2017.06.26 Week 55 - turning Argentine

There was a giant party in Senillosa because the bishop got changed this week. So next week we will be waiting for those 600ish members who are apparently inactive because of the old bishop. We are pretty pumped for the new bishop because he was our líder misional (ward mission leader) before and he is a really cool guy.

Also, I ate more Mondongo this week. Gotta love those innards. To be completely honest it was super yummy. By far the best Mondongo I have ever eaten. I am either crazy or turning Argentine. 

The Elders here are the worst, just the worst. Looking for that green card. Luckily my companion and I are really good at ignoring them. Eternal marriage is actually the goal AFTER the mission. 

We are struggling to find people who are interested in the gospel. We have talked to TONS of people. Any second now we are going to find someone who has interés. 

Nerdy gospel talk for the week is this:
God has a set of laws. They were set up a super long time ago. If we stick to them we get blessed. If we don't we get sad. Stick to them because it's better to get blessed than to get sad.

(There are lots of great references to what I just said in THE SCRIPTURES, feel free to look them up)

LOVE YOU ALL, KILL IT IN THE REAL WORLD

Also, I was in La Anonima (supermarket) and heard some music that must be new. WOW. What a weird way to express yourself

.

(Corazon=heart)

2017.06.19 Week 54 - the most important thing

Had a great week in Senillosa. It's a really small town. You can walk from one end to the other in about 30 minutes. There aren´t many options for buying food in town. We take a bus to Plottier to write our e-mails, and we are going to buy food here. And basically, nothing happens here, but the people are really nice and I am loving it. The ward is STRUGGLING to say the least, there are 600 members on record and about 15 adults go to church. We are planning to do what we can to help it out.

My comp is great, she's Hermana Silva de Brasil. I already love her and we are learning a lot together.

In other news, anyone I come in contact with after my mission is honestly super lucky that I went on a mission. My mission has changed me in pretty much every possible way. Obviously, I am still the same person as when I left, and I have the same personality, but fija (obviously), I´m different. I think it's all this clothes washing in the bathroom sink. I am also a way better cook now. I´m pretty pro at anything that has dough. Bread, rolls, pizza crust, scones, torta frita (fry bread), tortillas, etc. Don´t need a recipe or anything, thanks Argentina. This could also be the reason for the weight gain, but we are just going to ignore that.

Besides improving my ability to cook, and clean, I am also very grateful for all the things I have learned about God and Christ. I can now say that I am actually "converted." I really know that the things I am sharing are true, they apply to our lives, and they are going to make us happy. There is NOTHING more important than living the gospel, we live in a world of super small perspectives that makes it seem like lots of things are the "most important thing," but they are not. I am sure if we all just tried to have an eternal perspective a little more often, the world would be a very different place.

So this is my invitation to all of you. Think of your life for a second, what is the most important thing for you right now? Now think again, but with an eternal perspective? So what SHOULD be the most important thing for you?

HAVE A GREAT WEEK PIBES (Argentine term of affection referring to children)

2017.06.05 Week 52 - a muffin for my year anniversary

My comp is nice and made me a muffin for my year anniversary.

We are really good at doing ParKor. (No idea how to spell that) 

As a missionary, I have no problem taking a nap on a pile of rocks. Todo tranquilo

2017.05.29 Week 51 Please let me eat my innards in peace

Some homies.

Thanks for the knife Dad, I am the only Scout in this country.

Asado.

Yep.

Happy Birthday, companion. Here's some fake American food.

"Don't worry, it's not a bad day, it's a bad life" - Hermana Howard

Locro: basically soup with a lot of mystery meat. A classic of 25 de Mayo.

Please let me eat my innards in peace.

Classic Argentine, ironing a t-shirt just so that it will dry.

2016.12.26 Week 29 - We brought gingerbread cookies

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas and could remember Christ a little bit. Not much happened here, but I got to talk to my family and that was super great. Sort of. There are a few more people taller than me now so I don't know if I'm ever gonna go home. But they are really great. 

This week was spent with us trying to find a pension (apartment) to rent for the new elders that are going to be in our area. We just pretended we were on HGTV with a really small budget and really ugly furniture.

For Christmas Eve we went and ate with our favorite Italians. He cooked a trout he caught for us. It was a three course meal all with homemade noodles. It couldn't have really been more delicious. 

They also almost cried when we they saw that we brought gingerbread cookies. They took a million pictures of them and told us how they have only ever seen them in the movies. It made us feel like we were on food channel, real deal chefs or something great like that. 

Sunday we had church for an hour and were surprised to see someone from the area presidency there, he gave a great talk. Also, we are super excited because Elder Nelsen is going to come to our mission in April. I can´t wait to meet that guy!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

~Sent from my Internet Cafe~

This is what it looks like when you are dying of frio (cold) in your pension (apartment).

Here is some other picture that was to small for me to see what it was but I hope it was really great.

Here's us with some food.

2016.10.03 Week 18 - I am super scared to do this

As usual, conference was the best.  It was pretty much like Christmas. I was happy because I could watch it in English and was really happy with the focus on member missionary work. We are about a million times more effective when we are teaching with members and teaching the friends of members! DO IT PEOPLE.

I made cinnamon rolls for general conference and was really proud of myself. They were hardcore with yeast and everything! People didn't hate them so that's good news.

This week was kind of crazy with my companion getting ready to leave the country and packing but all is well. Right now we are Neuquen so that she can leave for home tomorrow.

I am super sad about her leaving, she is THE BEST. I am also really sad that a large chunk of our district is leaving this transfer. Somehow we got lucky and were all together for two transfers so we are all really good friends, it's sad to see a lot of them go, but I know they can help other areas.

I'm feeling really prideful right now because we heard from the president that we are the only area baptizing right now. YES! Obviously better if everyone is baptizing, but I am proud of my district.

Oh, yeah, I'm staying in Bariloche this transfer and I am super excited about this, Bariloche is super pretty and I love it there. I got kind of shocking news during transfers, I will be training this translado (transfer). So as of right now I don't know who my new companion is. I am super scared to do this considering I actually haven't even finished my training. WHYYYY?

Other random fact... There is no toilet paper in public bathroom stalls here. There is toilet paper outside of the bathroom and you just have to carry a ton in with you. Sometimes it's free, sometimes no. LOCOS (crazy).

The final miracle of the week: Ricardo. Ricardo is our investigator who is a drunk living in the street. When we first saw him, me and my companion thought that he had a lot of potential so we talked to him. He told us in the first lesson that he would NEVER PRAY. And then he moved. But this week he moved back. He told us he has been praying EVERY DAY. And he stopped drinking. MILAGROS (Miracles). He literally looks different and I am so excited to see how this gospel will change and bless his life.

2016.09.12 Week 15 - Piojos. Lice. Disgusting.

Can´t believe that another week has passed. It seems like I never have anything to say here.

This week we visited Trevelin it very much reminded me of Rockland (ID). It's very small but I really like it. Much more calm than Bariloche. Also apparently we have two different old people missionaries in our mission. One couple lives in Trevelin. Pobres (Poor people), our colé (bus) popped a tire on the ride to Trevelin so we were really late and missed our transfer colé (bus). So at about 1:30 AM they came and picked us up from the terminal. They were really nice.

This week we had......wait for it.......its super fun and exciting........it's not a type of food.........piojos. Lice. Disgusting. So we spent part of a day dealing with that and I laughed remembering earlier this year when my whole family thought we had lice. My companion has had lice three times on her mission so I am expecting to receive more visits than just one. It's the final weeks of her mission and she is really sad to go home. She is super awesome and I have really learned a ton from her, I will be sad to receive a new companion but I'm sure all will be well.

This week we were really trying hard to find new investigators because a lot of our investigators have stopped progressing. This week we found quite a few new investigators but I am specifically excited for two of them. Carolina is a girl from Chile who I think is 20 years old. She wants to be a nurse and is here going to Universidad. We had our first lesson with her and the first thing we asked is "Who is God for you?" She was already crying after this question and the spirit was there from that moment on. I am really excited to see how she progresses.

Victor is the other new investigator that I am really excited for. He is a neurologist. I love teaching smart people. The gospel really is logical and when people can understand it, everything makes sense. He told us he loves to read so I decided to give him a Book of Mormon and we explained what it was. He was very interested in the idea of Christ in the Americas and seemed very excited to read it. The Book of Mormon is really the key, if people are reading it they can feel the spirit and they know that what we are teaching is true! I am very excited to see how things go with Victor.

Drunk people here always try to talk to me in English. It's funny and annoying. People in general always want to speak in English. I usually cannot understand their English. It's better if they just speak Spanish, but I am happy to help with English. There are a few people in the ward trying to learn and get better. It's fun to not be the only one who doesn´t know a language.

Blood Sausage. Yep, I ate that. We went to a member's house for lunch on Sunday and had an asado ( a type of Argentine barbeque). It was super yummy. It's basically like eating at Tucanos. The meat here is SO good. Everyone says it, but it's not a lie. So there was this one sausage looking thing that they kept telling me I had to try. I assumed it was meat because everything was meat. So I tried it. it pretty much tasted like refried beans to me. I didn´t think it was bad at all. Everyone was watching me when I ate it and acting really weird so I finally asked, "WHAT IS THIS?" Then they tried to explain in a very delicious sounding way that it was blood. Mondongo was definitely worse for me. They were all pretty much completely shocked that I thought it was fine. Apparently, everyone hates it. Now that I know what it was, it's more gross because the idea of eating a sausage filled with blood is disgusting.

I hope all is well in America. Good luck with Donald and Hillary. Enjoy the milk and butter. Dairy here is a nightmare. Argentina is the best and I am super happy to be here and also loving my mission!

~~~

Rachel sent an e-mail with photos, but the pictures didn't make it.

These are from her mission president's FB page.

Bariloche Zone Conference.

2016.08.22 Week 12 - We are good friends, she understands me

It was translados (transfers) this week but I am still with my companion and in the same area. I'm super happy about that because she is the best and I also love my area. We spent another week traveling and went to San Martin. It was really pretty and I was super pumped to see my homie, Hermana Nokes again!

This week I was honored to eat more pastel de papas. NOT. Pastel de Papas is basically Shepherd´s Pie with a lot of meat and I think I ate it a thousand times recently. I love shepherd pie, just not every day. The good thing is that one family made us pizza that was SUPER YUM. It was just like the pizza at Pizzeria Limon, but it was never ending. SO GOOD.

Right now we have two investigators really close to baptism so I am super excited about that and hope to be able to send home pictures of their baptisms soon.

It feels like I write home every day because the time passes so quickly so I can never think of anything to say. But I love being on a mission, it's really hard but I can see blessings every day.

I didn't buy a sleeping bag here. The mission president's wife would not let me leave the mission home without one. They have a bunch there. I don't really need it, it's mostly nice because I travel a lot and need somewhere to sleep in other people's pensións (apartment). I could literally sleep naked it's so hot upstairs in our pension, but downstairs the heater is broken so I use the sleeping bag to study in because it's freezing. I'm really glad that I brought the blankets, I don't like using sleeping bags. 

We shop for food in "La Anonima" it's just a grocery store. But we buy bread in a bakery, fruit and vegetables in a verdulería, meat at the butcher, etc. It´s cheaper if you buy specific items in a store for those items.

Sidenote: I can never figure out how to flush toilets here. Usually there is just a hole in the wall and you have to find the exact thing to lift or push or pull to flush it. It´s embarrassing. Also, every house has one of those things that shoots water on your bum. No one uses them, they are just tp storage. 

Other Sidenote: I am teaching one family who is super awesome. They made the joke that since I'm staying in the area they need to buy a bigger fridge because I always eat a lot when we visit them. She always asks, "Does anyone want more?" If I don't respond she just stares at me until I do because she knows I want more. We are good friends, she understands me.

2016.08.08 Week 10 - I think God protects us with dogs sometimes

I pretty much can´t remember anything that happened this week. So here are some random facts about my life.

1. There are dogs EVERYWHERE. Millions of dogs living in the street. I think God protects us with dogs sometimes. Randomly one dog will just walk with us all the way to an appointment. Or accompany us to church. I hope that they would actually protect us if there was a problem. I name every dog Alejandro and then me and my companion sing Lady Gaga. Overall they are annoying and gross, sometimes they block the road and we can´t get to appointments.

2. Graffiti on everything. It´s funny that people think they need to write their name on every single thing.

3. The food is soooooo good. Lots of pasta and meat. Also potatoes. And bread. And cake. And pudding. And pie. And fish. Basically just every good thing.

4. There was some strange drunk man following us this week. We ran away and all is well.

5. It´s really cold. Tons of rain. Tons of snow. Tons of mud. Rainboots are a miracle.

6. All of the members in my ward are really awesome. It´s like having 30 parents.

7. I wear tights every day. I hate them but it´s freezing. They are the same ones I brought. I´m not really sure why they said to buy tights here, I don´t even know where you would buy tights here.

8. The men here only harass me when they are drunk. There are quite a few borrachos (drunks) here. Mostly I walk past and then hear after "Que bonita" (So beautiful). It's pretty funny.

9. We have a clothes washer. It´s pretty junky but I am really grateful for it. My clothes always come out of it covered in gross hairballs. (We thought she would be "washing" her clothes in a bucket.)