DUET AT NOCHE INTERNACIONAL

Hahaha I loved that you took Hermana Culotta and her companion out! She said she loved it and that you ate really fancy! But I got your letter this week and I am sorry that it made you sad that I don't need anything but I am just kind of overloaded.

But this week has been great! Things just clicked this week! I think your fast helped even when I didn't know about it! L's family is amazing! I love them so much! Yesterday we went over for her son’s birthday, and I loved every second of it! She is doing so great with the gospel too! They are having family home evenings every Saturday with her husband’s parents who are members, and they really enjoy them! We were teaching her before the party yesterday and her husband (Who is less active) was reading about repentance and after he read it she was like when he was reading that I felt something, I don't know what it is but I felt something! It was so great, we explained to her that it was the spirit! She is progressing so well and we love their family so much! While we were teaching too we asked the husband why he was baptized and he shared his experience and how he felt the spirit at another person's baptism and wanted it for himself! It was a perfect testimony for his wife! Everything just went perfectly!

But another great thing this week was on Saturday we had Noche Internacional that is this giant party that they do at the church to try and invite people to come! There is a big performance and tons of people would do their cultural dances and things and there were rooms all around the church that were different countries! In these rooms the members from that country decorate everything and bring food for everyone to try from their country! It was all so amazing and I loved trying everything! The activity was combined with another ward. As missionaries we had to perform and we did a super funny random skit! And then we had to perform with the young men and women and I had to sing a duet for one of the verses with one of the young women. I don't know how I got roped into that because I haven't sung since like 6th grade but I did it. I was thinking though even if I messed up I could have just emergency transferred out so I wasn't way nervous hehe.  But this fiesta was packed and it made me so grateful to work with all the Hispanics, I love them all so much and the cultures are amazing!

But I am returning my shoes today just to the Nordstrom here because there was no paper with the shipping stuff like you said, I searched through the boxes so many times and I couldn't find it.  I love you so much Mom and I miss you more than anything! Oh and I will send you tons of pictures next week because I took a lot I just forgot to bring my camera here today!

Oh I forgot to say! We get IPADS this week!!!  Provo monitors it all but still we have IPADS!  Kind of sad that we can’t have angry birds and teach lessons to the little pigs, but I am excited:)

las banderas para la Noche Internacional

Mi Distrito  me, Elder Gomez, Elder Dominiguez, Elder Dean

Elder Gomez, me and Elder Dean

Elder Gomez, Liz and Oscar Reyes and family, and me

FAMILIAS PUEDEN SER ETERNAS (FAMILIES CAN BE ETERNAL)

Hahaha Jamakunu I just made that up so it doesn't actually mean anything! Haha I love that picture (from U of U game)!  And I miss that so much!  That is great you are going out to Dinner with Hermana Culotta!  I love that, I told her you would when she got to Provo!

But my favorite part of Chicago is probably the Magnificent Mile! I don't buy anything there but I love seeing it! I just love downtown so much!

But this week we are on buses and we spend so much time walking because of the timing of the buses and yesterday we thought there was a bus on this one street but there wasn't so we ended up walking like 12 blocks. We have it pretty down by now but we still make mistakes with the buses!

But L is doing great and her family is great too! On Saturday they had a family home evening with O’s parents (Her husband). (His parents live down south and L’s parents live above them, Os parents were the only parents with them on Saturday).  His parents are members and his Dad works in the temple here. His mom (Step Mom) taught the whole lesson and it was about temple marriages and eternal families so it was perfect. She said she wants to be baptized so I was so happy! We are going to try and get her a date this week some time! But after that lesson we played a game called headbandz with them and it was so much fun! I just love being with their family and you can just feel the love so strongly between them and just the spirit of joy that they have in their house!

I am learning so much though everyday! Everything is so hard but that just makes the good times so much better!  The hardest part is finding people to teach and having them keep their commitments.  If they would just give our message a chance the spirit would do the rest for them but it is hard to get them to try things out for themselves! When we are busy and have appointments I love it!  I love the people in our district though! Elder Gomez and me get along really well!

Love and miss you all! Have a great week and stay healthy! Love you!

Elder Eichers didn't send any pics this week, so I'm attaching a few that did not come from him:

Hermanas Hernandez and Culotta at dinner in Orem.
 Hermana Culotta was in the same District as Elder Eichers in the Mexico City, MTC

Elder Eichers at his own baptism, with Elder Josh Stephens (Mexico City, Chalco) and
Elder Jackson Rose (Mexico City MTC then to North Carolina)

THIRD FAST SUNDAY

A lot of our investigators aren't really progressing but I am learning so much! We are focusing a lot on trying to get members to our lessons right now because we can teach the investigators, but the members will astonish them and we are trying to have them be like Amulek like in the story of Alma.  But my Spanish is getting better but it is still not great!

But we are trying to teach S but we haven't been able to find her lately. But L and O are doing amazing! They live in the same house as L’s parents. Most families all live in same house or next door here. But we had always talked to her parents but they had never really loved us until Wednesday we were just dropping off an invitation to a birthday party for the family to go to of a member in our ward.  We had something right after so we were just going to drop it off and leave and then her mom and dad were just so nice to us and were like oh please come in and eat and everything! It was amazing and it is such a miracle! We were talking with them too and the mom was like "you guys are going to still talk to us when you guys leave right?" I was about to cry I just love them so much and I was like yeah just adopt me right now!!!!!  But I didn't say that because you are my family ;) But I love this family so much and they are doing great and are progressing so well! I am learning so much and always figuring out new ways to try and be a better missionary! Be safe and be healthy! Love you guys!

 Third Fast Sunday.  Wearing the matching tie with Brad.

Halloween

THE WALK OF SHAME

Monday, October 28, 2013, Garrett Eichers wrote:

Sorry I was going to email you but we are going to grab lunch downtown at a 5 guys nearby! I will write you later today! I love and miss you! Talk to you soon!

Much later, Garrett writes:

This week has had a lot of ups and downs. So on Saturday we came to the church to do our facebook stuff and there were a bunch of cars here so we didn't know if we could use the computers or not so I only locked up my frame of my bike and I was planning on going back out and fixing it after we were sure we could use the computers.  But we were on the computers for like 15 minutes and an English elder came in and was like, "uh, Elder Eichers do you know your front tire is missing" so I run out there and I am just so sad and when I got out there it was gone. I had to walk pretty far to get to the bike store and it was just the walk of shame, walking a bike with no front wheel.  I got everything worked out now it just cost a lot of money to buy a new tire.  I was so frustrated because I have been working so hard and then this just happened.  

But when we got home we got a call saying that there was a primary party for our ward and there was an investigator there who lived in our area! So that made things much better and so we went over there and we spent a lot of time with all of the kids in our ward and plus O's little girls were there who always make my day! Everything just seemed so much better after that and with all the love of the people here, it is impossible to stay sad!

Yesterday was a great Sunday! We went to church and everything and then visited a member who seemed so happy to see us! They said they were just leaving and they were sorry they couldn't go to church but they really want to come next week! It was great just because he had a good attitude and showed like he was starting to feel comfortable with us even though we didn't teach them! Then we went to the family As' house and we were there for a while and it was what Sundays should be like! We just ate and talked and shared a message with them, they are doing great at sharing the gospel with all of their friends!  I loved spending time with them!  But before we got to the appointment, I have a little cord to lock up my bike and I wrap it up around the frame of my bike and it came undone and got in my tire and I fell on my bike! It was my first crash and it was so sad but so funny!   But anyways after A we went to O and L and their whole family was there (L's parents too) and it was perfect! We taught them and they gave us more food, I was already full but we are missionaries so I ate that food too and was happy about it!  So the whole week ended up being great even though there were some really rough patches!

But I am staying here with Elder Gomez and I am really happy about it! There is only one Elder changing out of our zone. But I love you guys and have a great week!

OCTOBER 21, 2013

Your guys’ week sounds like so much fun! Sam and Steph you are so lucky you guys got to go out and visit them [Hanna and Ben Barton]! Did you guys go to the beach and everything? And Annie, thanks for the CD and the package it was so nice of you to send! We love listening to the music and everything! I will send you a letter this week! And mom and dad I love you guys and it sounds like you’re in heaven up at the cabin and going to silver fork lodge!  

But this week was a struggle with the numbers but we learned a lot towards the end of the week so this week should be great! I keep on growing and my testimony is strengthening as I am going on!  Socorro is progressing.  We didn't see that cute family all together this week, but they are all great! I will try to take a picture with them this week and send it home so you can see them!

One cool thing is that our mission got announced to be the 9th mission in the world to use facebook! We are updating our things starting tomorrow so I have to hide like all my pictures because we are only supposed to have pictures of us in proselyting clothes. I am not going to delete the old ones just hide them. So I just need to update my page a little and then it will be ready! We hope to teach a lot on there! The rules are though that we can't accept friend requests from people at home but you are all already my friends so that is good and with permission from the pres we can talk to people back home who are less active and nonmembers and help set up appointments with the missionaries with them! It is a big temptation but the lord trusts us!

But we are having a halloween party today with our zone and the english zone in our area so that will be fun! Love you guys.

I love you and I am sorry this is short, but everything is fine! Love you and miss you!   And stay healthy!!  The picture below is our heart pancake that we made.  

COLUMBUS DAY

They moved our pday to today because they thought that it would be a good idea to be out on the holiday so that we could talk to people when they were with their family. Hahahaha I was expecting that I was going to get a call from president saying your mom called me and told me you didn't write her yesterday, will you tell her to wait just a little and be patient tomorrow, but I am glad I didn't get that call!

On p-day - this is what the streets all look like in our neighborhood.

At Church on Fast Sunday -- wearing my Fast Sunday tie matching Brad's tie. 

But to answer your questions, yes I am in Logan Square. Our church building is the Logan Square building! Our ward is the Chicago 3 ward but the english ward in our building is the Logan Square somethingth ward. But we haven't ridden the bus or metro yet because it is still warm enough to ride our bikes. When it gets really cold or starts to snow we get bus passes so that should be in a few weeks. It is starting to get pretty cold here though, not freezing yet but in the afternoons if we don't have jackets we get freezing so I am just starting to bring my black rain jacket with me everywhere now. But yeah I see the mission president, we saw him at a zone conference and we had interviews with him a little while ago but it isn't like I see him everyday. We do send letters to him every week though and he
reads and basically studies every single one. We eat at members houses about every other day but it depends on the week. Like this week we ate with one member and had some snacks with another, but the week before we had like 5 dinner appointments so it just depends. Yesterday we also had a member buy us McDonalds which was so nice! But no I haven't had to speak yet and I think I will most likely be here with Elder Gomez this next transfer but I am not 100% sure! Hahahaha no I don't need you to send me protein! But if you could send me some good vitamins to take that would be very helpful!

Things are going great this week! I thought that this would never be my home but it is starting to feel like it, just in a different way then the home in Salt Lake.  I am comfortable here and I love it here. I think I was expecting to feel like oh for this to be home it will feel exactly how the house did in Salt Lake, it definitely doesn't feel like that but it is home for me now! 

A cool experience was a few weeks ago on a day when I just wanted to sit down and just relax for 15 minutes before this appointment with a member, my companion said lets go walk and see if we can find anyone to talk to.  We ended up finding this woman named Socorro. She was just so happy to see us and we talked to her and got her information.  We had been trying to go back to her house, but we could just never reach her because she wasn't home.  This week we have found her twice(Twice other than the initial contact)! We happened to find her when she was returning from her walk, like it was honestly the perfect timing that we would be able to find her(both times we found her at that time) But the first time we taught her, second time talking in total, we just gave her a restoration pamphlet and a Bookof Mormon and just getting to know her more. The next time we saw her, third in total, we were teaching her about the restoration and it was so easy because she had already read the pamphlet and loved it! We told her to pray about it after we were done teaching the lesson and she was just like, oh I already know it is true. This was such a miracle! I love teaching her and she always brightens my day! We always teach her on days when I am super tired and everything and after the lesson I always am energetic and love the work! When she smiles I can't help but smile, I just love her so much! 

Last pday we went downtown and we went to Navy Pier and everything! It was so sweet and the city is amazing! We also went to a pizza place called Giordanos, it is one of the famous pizza places with like 5 inch deep pizzas and it was amazing, best pizza ever! But I have been trying so many different restaurants here and they are all so delicious! I will send pictures of everything in a second! 

Love you so much and miss you all! Have a great week and keep staying healthy!

 Deep dish (5 inch) pizzas at Giordanos.

It is one of the famous pizza places -  best pizza ever!!

Navy Pier on P-day

OCTOBER 7, 2013

Everything is going great! I got all of the packages and the one with the letters of all the other missionaries! I loved hearing about them and I was happy because I actually had time to read the stuff unlike emails!

But this week was great! I actually watched every session of conference, I was surprised! I even watched the very last one in Spanish, that doesn't mean I understood it but I watched it.  Dad, I have thought about you so much and during Priesthood.  I thought of how lucky I was to go with you all of these years! I hope you went with grandpa or Sam or something to keep you company! But think only 3 more conferences and then I will be home! But conference is one of the best memories I have with you, you are an amazing dad to do that and spend so much time with me! I love you and miss you a ton!

But this week was just a pretty normal week, nothing crazy happened to me! But there is a new family who we have been teaching who I absolutely love! The husband is a less active and the wife is an investigator and they have two little girls who are 7 and 5 and then a really young little kid! The 5 year old girl may be the cutest little girl I have ever seen though! I absolutely love her! Her mom is super receptive to the two lessons we have taught her and they are such a strong family! I love talking to them and I also love all of the members here! We are working super hard though and I am now starting to see how happy we can make people with the gospel! I am enjoying it here!

I don't know if I will have time to send pictures but I will try! I took some just of our house and stuff! But my actual address is 3727 Eddy. I don't know the zip code and everything so just keep sending the mail to the office but this way you can look it up on google maps!

I am going downtown for pday today though so I am super excited for that! I love you all and miss you!

Hahaha I forgot to write that my companion has had 2 flat tires this week so we have spent a lot of time doing that kind of stuff! My bike works though just great! Love you