2017.05.22 Week 50 - pray for my laundry

I´m pretty sure that nothing happened this week. Except that my comp made it to twenty years. I tried to help her celebrate by doing some really special things like making Jello and putting 20 pieces of rotten apple in it. I think she felt my love. 

So here is some random stuff to fill the email:

1. There aren't couches here. I think I will cry when I see my couch again. I also think I will probably sleep on the carpet in my house for a week and it will still be more comfy than all the beds I have had here.

2. Everyone here does their hair like they are in kindergarten. Remember those weird butterfly hair-clips, yeah. Erryday.

3. Lots of people "know" English.

4. Mate is a severe addiction here, the people can't go even half a day without it.

5. You have to buy all of your food separately. This week we made fideos con tuco (spaghetti and meatballs). We had to pass by one store to buy bread, one for carne picada (ground meat), one for veggies and one for noodles. Really special.

6. You can walk to anything, cars are completely unnecessary.

7. If anyone doesn't have enough things to pray for, you can pray for my laundry. I've been washing it a large bucket for 6 months now. I will never complain about washing my clothes in America again, I'm pretty sure they are just super dirty.


LOVE YOU ALL! Have a great week and remember how much God loves you, he has prepared everything for you to be able to be happy and return to live with him.

Are you wondering if she has yellow flowers in her eyebrows? Yes she does.

2017.03.20 Week 41 - Doesn't he know it was a miracle

This was a week of many miracles. The first being that Susana got baptized. I am pretty sure it was the best day of my life. It was super great to see her baptism and be a part of it. It was a long process because of her esckitzofrenia (schizophrenia) but in the end GOD IS A GOD OF MIRACLES. She got baptized and confirmed and I am not kidding you I think it cured her enfermidad (illness).

Miracle number dos (two). I HAVE A NEW COMPANION. Hermana Little. We have been saying to each other our whole mission, "Someday we are going to be companions and it is going to be awesome!" So now here we are and I am super pumped. For the past two months I kind of just thought I was going to die every day, the good news, I DIDN'T. I was always praying for patience, love, charity, etc. Until the ultimo momentos (last moments) when I started praying for patience, love, charity, and a new companion. God answers prayers people.

Weird Story:
Walking home at night. Hear something ringing. Find a cheto phone (loosely translated as "expensive") in the street. Answer it. It's some guy. He comes and finds his phone. We invite him to church. He kisses me. He doesn't come to church. DOESN'T HE KNOW THAT IT WAS A MIRACLE THAT TWO MISSIONARIES FOUND HIS PHONE AND THAT HE SHOULD PROBABLY JUST GET BAPTIZED.

Funny Story:
A motorcycle is passing us at a corner. The guy on it screams "6-6-6" and hangs his tongue out and starts having some kind of conniption. We just burst out laughing and wonder if this guy needs to be put in some asylum.

Normal Moment:
A family of five passes on one motorcycle. In front is a kid. Then Dad. Then a different kid, then the Mom with baby in her arms.


LOVE YOU ALL. VAMOS ARRIBA

2016.10.31 Week 22 - Apparently, big cheeks are a good thing

It was a really boring and annoying week because we were in Neuquén. We were doing trámites (Passport procedures) for the whole week. This involved going to the police station one day, signing some papers. Wasting a day waiting for the papers to be passed to another office. Going to Immigrations for a day and signing three other papers. THE WORST. Oh well. I guess we are just trying to be legal. The mission president and his wife aren't even legal. No one here is legal. No importa (It doesn't matter). 

Today is Halloween and I am dressed as an American. I don't have many options, but I have to dress up for Halloween. I have to.

Interesante Momento del Semana: (Interesting moment of the week)

We eat lunch with the bishop of another ward every other Saturday. It's a really annoying situation where the best family that lives in our ward IS THE BISHOP OF THE OTHER WARD. Anyway. Here's the conversation.

Obispo: Usted está engordando? ---Bishop: Are you getting fat?

Yo: Si, claro. ---Me: Yes, of course.

30 minutos después ---30 minutes later

Obispo: Yo puedo ver que usted esta engordando. Sus mejillas son mucho mas grande ahora. Creo que tal vez esta mas saludable. Ha dicho a su Mama? ---Bishop: I can see that you're getting fat. Your cheeks are much bigger now. I believe that perhaps you are more healthy. Have you told your mom?

Yo: No ---Me: No.

Obispo: Necesita decirla. ---Bishop: You need to tell her.

Yo: No creo que es necesaria, ella puede ver en mis fotos. ---Me: I don't believe it's necessary, she can see me in the photos.

Thanks Obispo (Bishop). Thanks.

Apparently, I am getting fatter. Apparently, it's healthy. Apparently, big cheeks are a good thing. Apparently, I won't be able to use the slacks that I brought. Apparently, I should probably start exercising. Ya fue. (Nothing I can do about it now.)

I hope you all will like the fat version of me that will be returning to America en algunas meses (a few months).

Good luck out there in the world of people who aren't getting fatter every day because all you eat is bread and pasta.

Remember that God is real and is helping us every second.

2016.07.25 Week 8 - I am a blonde, white, blue eyed giant

It´s been a fantastic week for me! Definitely some hard parts but compared to last week it has been very very very VERY good. Shockingly I still am not fluent in Spanish, but despite this I am surviving. I notice everyday that I can understand more than I could the day before. Every word here is slurred together and this is called a sentence, but still everyone tells me my Spanish is very good. I´m assuming its like when I tell people their English is good. I say it because I can understand them and I get the point of what they are saying, not because it is perfect or even correct at all. I guess this is fine. Bowling last week was fun, but it turns out I am horrible. I LOVE THE FOOD AQUÏ! When the members make us lunch it is always super super good. The food that I make on the other hand is just the worst. Oh well. Everyday I eat oatmeal. OATMEAL. I hated oatmeal at home. But here I cover it in black sugar (yes black not brown), canela and slice up an apple in it. I just can't believe that I am eating oatmeal. Unreal. 

Schedule:

Get Up

Excercise

Breakfast (OATMEAL)

Study for 4 hours (4 HOURS)

Teach A Lesson (Drink Mate)

Almuerzo con un miembro (lunch with a member)

Teach about 4 more lessons/walk around for 6 hours while people tell us they didn´t actually want to have an appointment with us and can we come back another day. (Drink 50 more mates because rather than eat, people drink mate)

Plan for the next day

Dinner (Some form of a quesadilla)

Sleep

We walk a lot, a lot a lot. And it´s not walking, it's hiking. My calves are growing in like bricks. We live on a mountain and it seems like no matter where we are going we have to walk uphill, it's defying some law of science. I love the members of the ward, they are super nice and really want to help the missionaries. They also make really good food as previously mentioned. Sunday I got a blessing from the Bishop because our mission president asked all of us to get a blessing in order to strengthen our relationship with the Bishop. It was a super good blessing and helped me a lot.

Funny Stories of the Week:

We have an open house in the chapel every week for 1 hour on Fridays. This guy stops purely because he can tell that I speak English.  (I am a blonde, white, blue eyed giant here, there is nowhere for me to hide, kids are actually scared of me) I talk to him for a while and ask him where he's from. He says he is from the United States but was kicked out for practicing his religion. I ask what religion. He says, "I guess you would call it Christian" Hmm. Ok. Whatever. We talk more about religion and it turns out him and his family have been kicked out of a bunch of countries for practicing their religion. He was actually LOCO. We asked him what he believed about God and he went into some commentary about how the church is the spouse of Jesus, and how evil the government is. Then we found out that his family are the only people practicing whatever religion. I can't be sure but I am pretty sure their religion is some form of terrorism. PSYCHO, but really funny.

I go to turn off the sink in the kitchen after washing some dishes. The knob just falls off of the sink. Water is just shooting in this giant stream into the kitchen. AHHHHHHH. I start yelling AYUDAME (help me!) My companion comes over and then we spend forever trying to fix it. It was seriously sooooo funny, but so annoying. The whole kitchen was a lake. We tried to turn off the water in our house but that switch apparently doesn't work. So we were trying to fix the knob while the water kept shooting. Eventually we got it fixed and it was very very funny! We are both soaking wet and the kitchen is a lake. WELCOME TO NOT AMERICA.

Spiritual Thought of the Week:

The gospel truly blesses lives. It is so much more obvious here than in America because most people in America are just richer in general, but here the people who are members just have so much more. You can see the gospel in their homes, their food, their faces, their cars, their clothes. Everything. The gospel isn't just this fun nice thing. It actually makes a huge difference in our lives. And when we live it we are SO blessed. I want more people to receive these blessing and this is just another reason to serve a mission!