Follow the Breadcrumb Trail....

hey dad,
so this week was cool. about the exact oposite of 2 feet
of snow here. it is pretty convenient with this heat though, if anyone
wants to follow me they just have to follow the breadcrumb trail of
sweat that follows me wherever i go. well its not that hot but you get
the idea. like i said to mom, service is just the best thing ever. its
dumb i think when people offer service here or anywhere and afterwards
expect some pay. whatever we do here will forever be sealed up in the
heavens, so we better be careful and just mob life. but life isnt life
if we arent having fun. like you guys going snow machining and
fischer, being fischer, wrecks a machine. but as almost always, all is
well in zion. christmas is just around the corner and ive heard that
they have so many fireworks here that it sounds like a war zone, im
way pumped. tell fischer that next thanksgiving ill be home to beat
him up like never before. even if he is going to outweigh me by twenty
pounds ill take him out. just like how you summon your old man
strength to beat me and them somehow.. with love, your son.


sup mom,
yeah thanksgiving here was a lot to give thanks for. it
just so happened that we had two american women in our little branch
here and they treated us missionaries to the best argentine
thanksgiving that we couldve imagined. my week was good too. i just
cant get enough of doing service here. all of the service ive done
here has either been for mixing cement and building walls, or making
mud and building roofs. its awesome! plus it is way cool to see the
blessings that rain down on us after we serve people. even if it is
just pushing a car that died to a gas station or sweeping an old
ladies porch, blessings just come out of nowhere. also today we made
an asado (an argentine barbeque but different) and played some soccer.
oh i bought a soccer jersey... i dont know it that is a sin in our
family.. well yeah it is but hey i gotta blend in with the folk here
as much as i can right?
im just gonna say that life is busy and fast for all of us. we have
waited billions and billions of years for these short ones on this
earth. its just our job not to mess it up. gotta run! love elder
hayden summers
ps. for christmas im just going to be happy with whatever i get :)

Thanksgiving...

To Bart...
so this week was cool. i miss the cold. the days here
when the clouds decide to come out and block the sun i am loving it.
when it rains every now and then it takes me back to fishing haha. its
great. your the best dad, just so you know. your example to the family
is just getting better and better. i cant wait to see where you are
when i come home for thanksgiving next year. here we have a family
that is from the united states and they are going to help us have a
good dinner, we are going to try and make pie and cobbler and stuff but who
knows how it will turn out haha. not much to say for this week, i love
you guys alot and hope all is well. thanks for the pictures and stuff.
love elder hayden summers

hey mom!
so i got some pictures sent to you guys with my head
blood supressent, me doing service, and good stuff indeed. my week was
good and today we played soccer. also i ate a hamburger the size of a
football today. twice this week it rained hard and we were caught in
it, it was even hailing huge hails for a while. me and my comp get
along good. i love giving blessings to people its the best! enough
said its just that amazing i dont want to taint it with my weakness in
writing. not much to say about the work, its still just that. we are
finding more and more cool people and good stuff is going down down
here. its still hot as heaven and we have a great ice cream store
close by. my life seems pretty boring with no really good stories. for
my one year mark i bought a huge watermelon and we ate food and food
and food! i bought a cool watch for pretty cheap. but yeah...they dont
celebrate thanksgiving here, but they make up for it with a hundred
other pointless holidays that are useless. i love you guys and have a
great THANKSGIVING!!

The Lord Had Prepared Him....

To Bart...
yeah my area is actually called rivadavia and not junin. its a bit away from it but still rather close. we are doing work down here and its great. its not as hot here as my last area but still crazy compared to alaska. a nice and easy and calm christmas sounds great, next year.. i really like it here and am having a good time. are you going to sell the Grebe? i cant believe that our ward is growing so fast, its incredible how true this church is. i just wish it would grow that fast down here where im at, i work and work and i hardly ever see the fruit of my efforts. but its okay because my fruit is going to be all piled up and waiting right in front of my mansion in heaven. all the fruit i´m ever going to want haha. have fun on all the toys you now have in your possession and just know that someday i´ll have more than you. love ya pops.
To Nan...
im way glad he is pumped i was. just like for him i was sent somewhere that i was not expecting at all. it seems like the Lord had prepared him before he even got his call to accept that it is God´s will and not ours. that little turd is going to baptize a mountain of people. im way happy for him, even though the numbers dont matter im sure he will love it. and possibly being able to see him on my way home would just complete my mission so beautifully. by the time i go home he will have 9 months in the field, thats crazy!! my new area is nice. the ward is cool and the members are alot more better than the ones in my last area. although a member is a member, there are different levels of member. not having anything to do with calling but with willingness to help and the will to help us. my comp is from texas. he is a wrestler and we are just getting to know each other more but we get along pretty good. not as good as me and my whittle got along but hey, he is family to me now. so yeah. love you all. love ya mom, thanks for all. :)

Time Doesn't Matter to God....

To Bart....
yeah time is a crazy thing to think about. isnt it weird how time doesnt matter to God? he just does what he wants, he makes promises, and he always does what he says he will. and his whole purpose is for us to become like him and he has made the way ready for us, we just have to not be dummies and do what we are told and we will be fine. its good to have some change in the ward, it keeps everyone on their toes i suppose. i can see tims dad doing everything exactly by the book. i remember thinking to myself why he hadnt been a bishop or something yet and that was years ago. your work sounds too exciting for me... im just going to have to be a boring old doctor or amusement park owner or something like that.
sometimes i wonder about the future. i mean God allready knows what is going to happen. he has known from the very begining how things would turn out. and when lehi had his vision he read out of a book that said the future and what was going to happen. so that makes me wonder if the whole everything of this world is written down somewhere and as our time goes on we just fulfill those writings. that just leads into a topic of there not really being agency and all sorts of crazy stuff. but ultimately, in the end, God is the master planner. before this world was even started he planned and created everything spiritually. then when it was ready it was put here to carry out its purpose. so God just planned so well in the eternities that he automatically knows what is going to happen to each and every being on this earth and on all the earths that he has created. its so great how we will be able to do what he is doing someday if we fulfill our purpose here.
it sounds to me like your growing spiritually faster than i am haha. i feel just the same here as a missionary while you are back in the world and taking huge strides into a realm youve never ventured into before. im proud of you, dad, you are becoming the man that God wants you to be, and as you continue doing His will you will be filled with more happiness, more control over your emotions, and more love for everyone but really, way to go dad. love elder hayden summers
To Nan....
well now, for caches call i most definately would love him to come to here in argentina with me, that would be the best. although.. even though i would love that to happen it is not my guess. i think he will go to....... ! haha that is going to be my vote, however untruthfull and random it may be. but i really think he will be sent overseas, i mean come on he is a summers, we are the best that there is. i have pics of the head wound but the computer today is dumb so yet again no pics, sorry. but i definately love getting pics from you guys, cache makes a pretty good dad, and fischer makes a pretty good musk ox ;) i hope that things with gma Hardy all pass by how its meant to be with minimal distress. gma clark is just the most perfect example ever, its crazy that she is so faithful and persistant in all of her troubles and trials, especially with their dog Jake hah. my week was good. im getting moved to a different place more closer to the city of mendoza. not sure exactly where but it is a little south and called Junin. my new comp is another gringo and he is from utah, go figure. he has less time than me, actually he came to the mission with elder whittle. my time with whittle was the best. we made a ´summers whittle wish list´ that we are going to complete after the mission when we both are in school. most of it is hunting and outdoors stuff. like the hardest one probably is killing a rabbit from 60 yards with a bow. i leave tomorrow and start up a whole new time over in another place with all new people and investigators and its almost like what i did here is just going away just like that. but itll be good for later on stuff i hope i helped some people here and stuff. i feel great about life, i hope he gets his call this week! i dont know if i told you how sweet it is to have this settlers game!! thanks so much its the best. bye with lots of love

You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

To Nan....
yep everyone has now mentioned the tampon experience to me. minus dad, that was a shocker. but im doing fine now. they took the stitches out today, 3 to be exact. they were almost shoe lace size, dont know if that is normal but whatever. today we climbed a cool large hill, to argentines it is a mountain. the place is called Zonda. it was way fun. there were some members that went with us 10 missionaries and they were party poopers. whenever we tried climbing rocks or being adventurous they would pipe up and get us to stop. then it got really hot, we all got hungry, thirsty, and not really any of us came prepared. then the members cracked out some sandwiches and juice and water. so in the end i didnt dislike them as much as before. we also found a river and took our shoes off and walked in it. well it was more of a creek but it was real wild water and it felt heavenly. there really isnt much to say about this week though. we left and worked alot even though i wasnt really supposed to... oh well. you gotta do what you gotta do. so yeah. thanks for sending me all those packages and thanks to everyone else too. blanket thank yous are much easier and much more missionary like so thats what im gonna do :) love you mom. thanks for saying that im great, even though i know im not, ill let you be right this time. love you alot. bye!

The Lords Hand Was in All of This....

Disclaimer......remember when Hayden said he was "severely protected"  well, I am a believer!!!   Since reading this like 10 times my mind has gone a bit crazy, BUT....sweet peace in my heart tells me he is ok and I am so thankful for his awesome sense of humor and the love he has for life and laughter and a Heavenly Father who loves and protects us all....especially his missionaries. 

hey there family,
                          so ive decided that this email is for all of whoever it may concern. this week was way cool. every morning we have gone over to an investigadors house and we have been helping them add on to their mud house. first we knocked down a small wall by karate kicks. my comp had a hammer and we called him thor for a bit. then after shoveling and sifting a bunch of dirt and rocks we layed a foundation to the walls we were going to put up. they used bricks made out of mud, held together by more mud. then a couple days into adding on this part of their house we had the opportunity to take out a bigger stronger wall. me and my comp took a video of us demolishing and destroying the concrete and brick mud that it was holding it together. with a combination of our man strength, my pick-ax, and his sledge hammer, we brang the wall down. after chuck norrising the wall to the the ground a willow of dust arrose and filled out nostrils and lungs. i caughed and im sure a brick came flying out of my nose. then moving on. we had to complete their roof. i gladly removed their small brick chimney. we layed down bambo sticks on top of the mud walls to be the roof. a black tarp on top of the bamboo, then we dumped a mountain of mud on top. the next day i had to do a division (where i go with a different missionary for a day) so my comp and another missionary finished the job with cement. we carved our names into their roof, of course. okay now the good part. on this division that i had with another missionary, we were late to lunch. we were absorbed into some conversation that at this point in my memory i cant recall. i dont think that you know what a kiosco is... but try to imagine that you live on a block, with no work, so you convert your window facing the street into a small store that contains chocolates, drinks, bread, all sorts of candies, and sometimes meat and cheese. okay. these kioscos have to be heavily guarded from the thieving 9 year olds running around. so they have a set of bars on the window facing the road. in the night, they cover the bars and the window with a metal awning. in the mornings and when they are open they prop up this awning to protect their window from the sun and the once or twice a year rain that comes through. argentines are midgets. so this awning was precariously placed, just like all other ones here, at about six foot and one inches. i have always been a bit of a matrix pro, but this one came out of nowhere. i was looking straight at the ground as we were walking very fast. the next thing that happens is that there is a loud noise, my head had stopped moving forward immediately while my body kept going, and the corner of this metal awning had just made best friends with my forehead. i blacked out. as i was falling to the ground, the awning slipped off of its holder and smacked me on the top of the head as well. this second hit brought me back from my blackout so i caught myself while the awning swung and slammed shut with a ferocious noise. incredible pain surged through my head. i waited to see if i would bleed, and like old faithful, it began. i crouched down, seeing stars obviously as the blood began to pour out of my face. i looked straight at the ground as the straight line of red life giving liquid escaped my head. the lady who lived there ran out of her house at this point to see my blood everywhere, my comp shocked and not saying audible words, and me laughing because of the enormous pain i was in. really when something happens you either cry or laugh. i took the summers path and laughed. she made a small squeel and ran back indoors. my comp at the time finally told me to stop the bleeding so i touched my forehead with two fingers. i didnt know where exactly i was cut. the blood didnt stop. so i took my whole palm and covered my whole forehead. it slowed down but didnt stop. i then felt the giant goose egg where i was takin out. the people invited me in, they gave me a gauze thing and we eventually slowed down the bleeding enough to wash things out. i got to a mirror and saw where i was destroyed. a lock of hair was underneath my scalp so i dug my fingers in, grabbed the hair, and pulled it out from underneath my skin. when i did this the flap of my scalp opened up and started bleeding again. we stopped the bleeding and i pulled back my scalp and saw my skull!! i almost touched it but i couldnt think straight. i showed my comp my skull and also the people who lived there. we left that house and got to where we were supposed to eat lunch. on the way we called the mission nurse. she gave me two choices. i could go and get stitches at the hospital... or use alcohol to clean the wound myself, super glue my scalp to my skull, then tie the hairs on each side of the laceration together to hold it in place. i was in favor of the second option, more manly of course, but we decided stiches was cheaper to do. so the sister who we were to eat with was a nurse for 32 years. she saw my blood and pain and snapped into nurse mode. she called this ex-police guy who is the mission leader for a different ward and they took me to the hospital. now an argentine hospital is 0 percent like an American hospital. you see bugs crawling on the floor, dogs sleeping in the hallway, the lights are hanging off of the cieling, water damage, floor damage, and it basically is a place for hurt people to come and die. we got there and the sister who was a nurse got me in the emergency room right away. all the while the bleeding hasnt stopped leaving my gapeing hole in my face. they layed me down, a nurse who worked there came and looked at me and told me she was going to do the stiches right then and there. as she said this, a real doctor walked by, saw that we were white and he recognized the missionaries. he looked at my head and said ´no worries, ill take care of this.´ after he stitched me up, they took an x-ray of my skull to see if i had any cracks up there. then they sent me away, and i kept my x-ray :) so now they have me on some medication and they seemed to have stitched a tampon looking object over my laceration. so yeah that was my adventures for the week. they wont let me leave and work more than about half an hour in the sun for a week. this happened on saturday. so yeah. but a note for this whole story of how the Lords hand was in all of this. 1. the awning hitting me for the second time and awakening me from my blackout. 2. the family that was nice and let me bleed all over their sidewalk, kitchen sinks, and bathroom. 3. the sister who was a nurse for 32 years and got us into the emergency room asap. 4. the ex-police guy who drove and illegally parked his car right at the entrance. 5. a real doctor spotted us missionaries and said he would stitch me up and not a random girl nurse. 6. the fact that there were about ten other patients in the room that they put me in who had crazy injuries to their legs and arms and all of the nurses and doctors huddled around the hurt gringo. and finally number 7. i have a tampon on my forehead so everyone sees how rediculous i look. im pretty sure that i have a concussion but they didnt check for that at the hospital. when i went to bed that night i was half expecting not to wake up haha. oh boy it was a fun day. but that was my story, im fine now, no worries. i have some medication, its like an argentine ibeprofin but a little better and some antibiotics so i dont get an infection. my skull looks way cool, in x-ray form or just me seeing it in the mirror under my scalp flap. so yeah. what an adventure no? :) love you all!

200 Empanadas

hey dad,
man that sounds like it was a great sunday. in our sunday meeting yesterday we had 20 people there, two priesthood holders, and the rest were kids and woman members. the work is tough but we are having fun when we dont get the results that we want so we dont go crazy. a few times ive gotten so frustrated i just punch my pillow, but ive picked up the habit of doing pushups to calm myself down, or just kicking the crap out of a soccer ball. it helps temporarily, kind of like drugs, but its all i got. but the best thing i do to calm down is read. doesnt matter what piece of doctrine it always helps. i think the 4 gospels are the most soothing to read, and the book of mormon is always the best. im trying to finish the spanish book of mormon before my year mark, hump day, but i still get mad. i have really been missing fishing lately. this was my first fishing season in my life that i can remember not going out and castin the old vibrex into the hole. man, those are good times. dont worry though im doing what im supposed to. the activities you had sounded awesome, i think ive forgotten what an actual ward does when they are active and have resources to have cool things and fun activities. all in due time. okay dad thanks for the letter, love ya.


allright mom your just the best. its just a fact. i got my packages on tuesday i believe and they were oh so amazing. i couldnt have asked for anything better than what i got so thank you! there was just so much stuff i dont know what i liked most, probably all of it, yeah that. it made my week way good. yesterday was mothers day here in argentina. on saturday me and my comp helped make over 200 empanadas, i dont know if you know what those are but they are good, google it. we made them and yesterday after church we got all us 20 or something people in the branch together and ate those, tiny sandwiches, pop, and had an average argentine cake to top it off. me and my comp just did what we do, they had cameras there and of course i had to show off my muscles everytime a picture was taken. then i got the cake, ran around with it, almost dropped it, saved myself, set it down. almost threw a little kid into it a few times but in the end it was safe. besides the incidents yesterday with the mom day thing nothing interesting happened all week. me and elder whittle have started a competition to see who can kill the most flies by catching them in our hand, shaking them up, then throwing them as hard as we can at the wall. we always rack up the kills at lunches because the families never talk to us and flies are all over. its definately possible to have fun in the lamest of situations. im glad i got elder whittle or else i dont know if i could do this area without going crazy, God must know what he is doin right? thanks for everything mom, your the best. period. love you lots mom