doesn't let you stay up there for too long though so after you're done eating you have to go back down. Cool stuff though.

DOGS

Everybody has a dog, if not 6. The mission leader in our ward is so cool. A true capo. He runs a dog care business so he always has like 20 dogs, also like 15 birds. His family is awesome. There's lots of hobo dogs as well, it's sad. More dogs and cows them people for sure.

Accent

The Castellano accent. Everything that makes the "y" sound, makes an "sh" sound. So all the ys and double ls. Me llamo = Me shamo

Puedo ayudarle = Puedo ashudarle. It's cool. They also talk super super fast so I'm trying to learn quick. I'm not completely clueless luckily, I can get the gist of the convo and my companion will ask me questions that will give me a direct specific thing to answer so that's helpful but I'm surviving, understanding, trying, and studying every day.

So to recap our daily experiences. We talk to a lot of people on the streets. Uruguay is one of the countries where their main meal is lunch and then they have a siesta. So the streets are dead at that time. But the evenings are super pleasant, as it is summer here. So everybody is just chilling in their lawn. We are talking with these people right now, pray for them and pray for us!

Santiago: A 14 year old boy that was committed to be baptized with the last elders, but fell through. Our first time meeting with him we recommitted him. He's progressing great and came to church this week. We love him!

Cristian: Another 14 year old boy, but he's got a beard and looks like he's in a midlife crisis and paying child support for 2 kids. Great guy. Him and his dad are pretty interested, however they were really grilling us with questions of "what ifs" with the commandments. He really wanted to know why he shouldn't beat a kid up if he started it. But as Mr. Incredible says "We'll get him, eventually!"

Omar: An older fellow, he really enjoys our charlas, but we need to get his interest spiked. 

Selena: We will begin teacher her more. An 18 year old girl that we found on the doorstep of the Refuge here. We talked with her for about 20 minutes and she committed to be baptized. My spanish is good enough to comment here and there and to understand about 50-60% of every conversation (increases lil by lil) but I was so caught off guard, afterwards I had to verify that we had actually done that. We had. Now we just gotta make sure she gets ready haha. 

Nahuel: We found him and his friend Andres of the curb of a store. He's 20 and Andres is 25. They're a couple of capos (cool guys) however we need to get deeper rather than simple charlas. We'll get there though.

Alright sorry that was a lot, but a lot has happened. LOVE YOU ALL.

Love God, love Jesus, love your people, love yourself.

Cheerio,

Love, Elder Jerman

200 WPM

Bilingual

2 Time World Champ in falling asleep accidentally during morning prayer

Has baptized thousands

1. Santiago and your boys

2. Just a couple capos

3. The Yanez family of Peru

4. A bauru, for big boys only

5. Ice cream

6. The all powerful one

Santiago and your boys

Just a couple capos

The Yanez family of Peru

A bauru, for big boys only

Ice cream

The all powerful one (new AC)

He arrived! This email is from Pres. and Sister Escobar

Dear Brother and Sister Jerman,

We are writing to inform you that your son arrived safely in Uruguay earlier today.  We are so excited to have finally met him and we feel love for him already. He will be spending the night at the temple guest housing, near the mission home, before heading out to his first area in the morning.

Your son's Preparation Day will be on Mondays, so you can expect to receive an email from him soon.

We would encourage each of you to write to your son each week.  This will help your missionary adjust to life here in Uruguay, and will help him to remain connected with you at home.  Your letters can be a great source of support and encouragement to be obedient and to serve with all his heart, might, mind and strength.

Thank you for allowing us to help care for and serve with your son.  We look forward to getting to know him better as we work together to bring the people of Uruguay to Christ.

We love you.  Have a wonderful day.

President Francisco and Marcela Escobar

Zac's last phone call from the Mexico MTC

      

2020

Hola everybody!

Alright so this week was really fun! Before I get into the bullet points, let me challenge my memory and try and go through the week.

Wednesday: Christmas day was fun! Called home to the fam and such. We played cards a lot that day. I opened up some presents that have been waiting in my suitcase. Jay and Tay came in clutch with a lil door basketball hoop, we put it on our closet and play with it all the time. Lots of laughs with that! We had a couple devotionals that day, but we played sand volleyball for a while which was a blast as always.

Thursday: Uhhhhhh

Friday: Uhhhhhh

Saturday: Uhhhhhh 

Sunday: Sacrament and devotionals

Monday: Uhhhhhh  
Tuesday: We stayed up to watch fireworks and played cards! New Years fireworks are nothing here compared to the States however.

- Can I just say, what in the world Spanish? Why do you have 40 different ways to say one word. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Why would you do any of that? Would you do that? Why?

- However, let me give a big thanks to my HS Spanish teacher who is on my email list. There are so many things that I don't have to learn for the first time, and only have to review. Even after only 2 years of Spanish from her. Thanks Señora Sanderson! 

- If you're curious, here are my Spanish strengths and weaknesses. Strengths in order of best to worst: Reading spanish, listening to spanish, speaking spanish, vocab. Weaknesses: The fact that Spanish casually just has 40 ways to say one freaking word, honestly who decided that please tell me. All the tenses and irregularities and the spelling changes oh my word give me a break. Literally the poopiest thing of all time like when I go to speak a sentence, there's like 8 different tenses that I have to sift through in my mind. HOLYYY

- Spanish is going great

- Okay so one day, a dude in our house saw some floaties in our water jug, so the man goes to his room, brings back some essential oils and straight DUMPS it into there (only like two drops) but still, it was the strongest, strangest tasting water of all time. Gotta stay hydrated though.

- One of the guys in our room got a speaker for Christmas. Finally. Henrie has a passed down iPod with like 900 songs on it, and Teichert has a flash drive with the LDS library on it. We have been bumping to music so hard all week. Especially Henrie's Disney music, like 20 songs or so. We've been dancing and singing our hearts out.

- More AF connections

Hermana Taylor _______ (don't even know) I had AP Euro with her, and she dated one of my childhood best friends who's serving in Oslo right now!

Hermana Delatorre who I've gone to school with since elementary. I'm friends with her brothers, a set of twins Skyler and Jesse.

2 Elders who I saw in their last week during my first week. Elder Mason Bergman and Elder Payton Raban, went to school with all of them folks.

And Hna Warren who I told you about last week

We will see if I can get pictures with any of them before I leave, maybe all of them but that's unlikely haha!

Love y'all!

Email me - zachary.jerman@missionary.org

Pics

1. Morning walk to brekkie

2. Cards, we play all the time. So much fun - Elder Teichert and I

3. Bball with the boys

4. Post temple trip, me and my comp talking about our feelings

5. Part 1: One of the districts - Part 2: My favorite Soeurs (Left to right) Charles, Mercy, Guerrier

6. Hermana Warren and I (1st grade crush, I'm a savage)

7. Christmas Eve sleepover

8. Some of the gentlemen

9. Asserting dominance