Week Six from the Argentine MTC April 1, 2010

Hey everyone,,

It´s exciting to let youknow how things are going here. Life is really exciting right now. Thanks for the packages. I got 2 today (easter candy and 1 shoe.) I'm wearing the one shoe right now to show my appreciation.)

Anyways, things are really exciting now. We're looking forward to conference. Still trying to figure out what language we get it in. I think there's a pretty good chance we get it in english. If not, we might get spanish subtitles. Either way, I get to hear and see dad in the choir, so that's exciting. The conference schedule here is crazy. we're watching 4 hours straight at one point, staying up late (11:00) to watch Priesthood Session live. I don't know of any real easter things that we do here other than they shut down the mail system for a couple days during Semana Santa, including today. The candy was very nice. It felt like easter today.

We have had some speakers at the CCM. every three weeks (so every latino group sees one and every gringo group sees 3) a general authority comes. The first one was Elder...Civic(sp?) and the second one was Elder Aidukaitis (who was the one who gave the talk on the Brazilian monkey traps in conference. a couple days after his talk here, I opened up the New Era and there was that talk.) That's about the extent of the guest speakers here. I don't think it's quite like Provo, but we watch recorded devotionals from Provo too.

Terminology\mission vocab explanation for Dad: First three weeks- Gringos o Nuevos, second three weeks- Norteamericanos, third three weeks- 6-weekers, regardless of actual time you ´´Have´´ here. They say how long you've been here the same way they do age. I've never heard Verdecitos, Oros, or Greenies out here. Our lessons are called Lecciones, instead of Platicas. We are only supposed to use Usted with everyone but God. In prayers, we use Tú because Usted is too distant of a relationship. No one will teach vos, because we're not supposed to use it as missionaries. I'm going to learn it for after though. It sounds like it makes a lot of sense.

The group three weeks ahead of us left a couple days ago and it's been sad. I had some really good friends in that group, but we are the 6-weekers now(see prev. paragraph.) It seems like we haven't been here for very long at all. I have a time strategy. I use the past time I've already completed, use how long it actually feels like, and apply it to the rest of the mission and it doesn't seem near as long, even when things are going rough, but usually, everything is awesome. We're working hard and learning tons and Proseletismo makes everything go by faster because we have something to look forward to and mark the weeks by.

Good to hear everything's going well at home. Sounds like there's some fun easter stuff going on and it's good to have people together again.

Proseletismo:

We went to our Cita with Pablo, but he wasn't home and there was a lady that seemed like his mother who told us to go away, so...there goes that one. We're checking back next week just in case.
Mauricio was....interesting. We met him at the ice cream shop and he showed up a little late. We asked him how his reading went. He told us he read everything, he was asking really good questions and the lession was going really well. I asked if he believed that Joseph Smith really recieved the First Vision. He told me he did and that it made a lot of sense to him. So we got excited...then...He told us that he liked the fact that the First Vision was out in nature instead of in a church...because Mauricio is always in nature when he recieves his visions. We didn't really know what to do. We asked to meet with him again, but he couldn't next week and it's our last time in the area. We have his email address, but that's it, so...that was kind of disappointing.

Right after that, though, we met Fernando, Analía, and Teo. Fernando came to replace Pablo I think. They're also a church video family. Teo is the cutest little baby I've seen down here in South America. He had blue eyes, I couldn't believe it. Analía was really excited for everything we had to say. We set up a Cita and she asked if we had anything she could read. Sí, Analía, we do have something you can read. That's our appointment we're most excited about for this week.

Another exciting one is Ramiro's family. Ramiro looks just like Rafael Nadal and they're another church movie family. Everything just fell into place on saturday. I'm so excited for this next one.

It is interesting meeting all these people who I practiced grammar with in my high school textbooks. Pablo, Ramiro, Ramiro, Hernesto, Fernando, Mauricio, Teo, Anabela, Analía, Maria, Maria, Maria, Marta, Diego, y Abril. I love the people here. I'm glad I've had the chance to serve here in Argentina along with Uruguay. It's so obvious the Lord is in charge of mission calls. I've been blessed and I know the people here are being served by the work.

Talk to you next week! Hope everything's going well!