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.