Día 55

This was a really great week. Some interesting things about Argentina that I have discovered this past week, is that there are all sorts of extremely old, rusting cars everywhere that have just been abandoned for years and people steal parts of them. It´s kind of interesting. Also, the apple juice here actually tastes like apples, so that is really awesome, and much different from the U.S. No one follows the lines on the road, so I´m just glad I´m not driving the buses. Also, there is music from the states being played everywhere... so that´s interesting. A lot of it is the new stuff, but I also hear a lot of Elvis, and Grease is playing right now in this internet café. (and now Billy Joel)



Sister Ayre, Elder Garrett, and President Ayre at the Mission Home
 

We pretty much walk everywhere, but occasionally we take buses when we are going to an area that is a long ways away. Pretty much we are always walking though, and I´m pretty sure I´ve lost weight. I´ve had to tighten my belts, so that´s interesting. Our pensión is pretty big, but not too glamorous. It serves its purpose. We´ve got beds, so I just have my sleeping bag laid out on the mattress, and then I sleep with a sheet and a blanket on top. My companion is pretty great, he makes pancakes almost every morning, and we eat them with dulce de leche... we pretty much eat everything with dulce de leche though... that´s how people can tell that we aren´t from here. My shaver ran out of power and I didn´t have a power converter, so I didn´t shave one day and then borrowed one from the other gringo in our area. He goes home in December, and he said he would give it to me when he goes, so that´ll be nice.

 

Overall it has been a really good week. I still don´t understand a whole lot of what people say, but it´ll come, and I think I´m understanding more than the first week, so that´s definitely progress. Conference was absolutely fantastic. I got to watch it in English with 3 other gringo missionaries. It was almost like we stepped out of Argentina for 2 hours each time. We didn´t get to watch the Priesthood Session, because it is at 9 o´clock here... so that´s too late for missionaries. I think we´ll be watching it in a zone conference soon. Something funny happened this week, I had a member tell me I was really handsome, because I don´t look like a gringo. I guess that´s a good thing, but it´s also a curse, because the people here assume that I know how to speak the language because I don´t look like the other gringos in the zone who all have blonde hair and blue eyes. Oh well. 

 

 

Elder Garrett and Elder Cruz

We were supposed to have a baptism for Carmen yesterday, and Elder Cruz told me I was going to do it. I was really nervous. Unfortunately, Carmen didn´t come to conference like she said she was going to earlier in the day, so we didn´t have a baptism. Also, she isn´t going to go to church on the 20th because it´s mothers day here, so we probably won´t be able to baptize her for a couple weeks. We´re doing our best to find people to teach, but it´s difficult because once we find people that are interested, when we go to their house for the appointment, they are never there and we can´t find them again. I´ve really grown to appreciate the importance of patience in this work, because it definitely isn´t easy. I know that there are people out there who are looking for the message, we just need to find them. 

It´s starting to get warmer here.

I love you all.

Elder Garrett