Week 2

¡Hola!

I'ts been a typical gringo-missionary-in-south-america week!

We got to go into the city on Saturday for "proseletismo" which I don't remember how to spell in English anymore. But it was so incredibly awesome! We got to go out on our own with just a map, a BOM, (LDM) and a couple pamphlets, and our 1 week of spanish! The bus drove us through the huge city of Buenos Aires, about 30 minutes away from the MTC and dropped us off and said be back here in 8 hours. We had about 20 missionaries from the MTC in our bus, and we split up the area into little areas for each companionship. Our area was a pretty weathly area. They had gates and speakers and microphone things in the front of all their houses. So they weren´t to excited to hear over a intercom thing that missionaries were at their house. We didn´t have any success that way. But we talked to EVERYBODY, even construction workers on the job, and it was way cool. We eventually found a train station, and right next to the train station was this plaza with a park and bunch of benches and we spent the rest of the day there because it was a perfect place with SO many people always just sitting and waiting. So we got about 6 investigators that day, Sweet huh!? The bad news is that none of them are in our area, they just were in our area to get on the trains. But one 20-25 yr old girl, Astrid, was awesome. She is from Argentina, was born here, and she knows Spanish, German, and......ENGLISH!! So of course we were able to teach a heck of a lesson in English. Elder Hales and I had already given out all of our BOM's for the day so I decided to let her take my Spanish Missionary-Hardback one that I had been marking up in classes for the last week. She was having a hard time letting me give it to her, so I said that the only reason she would have a reason to feel bad is if she didn´t read it. She would have read it anyways, because she seemed so pure in heart and ready for what we had to say. It was cool because before we left the MTC, EVERYONE was getting ready to get on the buses, and I had a feeling I needed to go back to the classroom which is on the top floor and get my other BOM. So I'm so glad I followed that prompting! so proseletismo was awesome! I can´t wait to get out there in the real mission in Uruguay!

I got a little sick this week. Monday I just wasn´t feeling great, but felt good enough to play basketball, so I did, played hard, of course, and the rest of the day, I just wasnt doing so good. I shoulda taken it easy. I just had a nasty cold. Nothing horrible. But then the next day, I woke up feeling the same, and Tuesday was Vaccination day. Entonces, I had a Typhoid Fever shot. I got a headache immediately. Which was followed by a fever. It sounds like to me that all my immune energy was going towards my cold, and then BAM, here comes typhoid fever vaccine and so yeah. I got a nasty fever. I took my temperature, but I had no idea what it meant cuz it was in Celcius. I was wearing my V-neck sweater vest, long sleeve white shirt, and my suit with a bunch of elders wearing short sleeve shirts. Typical Me right? But I took 2 tylenol and my fever broke in like 10 minutes, and I was burnin up in all that wool missionary studliness. My cold is wearing out, and I´m doing a lot better now. One of the Elders in my District was like, yeah Elder, usually Doctors don´t give vaccines to patients with colds, and then another Elder said "THEY DO IN ARGENTINA!" Speaking of different things here..

I ate cow tongue yesterday. No big deal.

OK yeah it was kinda ridiculous. haha IN THE MTC?? yeah thats what I was thinking. It was funny cuz the Cow tongue was in the Salad Bar and it just was in cubes with seasoning on it, so Elder Hales just grabs one in his finger and eats one, and says, hmm..thats a wierd meat. Then one of the Latino Elders looks at him like he´s crazy, and points to his tongue and makes a moo-ing sound. So then of course all the guys in our district had to get a cube of this delicous meat and have a special district bonding moment. It was epic. Turns out that in Uruguay, they eat the intestines, brain, testicles, and liver as well. So Im glad I will get to have more "bonding moments" =D

So we don't really have zones or zone leaders. Zones are basically the NorteAmericanos and the latinos.
We have all kinds of meals...Italian...Lots of american food, ALWAYS meat. today we had this pumpkin casserole nasty stuff. but its all good. We have ´pineapple and all kinds of fruit a lot. 8 elders and 4 Hermanas en mi districto. responsiblities are to lead meetings (5 times a day in the MTC) and work with Elders on goals and things. Sometimes help out with companionship disagreements or things. im here for 9 weeks. I only get letters on p-day. but I get packages as soon as they arrive. padded envelopes, basically just fit in a mailbox size. any size. Elder hales is related to the Apostle. cousin of his grandmother. The presidente and his wife are so amazing guys!! they are incredible. They have served a couple missions as presidents, and were temple presidents in Paraguay. She is so cute! she is like the cute gramma you always wanted. She reminds me of my MOther all the time =)

I love you all so much!!