May 31, 2010

so here is my letter this week.  so last monday i left everyone off with the ward activity for the day.  after i was done with internet, we went back to the church and they had a talent show.  at the talent show it was basically all things to do with music.  some of the women in the relief society did some dance thing  that was accompanied with music, but the video is really big so i cant send it through gmail.  then there was a lot of people that played guitar, a few people sang, and then that was about it.  that afternoon we made coffee cake! yeah! and it was really good!

except i am told that down here they arent used to so much cinnammon or something, so it is very strong for people down here, but they like it anyways.

i mentioned that this week was their independence day something or other. it was actually their 200th anniversary of it, but it wasnt as big as i thought it was going to be.  there werent actually very many people in the street. most people stayed home, so we had a relatively good day of work.

so here is a somewhat funny story i suppose.  on tuesday, we had our normal morning of work, and we had to take a bus back closer to our apartment to eat lunch with a member.  we were supposed to eat at 1, so we needed to take the bus at about 1245.  we walked past one house and i thought ´´what time is it?´´ so i looked at my watch and said ´´that cant be right... its 1:04.´´  my comp said ´´no thats not right..´´ and proceeded to take out his watch.  5 seconds later, ´´ahh its 1:05! we´re late!´´  so i guess that just shows how fast time passes by during the day...  Tuesday also marks the day that i found out that Argentina has a woman as president.  didnt know that.

apparently her husband was the president before her, too.  so i guess argentina likes this family.  tuesday night we went and had a lesson with a member that lives 3 houses down from us.  and ta-da!  she is now going to make us breakfast once or twice a week!

and that gets me started on Wednesday... it was zone conference and so we had to go to the offices.  the offices is the only time we can check our weight, and i had gained 3 kilos. although i think most of that is upper body muscle. so yeah, the zone conference. we spent basically the entire day in Ramos Mejia, where the offices are located.  apparently the zone conference was one of the better conferences that they have had in a while, which was good since i really liked it.  wednesday we also received 3 referrals from other areas in the mission.  we were really excited about one of them, it had the ´´baptize them´´ symbol on it.  too bad the address they gave us doesnt exist... we tried finding it 3 times. bah.

thursday we started off our day by going to the far reaches of one of the corners of our area.  yeah... there wasnt really anything there so we probably wont be going back anytime soon.  thursdays are the days that we do our weekly planning sessions, and during this weeks session we spent a lot of time creating cards and things that members could give to our investigator that is going to get baptized this saturday.

so far it is working out very well, each card tells them to call her, share their testimony, motivate to baptism, express love, and invite her to read  a scripture.  each card also has a specific scripture that we chose, and the 6 scriptures in order will hopefully motivate her more to baptism.  that night we had a lesson with Silvia, our investigator with baptismal date.  after the lesson, she asked the question "how do you think of me, as a member, investigator, etc, and what do you say in your prayers about me".  S. Campos said that that was one question she had

never heard an investigator ask before (and she served a mission too) so we answered the question and said basically we pray for her that she will receive an answer to her prayers and that she will know that this church is true.  well, she really liked our answer.  Nuf said.
We took a bus later that night... and we got on with a bunch of kids who had just gotten out of school. their uniform is blue, and my companion had on a blue jacket.  the bus driver thought he was a little kid, so only charged him 10 cents instead of 1.10.  how embarrassing... haha.

Friday we started our divisions with our district leader.  i stayed in my area, and the district leader came with me.  it was nice having someone that only spoke spanish, i got to practice things that you dont really say when talking to other people.  since Silvia will have to have the baptismal interview with our district leader, i thought it would be good for her to meet him before the interview.  so i took him to meet Silvia, and she really liked him.  she actually invited us into her house too! first time.  AND we saw her husband (who doesnt really want anything to do with religion, but doesnt have a problem with his wife getting baptized either, so yay).  being in her house also felt a lot like deja-vu, which was pretty weird.  then we looked for the family that had the baptize me symbol on their card, but couldnt find them.  what we did end up finding was another family with the same last name, which was pretty weird.  then my district leader cooked 11 eggs for dinner, and ate 200 grams of chocolate as well. what the heck, chocolate and eggs. thats a champions dinner right there.

Saturday, it rained. the. entire. day.  Nothing much happened in the morning because we had to go switch back to regular comps, so fast forward to dinner.  we had lunch at Marias, the same place we have lunch on tuesdays, and breakfast on sundays.  after lunch, since it was still raining hard, we helped her clean the church.  i took the
sacrament room, and her son (who is a little menace...) came in and sat down doing nothing.  hes like 13 or something.  so i started talking to him while i was sweeping the floor and moving the chairs around.  i ended up basically teaching him the plan of salvation for an entire hour, while he asked me different questions about why no
girlfriends before 16, things like that.  and i am told that it was a good thing that i was able to talk to him, since normally he doesnt listen to anybody.  so hopefully i am on his good side right now. that night there was a baptismal service in the area next to ours (the girl that we taught everything to, but this area took the baptism
since she lived in their area.. did i mention that?).  so yeah, we were invited since the grandma lives in our area, and we had taught her everything.  Well we took Silvia along with us, and she really liked the baptismal service.  I also spent a lot of time talking to her, since I will be the one baptizing her this coming Saturday, and she got really comfortable with me.  so yay!

And now Sunday.  that morning it was quite cold, i was very surprised.  however throughout the day it warmed up  alot, almost to the point of it being hot.  uck.  in priesthood, there were only 2 other people besides us.  and one of them left like 5 times because he had to talk with someone from the stake.  that was a bit weird.  We also did the
baptismal interview questions with Silvia after church as well.  She did well, so I am pretty sure she is going to pass this coming Thursday.  Then we went to a members house, and went with us to teach a lesson to an inactive family.  well, we went there, and the inactive family was being... odd.  more or less, they think we dont stop by
their house at all (when we have stopped by 2 times a week for the past 3 weeks).  So my comp got frustrated, so i dont think we will be going to their house again until he leaves on the 20th.  Then we went to another members house, and another set of missionaries were there. one of them has the same amount of time as me, so i asked him how long they had been there.  he said since about 1 (it was now 6:30), and said his comp was feeling trunky (home sick).  They only left a few minutes afterwards because we showed up.  Then we went to Campos, and I spent a while doing 创magic tricks创 for 2 of their daughters.

and now were at today.

for pronouncing castellano,  cas tay shawn oh.  yes, we practice teaching lessons every day during comp study. its more or less role play. when  one of us is teaching, the other pretends to be the investigator.  we leave at 10:30 every day.  yes, it is a rigid schedule in the morning.

One more thing.  tomrrow we have a conference thingy with Elder Atchikuai soemthing or other, of the 70.  He is going to talk to our zone and another zone, so thats 40 people in total, and its going to last most of the day.  Cool.

May 25, 2010

Hello again...

First of all, last Tuesday I received the package that you sent me.  Adam - nice pick on backpack.  I really like it!  Dad - very nice selection on pictures.  They were all great, and everybody really likes looking at all the pictures I have now.

Today we have a ward activity at the church (we already went for about 30 minutes, but its going to continue through the day) because tomorrow is their independence day or something, and since it is on a tuesday, everybody just says ´why work monday?´ so they take monday and wednesday off as well.  

Yesterday, it started raining a TON.  I´ve only seen it rain this hard a few times (times in the U.S. included).  On Sunday it was ward conference.  The bishop got released! After 10 years, it was a little weird.  We also no longer have a ward mission leader.  He got released and they didn´t call anew one.  We had lunch at a members house, and had to stay there for almost 2 hours because of super heavy rain.  There was a break, so we decided to try to go to some appointments.  Well, it started raining really hard again, and so we decided to take a break under a kiosco umbrella thing.  We waited there for nearly 30 minutes, and then decided it wasn´t going to get much better, so we had to go to the Campos for basically the rest of the day.  By the time we got there, my pants were soaked up to almost my pockets.  But Today we can see sky and things, so I think the rain is just about done for now.

Saturday my comp and the mom of an inactive member had a big conversation about homosexuality.  Naturally, I didn´t say much (I didn´t have anything to say and I don´t think I could have said it in spanish if I did...).  We were walking and some guy we had talked to earlier in the month called us over.  While we were talking to him, some super drunk/high guy came out.  I have never actually seen someone so high or drunk.  He was actually swaying as he walked, and couldnt really talk.  He was drinking beer too.  Wow, drink beer to get yourself unhigh.  There was one point where we thought he was going to break a beer bottle on my companions head, but some weird girl that smoked a lot stood up for him.  It was interesting, to say the least.  Saturday was also the day I laid down on my bed after planning, and I just fell asleep.  Didn´t even change clothes.  Although that´s the first time that that has happened.    We had a lesson with a woman named Silvina.  She had just moved into our area, and the missionaries from the previous area had already talked with her.  She is very nice, and wants to get baptized, but she is not married.

Speaking of baptism, I think I mentioned Silvia earlier, S. Campos´ friend.  We got a baptism date on her for June 5th! That was pretty exciting.  The same day that we got the baptism date on Silvia(Thursday), we had a lesson with an investigator with a baptism date from another area.  She had cancelled the other missionaries because she had to be with her grandmother, who is in our area.  Anyways, we taught her lesson 3, 10 commandments, word of wisdom, law of chastity, Sabbath Day.  Wow.  That was a ton of information in one lesson.  Almost a weeks worth of lessons.

On Wednesday we visitied Mario, the one who recently got married.  He doesn´t want to get baptized now because of a few members that are being bad examples in the ward.  Well we visited with him, and afterwards told him that he could take his time to pray and decide if he wanted to be baptized, but that we wouldn´t visit him until he told us definitively yes or no.  But we are stillin contact with his wife.  The bad thing about that, is that the family that was being a bad example, their son in law just got put in as the new bishop.  So that family now holds 80% of the leadership positions in the ward.  Good thing Mario doesn´t know that yet...

On Tueday we had district meeting where I got my package, and we also got a box of Book of Mormons.  40 bom´s in one box, that thing weighs a ton! and we had to take it on the train, bus, and carry it all the way back to our apartment.  That was terrible.  I see why people hate ordering book of mormon boxes.

As far as adjustment to Argentina goes, I can understand a LOT more Castellano, although I may not be able to speak it the best.  I carry on conversations and things with adults and kids, so I have a wide range of understanding.

I guess that´s just about it... I think my letters are getting shorter for some reason.  Just not as much interesting things have happened.  tomorrow is apparently going to be a lot like the first week of May, with tons of people everywhere, and I think they are doing another air show.  Until next week I suppose....

-Collin

May 17, 2010

So I only really have 3 decent pictures worth sending this week.  One is 70 pesos in coins.  

We basically only use coins for bus travel... since bus´s wont take anything else.  Down here, coins are hard to come by.  Luckily for my area, the bishop and his wife can exchange bills for coins, and this is what I got in return.  A bunch of coins.  


The other 2 pictures are the of the family Barua.  

The mom is basically a member... she just can´t get married because divorces take 7 years down here.  The dad isn´t interested.  The kids are members though.

As far as the week goes... I always end up starting at the end and going backwards, since I use what I write in my journal for ideas.  


So sunday...  We had a really good investigator show up to church.  She is a friend of Sis Campos (bishops wife) and was also a referral.  We ran into her on saturday night, and she told us she really felt like going to church, and she showed up the next day! she really liked it, and actually participated a lot in gospel principles class, or whatever its called.  We stopped by Marios house in the afternoon.  Did I say that they finally got married??   But he doesn´t want to get baptized now, since he sees some people in the church as really bad examples.  So we´ve been going to his house a lot recently trying to improve that.. Also, this morning at like 8, Marios (now) wife called us and said she had her baby.  She was HUGE, so it wasn´t really a surprise.  The baby weighed 4.7 kilos, whatever that is in pounds.  Apparently that is a beast of a baby down here.  Then we went to the Barua´s, and after we left, their dog followed us for over 15 blocks, and whenever we stopped to talk to people, it would sit down and wait for us.  That´s probably because I am the only person that shows it any love.  It actually served as a distraction from another dog that was barking at us.  Oh, here is something I found kind of interesting.  Within the past 2 days, the Campos´ cat has fallen asleep in my arms 4 times, and a puppy of another member fell asleep in my arms twice.

Saturday was pretty cold.  In the morning it was something like 2 degrees C, and was really windy too.  I had to put on my thermal undershirt, and I used my gloves.  We gave another area in our zone a referral, it was the granddaugter of a member in our ward that had shown up to church a couple times.  Well, that area called us back the next day, and said they had a baptismal date with her.  We went to visit the member in our ward the next day, and the girl and her family was there, and apparently she doesn´t like the ward that she lives in, and so she wants to get baptized in our area, since she goes to church with her grandma anyways.  So we´ll see how that works out, I dont know if we can do that or not...  We went to the church to stop by the bathroom, and I ended up killing a mosquito with a cigarette lighter.  I didn´t smash it, I killed it with fire.  That was pretty fun.

On Friday, we started off the day by helping the Campos´ clean the church building.  We weren´t there very long though, for like half an hour.  One of the Campos girls had that skateboard thing (dont remember the name...) where it is like two halves, and each can rotate independently, and it only has one wheel on each side.  I tried it, since I had used it before, and I just fell on my butt every time.  It was pretty amusing none the less.

On Thursday, we had a really good day.  In the morning before lunch, we had already gotten the goals for the day.  In the afternoon, I helped make pizza.  I got to smash my hands into the dough and everything.  Fun!  While I was doing that, one of the daughters was trying to tell me a lot of jokes in spanish, but I didn´t understand any of them.  Jokes in spanish are hard to understand... haha.

On Wednesday, I decorated my missionary planner.  Its a fairly common thing to do, at least in our mission.  The normal planners are white and blue, and are boring to look at.  So we cut out pictures from the missionary pamphlets and tape them onto the front.  Mine looks very professional.  I had to take a hanger and burn holes through the sides to get the binding back on.  that was easily the most fun part.  I was surprised I could get metal redhot from just the stove.

On Tuesday, we had our District Meeting and things.  Our new district leader wasn´t there, since he had to be at the offices since he is training this transfer.  So the zone leaders just talked to everybody for a really long time.  Nothing special happened.  That day marked the first time we have ever been on time to lunch on a Tuesday!  Don´t know how we left so early from district meeting, but okay.  We decided to confirm an appointment real quick, and he said we could come by.  So we stopped by (5 minutes later) and his wife said he had just left.  Good game...

Thats about it for the week.  Don´t really know what else to put.  I hope I get the package tomorrow.  I want the pictures...

-Collin

Mother's Day Weekend

Collin telephoned home on Mother's Day and we were able to talk with him for almost an hour. He is doing great and loves Argentina. He's now been in Argentina 6 weeks and participated in his first transfer meeting today. Mission transfers happen every 6 weeks. Some missionaries are transfered and get new companions and others are not. Collin will be remaining with his current companion / trainer for at least another 6 weeks.

Here's his latest email.....
So I am sitting in the mission offices right now, since my companion had to call his mom, and he wanted to do it for free. I have been here since 9 this morning, and it is now 3:40, he'll probably be here for another hour or so. so there is another pday gone at the offices. anyways, as of today, i have had my first transfer meeting. nothing much really happens in them. the president talks for about 30 minutes or so, and the mission presidents wife talks for 10 or 15. then they show us a lot of pictures from the transfer that has just completed, as well as the stats for all the zones and areas such as how many baptisms, how many lessons, contacts, etc. they also show us the trend from the past year, so we know if we did worse or better than previous transfers. this transfer was really bad apparently. the trend showed a huge drop in basically everything except for referrals from people. but that was also part of the trend, which was kind of interesting. every other transfer was good then bad, and so next transfer is hopefully going to be really good! then they had all the people that were leaving bear their testimonies and things. and then they showed us who would be the people that were actually doing transfers. that was easily the most exciting part. it was also the time when we all found out who was going to be training replacements and things. then after that, it was basically over. we got our mail today, since everybody was here. oh by the way, there were probably about 120 missionaries here.

so we just did something pretty interesting on our way back to our area. we had to take the train with 2 sisters, since they are not allowed to ride the train alone. anywho, they were a stop past ours, so we went with them, and then we took another train back to our area. well, when we got off, the train we needed to get on was just sitting there, not moving, but the doors were closed, and once theyre closed you cant really get them open. so we were a bit annoyed. well, we kept walking, and what do you know! we saw a busted out window. we thought .. hey, the train isnt moving, and its a big window! lets jump in... so we did. thats something i havent ever really done before haha, climb into a train through a window.

i ate the first thing this past week that i have not liked in argentina. it was liver. it was absolutely disgusting. i ate about 30% of it, and then i couldn´t eat anymore. yuck.

this past wednesday was also the first time that i have eaten a meal at a members house without them being there. they told us that they werent going to be there, and to just go in and take the food out of the fridge and eat it. so we did so. they ended up showing up about the last 15m, so we talked to them for 15m and then continued our day. that was interesting i guess.

we had pench inspections this past week as well. i dont know if i have said this before, but my companion is a clean freak. so it wasnt surprising that we had the cleanest pench in the entire mission. we got an award today for having the cleanest pench, we got some candy or something. and we beat out some sisters for it too, they got second place, hah.

anywho, yeah i know that this is a short letter, but i feel like i already told mom and dad everything last night. i don´t really have many other stories to put into this, because we didn´t really do much work. my companion seems to be shutting down for the last few months of his mission... so its difficult to actually do things. so hopefully i can get some work done this transfer...

Argentina's Labor Day and other Adventures

This week has been quite interesting, I suppose. On the first of May, it was Argentinas labor day, and so everybody was out and about. Well, as I think i have told you before, we have an airbase in our area, which is actually just a few blocks from our apartment. On the 30th, 1st, and 2nd, the airbase puts on a huge air show, and TONS of people come from all around EVERYWHERE to watch it.

so on those days we had cars parked everywhere.... a billion people walking the streets, people setting up shops on the side of the street... it was kind of wild. so on those days, we couldn´t really find many people at home so didn´t do much real missionary work. we handed out a ton of pamphlets though. we also went into the air base, and they had a museum and we looked at that for a while. i took a BUNCH of pictures and videos and things, but it is way too many to send.

here is one of the heart the airplanes did. there were even parachuters... but they were really far away when i took the picture. they had jets as well... they were REALLY loud. they would fly way out, and get low to the ground and fly over the air base. well... when they did so, they were probably only 400 or 500 meters above the ground. the ground actually shook when they flew by, and i couldn´t believe how loud it was. but i couldnt get any pictures of the jets. they were way too fast by the time i got my camera out.

we have been teaching this one lady, about 70ish, and been trying to get her to church and things. she got a concussion or something, and so we decided to give her a blessing. well she said that the day after we gave her a blessing, the concussion went away. that was pretty cool. although she still hasn´t attended church...

i have never seen a bus get into any type of accident until this week... and i saw 2. both within 200 meters. one, the bus bumped the car in front of him, no biggie. the other way wayy funnier. the bus stopped, and a car kept going. well, he busted his front headlight, and everybody turned and saw because it made a really loud noise. the funny thing is... that it was a traffic cop when he got out of the car. that is pretty funny.

this week also marks the first time i have actually seen a marijuana joint rolled up in front of my face. we talked to 4 guys, and they just started rolling a marijuana joint, and then they started smoking it. that was pretty funny too. and we were just having a casual conversation with them about God.

I ate an entire pizza on thursday. Granted, the pizzas are a little bit smaller here, but i couldn´t do that when i first got here. and i was still hungry. so yes, i am eating a lot more. but i dont think i have gained any weight. every time i go to the offices i weigh myself, and my weight hasn´t changed, so thats a good sign.

I met my first person ever who couldn´t read. his brother is a member, and he walked in so we started teaching him. he had to help him read a verse, which is fine, i had just never met anyone who couldn´t read before.

We are helping clean the church building this friday, with the bishop and his family. apparently its on a schedule, every week in a month or every 5 weeks or something.

here is a pic of the horse and the wagon thing. i finallly managed to get a picture of it going by really close... these are really common here. people going around with a wagon and a horse and just picking up things that people have thrown out into the trash. i think this person had a fridge or something in their wagon..? and they just cruise the street along with all the cars. nothing special at all.

oh so my companion got sick this week. something about a sore throat and some headaches or something. anywho, he woke up one morning and couldnt talk, which is bad for me since i cant really speak castellano, hah. so i ended up giving him a blessing, and luckily we had district meeting that day, and the entire morning we were just taking a bus, a train, and sitting in a church building. luckily i knew how to buy tickets for that stuff. well by the time we got to our district meeting, he could talk again, so i was saved. that would have been pretty scary, hah.

i had my first interview with the president this past tuesday. it wasn´t anything special... he basically just asked how i was getting adjusted and things, and how my castellano was coming. he said if i felt like i wasnt completely lost and overwhelmed and stuff, then something was wrong. which i already knew. so it wasn´t anything i didn´t really expect.

oh yeah, so my haircut thing. yes, i bought some clippers electric things, whatever you call them. no, my companion did not do it for me. i did it myself, however i didn´t really take a picutre of the end result. however, it looked pretty good. probably would have looked better if i had paid somoene 30 pesos to do it, but 30 pesos is a freaking rip. so, i decided to do it myself. so i am relieved that my first experience cutting my hair (or cutting any hair at all, actually) turned out pretty well.

oh so about mario, the guy who was supposed to be getting his marriage papers. well, he still hasn´t been able to get them. his wife is having the baby on may 13th or something like that, so he told them he needed the papers by that date, so here´s hoping he can get them...

earlier today we had a zone activity. we basically just played volei the whole time (which as you can guess, is volleyball in castellano). it was pretty fun. and then we had a late lunch at.... MCDONALDS! a sister bought for us, and it was really good... and we had icecream too. but it was expensive... 106 pesos for 3 people. yikes. not something i would eat unless somebody buys for me haha.

lets see what else has happened this week... during the 3 day party thing, there were so many people, that we couldnt even take the collective (bus) anywhere, because the streets were so crowded. so we just ended up staying in our little area around the church and talking to everyone that walked by, more or less.

oh, haha. mario again. they have a daughter that is like.. 2 or 3 or something. she is big for her age. anywho, she was sick when we went to visit them. and she started eating crackers and water and... yeah i saw her throw up. it was kind of disgusting, not something i would want to see again. i am glad i haven´t thrown up since i was like 15. and the weird thing was that she didn´t even cry when she threw up, she just sat there and looked sad. and it was a lot of throw up, i would say it looked like stuff coming out of a hose. anyways enough of the disgusting stuff...

during this holiday thing, they had speakers all the way in the air base to broadcast what they were saying. and we could hear it all the way in our apartment. that is a long ways away. those were some speakers to be able to hear what they were saying from that far away.

oh, something else that was interesting. as we were contacting a referral at the very bottom of our area, some pibes (pee bess, means like ´little kid´ or ´trouble makers´, stuff like that) walked up to us and asked us to pray for them. from what i understood, they were playing some sort of a game, and had made a bet that they could get some type of person to pray for them. i don´t know exactly, but whatever it was, my companion prayed for them. i thought it was intersting, at least.

it has been relatively hot during the middle of the day this past week. the mornings and the nights are cool, and almost a little chilly, so its kind of annoying having to take a sweater with us.

other than that... im not sure i have anything else to say about this week. people have been telling me that i am speaking a lot better castellano... but i definitely don´t feel that way. i definitely understand more, but i dont think i can speak more. but i am sure everybody feels that way. oh yeah, i was talking about the weather in the last email. anywho, today it was very nice and cloudy, almost too dark to be a normal day. so i think its going to rain sometime this week, but who knows. its just like houston... so it could look like it is going to rain one day, and then be super hot the next day and not rain.

those people who were smoking marijuana... well we passed by them yesterday on our way back to our apartment for the night. they started yelling hello at us (in castellano) like we were their best buds in the world or something. it felt pretty cool. i feel protected by gang power... haha. i always hear these stories about missionaries who befriended some gang or other, and then that gang eventually ends up protecting them from death or another gang or something. i could definitely see how that could happen, although i dont think it would happen here, just because there aren´t any dangerous gangs around or anything. well i think my hour is about up, and i dont really have any other interesting pictures to upload.