I got in one little fight and president got mad and said your going with Elder Ericson in Bel-Air

The subject header is a quote spoofing the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" ( I had to have Tory explain it to me:) and is referring to the mansion he is living in:)Jessica

Sooo, this week we felt reaaaaly dumb and ended up having to call a locksmith...

But before we get to that I'll describe Rada Tilly to ya'lls: this place is ridiculous, these houses are bigger and nicer than houses in the states(it could just be because I havn't seen a house in the US for a while, but they are still reaaaly nice). All of the doors have intercoms,there are houses on the beach with fat marble staircases and super modern architecture. Some of the doorbell things even have cameras on them. We contacted this one house(all we have to do is contact in this area since we don't have investigators) and it had a fingerprint thing instead of a key to get in, aaaand when we rang the camera doorbell a security guard came behind us with a tazer ready(he thought he was reeeealllly cool) and he said he couldn't say too much because they could hear him.. he was pretty full of himself. he thought he was some sort of action hero. 

Also we found a really nice couple that feed us huge, amazing dinners and will talk to us, but they don't want to talk at all about religion. Its pretty weird, but we're slowly warming them up. Our goal is to make a branch here in Rada Tilly, which really isn't too hard to do, we have about three active members, so we'll see how it goes from there. 

And on Saturday we walked out of the pension to get something to eat the next day, but we had none of the keys, and our pension locks automatically behind us, so we were stuck.. luckily our neighbors had the number to a lock smith so we had to wait outside in our enclosed parking lot thing. Aaand our neighbors gave me a blanket because I didn't have my coat. That was really nice of them. They were super cool. 

Other than that, just a lot of contacts, aaaand we got BIIIIIIiIIIIIkes. Our area is really huge, so its needed. 

Love ya'lls!

Little orphan Annie

Soooooo, I may have mentioned before about a pension in the richest area in the mission that has heated floors and a thermostat and being over there is like being in America. I'm living there.

This transfer has been the most complicated transfer I've ever had. I think I've set some sort of record. I've been thrown everywhere. I've had three areas, and four companions. First I was in abasolo with Elder Winward, then he left and I went to the area next to abasolo and was with Elder Meadows and Elder Alvarez for a week and now I'm going to finish the transfer in a neighborhood of Comodoro called Radda Tilly with Elder Erickson.

Radda Tilly is the exact opposite of abasolo. It is literally like being in the united states, some of the houses there are worth millions of dollars, the streets are PAVED, its right on the beach, and everyone is really rich and snobby and looks at us like we are something really smelly that they just stepped in. Its pretty crazy, I'm getting whiplash from all these changes over here..

Aside from all that, this area is starting to warm up. We had a baptism two days after I got there and she is suuuuper cool, she's got this kid that kinda looks like chancho from nacho libre, hes soooo chubby and cute, hes seven and all he wants to be when he grows up is a missionary. Its the coolest thing ever, if we can get enough people in Radda Tilly, out goal is to be able to organize a branch over there because they're pretty isolated from Comodoro. I don't know how long I'll stay there though, it could just be two weeks, I really have no idea.

Anyways, that's that, I love ya guys and I'm grateful for all your support!

Writin Blind.

Alright, so first off, I hate this keyboard, all the keys are suuuuper sticky, so it really frustrates me since I wanna write fast, but I have to press down really hard on each key to make it go..

This week was the first week that Ive actually seen results from what weve been doing here, weve contacted this entire area, and while there were a few who wanted to listen, none of them progressed, so they didnt stick. Then we got a reference from the zone leader, a lady they had met on the bus, so we went by her house and talked to her a little bit, but she had to go, so we invited her to a baptim we were having and church and she showed up with her husband to both!!! The first investigator weve had in church since ive been here. We actualy had met her son before in his friends house and he was really promising, but we couldnt find him again because it wasnt his house we visited. Buuuuut we taught them after church and they both accepted a baptismal date, so well see how that goes, they still need to get married(theyv been together 20 years and had 6 kids... Argentina..)but we'll work on that , over here, all you have to do is go to a court and sign a few papers, its suuuuper easy..

In other news, this week was the one year annaversery of the mission and we had a party with the president, we rented a real grass field(all of them here are dirt or cement) and played all day. We also had a huuuuuuuge asado. Aaaand we all got trucho Argentina jerseys with the mission logo on the back. Its pretty awesome.. President is loaded, so he payed for all of this stuff. hes a foot surgeon and owns a practice.

The only buzz kill was that I broke my glasses.

I went up to head the ball and it hit the side of my head which broke the frame... right now I dont have my glasses on because Im writing on the way back, so I got the computer screen like two inches from my face,.. I probably look pretty funny.. but that's not the point.. I neeed glasses, I have my other ones, but I don't want to look like a child molester. They have a Walmart here with an optometrist, so I'll look into that..maybe the Walmart in Kennewick could send my information? I dunno, all i know is that its gonna cost money which I don't have because my debit card is expired.. I tried calling the number dad gave me but it didn't work... I{ll figure something out.

Anyways, I love ya guys, keep in touch and stuff!

New Comp and Stuff

I'll give you some good news and some bad news, the good news is I got a new companion, His name is Elder Windward. He is from Vancouver washington and he is cousins with Chris Hauter! What a little world we live in. Aparrently, he spent some summers in kennewick with his grandparents... Its pretty awesome.. we is like peas and carrots. 

The bad new is, theres a pretty big possibility that he could go home soonish.. He's been having really bad stomach problems the past transfer, and they don't know what it is.. He's got sharp pains in the intestines and he feels nausaus all the time. Its all good though, becuase we still work through it.. buuut he was sent here as sort of a last chance. They sent him here to see a specialist that lives here and if he can't find out what it is then he's going home and I'm probably going to the mission offices to be financero... that does not sound like fun.. however, with the glasses I have now it would be fitting... But I don't wanna go, we'll see how this plays  out..

Also we got a cat! Her name is ugly for short.. her full name is Mahana(You ugly). She's got a gross scab on the side of her face. I think she got chewed up by a dog a couple of weeks ago.. we kick her out when we are there, but she just hangs out in the house and tries to rub her scabby face on us...

This weeks been pretty good though, we've been working a lot trying to strenghten the ward because the church down here is pretty unstable...

Love ya guys!

Mundial, Mundial, Mundial.

Lets see, it really hasn't been too long since I've written ya'lls, but I'll give you a quick catch up..

A couple days ago I almost got my arm ripped off by a pack of dogs, I don't know what it was, I honestly think it was the full moon, but dogs all were going crazy a couple of days ago.. There was a whole pack of dogs coming at us, so we picked up a bunch of rocks-this usually scares em of, just picking up rocks-but they kept barking and coming at us, so we chucked rocks, they kept coming. Then I stepped backward into a lil ditch and the dog was coming at me, thats when I chucked a handful of dirt in his face and picked up some BIG rock and pegged him. We threw lots of rocks at them and they finally backed off. We came across tons of dogs that wanted to rip our throats out that night.. It was pretty insane..

Other than that the work has been pretty slow.. The World Cup started up, so people are allllways watching it. People do invite us in though, they just dont pay too much attention to us.. that being said though, we did have a really good lesson with this lady named Ana, I can't really explain why it was so good, its just that the spirit was super strong, we were teaching directly to her needs and the holy ghost was helping us a ton. We asked her how she was feeling and she said super peacful and good and we identified that as the holy ghost, she has a lot of potentional. Plusss she doesnt even watch the mundial. so that gives us someone to visit!

Anyways, I love you guys a ton and Happyyyy fathers day!

The Story of Elder Scogin, The Illegal Alien

So, because of some slacking secretaries, I've been illegal for like three months since all I started out with was a 90 day visa and that expired my first transfer.. Someone finally noticed, and they sent us down to Rio Gallegos to get the paperwork done.. So they put us on a bus and after ten hours we got there.. Gallegos is pretty dang nice, it kinda looks like Omak, thats how close it was to Amerrica. We met up with some missionaries, I knew both of the zone leaders over there, Elder Rice used to live in the pension with us(he had the incident with the dog) and Elder Velascez was in my first zone, so it was pretty cool to meet up with some old friends. We mostly just sat around in the immigration office forever and they took fingerprints and stuff.. The people there were pretty nice, I think a lot of missionaries have been through their office.. then we just sort of waited around with the other elders for the bus to come, made some really big hamburgers and had a snowball fight...

So thaaatts why I'm writing a day late mom probably thought I was dead or something, but it was just some paperwork that I had to wrap up..

Other than that a pretty normal week, the city flooded again, I cut my hair, talked to a lot of people, had meetings with the president just the usual shenanagins.. Have fun with your summer you guys! Thats crazy that school is already out, this has been the fastest time has gone in my life..

Also, my comp threw up. We were having lunch with some member and we always have to eat everything to be nice, they gave us a salad, cananolies, and then peaches for dessert. Elder Tyler ate everything and then when he got to the door of the pension he ran to the bathroom and threw it all up just because it was waaaaaaay too much food... So the moral of this week is don't make the missionaries eat too much because they might die... 

Lotsa fechas, lotsa new, no asistencia.

I forgot my journal, so looks like ya´ll will be getting just a general highlight of what I remember.. 

So this week we did another 140 contacts, because of this we found ten people that wanted to let us listen to our message, of these ten six accepted a date for baptism when invited for four weeks later. Of those, all said that they would come to church on Sunday, we said we´d come buy to pick them up around 9:30 and all of them agreed.. Sunday came and we went out early to bring them all to church. Not a single one answered the door, they were all sleeping.. That pretty much sums up the week, a lot of work on our part and the little bit that we asked other people to do went unfulfilled. But I guess there's only so muchy we can do, the rest is up to the people and they have their own agency. Its just frustrating sometimes.

Other than that, I feel good about what I've been doing, I've been doing the best I can to help other people and to invite them. That's all I can do is invite and help.

Lemme see.... I made a bunch of pizzas this week, four to be exact, i just made all the dough in one day and then divided it up and froze it so I could spread it out through the week.. the secret is in the sauce, that's what made it, I didn't have the best cheese because cheese is super spendy here, they don´t have pepperoni, so I just used some lunch meat, but I made a dang good sauce and because of that the pizzas were tasty..

I also found a full rams horn... A dog was chewing on it, so we snagged it. It reminded me of willow..

I love you guys! Make sure you use your agency for good and don't be lazy, its amazing how messed up peoples priorities are, make sure that you put certain relationships as your number one priority

1st:Your relationship with god

2nd:your relationship with your family

3rd:Relationship with your fellow man

4th: your relationship with yourself

There are so many distractions in this world that we can lose sight of whats really important in life. We can spend more time texting people or watching TV than actually building relationships in this life which is the only thing we will take into the next. 

Besitos!

Lotsa ppple.

This week was... once again a lotta contacting. But I did meet some pretty interesting people:

Jose is this really old guy that likes to talk. He also doesn't have the best of memory... he told us his whole life story about ten times.. he was in the army and one time he fell off the ship, then he was a waiter in some swanky  hotel in Chile-where he consequently met the president of Chile-hes got pictures to prove it. Then his wife died of cancer, he hasn't really let us teach him anything because he talks so much.. We passed by his house on Sunday morning and he thought we were Jehovah's witnesses..

Tamara has a huge, crazy family, they always play music super loud and would yell random things at us, so we decided to go talk to them. Turns out  they aren't as crazy as I thought, we had a really good couple of lessons with them this week and though they didn't accept the invitation to be baptized they are reading the Book of Mormon.. The only problem is their dad, apparently he hates everything religious and is drunk all the time and yells at them. That's why they only let us in on weekdays when he isn't there.. it'll be hard to get him to be more cooperative...

Paulo is a carpenter, we met him a couple of days ago but he just went on a trip to do some carpentering stuff, hes really friendly and said we could come by whenever, he always smells like wood, in a good way..

Marcos is the bishops daughters boyfriend, they have a kid, but they don't live together, we met him at his house contacting, and that's when we found out he knows bishop and all that. He comes over to the bishops house to take care of his son, he is really interested in knowing more, we set a baptismal date for the 21 of June as a goal-he wanted like two years or so-his only problem is that his family are firm Catholics, so he needs to talk to them but other than that he want to marry the bishops daughter in the temple so then can live together forever! So we're working on that goal! He kinda looks Asian-ish and his son is really cute and chubby.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. I talked to 143 people this week. Some snakes, some that were interested, some that wanted nothing to do with us. That's more people than I have met in probably the past year when I was home. Its pretty crazy.

Anyways, such is the life, I love yalls keep on keepin on!

http://comodororivadaviamission.wordpress.com/ also, this is the mission blog.. 

River Won:(

Yesterday was pretty crazy, we were at the top of this hill and the whole city exploded.. with fireworks. It was pretty cool. Turns out River-River Plate is an Argentine soccor team-won the national championship thing. Boca-my team- didn't even make it to the finals. Which was sad. Really the only reason I like Boca is because their jerseys are sick and imma buy a bunch of them for all yalls before I leave. Their colors are blue and gold. Its awesome.

Anywaysies, this week was just a lot of contacting, we contact around twenty people a day, its pretty fun to meet a ton of new people especially since I can actually talk to them. It was a lot tougher my first transfer, but now it just comes naturally.

We met this guy named Rogilio and he is amazing! He studies the bible a ton, so he knows what the true church should have. We talked about being founded on prophets and apostles and he quoted Ephesians four and then he was talking about how baptism should be by immersion! He also said that baptism represents the death and Resurrection of Christ, which I didn't even know was in the bible(I found it in Romans when I studied later). He is pretty amazing.

Then the other day we found Rosa who was worried about one of her children that had died, we testified that we knew that we can live forever with our families, that's the beauty of the gosel, so we challenged her to be baptized on the 21st and she accepted. The problem is, we can only meet her on Sunday, since she works the whole week.

So yeah, that's a week in the life. I wrote in my journal every day this week so now I remember the highlights. Also, I started this thing where I take at least one picture a day. So by the end of the mish Ill have one and a half years of one photo a day. Its pretty fun to think of interestin new ideas for pics.

I love all ya guys!

Because of Him...

Well, since I'm going to be talking to you guys on sunday, I'll just share a short message with you guys.. Last week was Easter, I didn't get anything, specifically I didn't get cadbury mini's. But thats okay, I bought myself a little chocolate egg that was really spendy and cried myself to sleep.

Okay, thats not true, but I do want cadbury minis.

What I actually wanted to talk about was what easter really means, over here its called the Pascua, so you can see the reference to the savior a little more clearly with what they call it over here. Even though I'm a little late theres always time to think about what he did for us during those three days. I've been thinking a lot lately about what the sacrifice of the savior means in my life and when I really think about it, it means everything to me. Thats why I'm here, to share with the people of Argentina what I know. That Jesus Christ suffered for our sins and because of that we all can be saved. We all can live with our families forever and anything wrong we've done in our lives can be made up by his atonement or sacrifice for us. I just feel like thats something we should all be thinking about a little more in our lives. 

Also, I just saw this video in a zone conference, and though you might have already seen it, I'd invite ya'lls to watch it and share it, because its really really good and it made me think about how much the Savior has done for me. 

http://easter.mormon.org/

So I love ya guys, send me Cadbury minis!

Back to building houses

So Im a little bit late because I spent a good part of the day putting on a roof.. Building stuff here is waaaaaay different than in the US. What we did for a good eight hours would've taken one hour. We made the cement, shoveled it into buckets and then passed the buckets up to the roof. It was a back killer. What would've gone down in the states is there would've been a huge remote controlled truck full of cement and it would've poured out all the cement onto the roof and ya. That would've been that. We were helping out an investigator though, and we had a massive asado, so it was worth it. Plus all the guys we were working with were jokers, so it was a good way to pass a p-day.

This week I hit six months. Elder Meadows-we were MTC comps-and I burned some ties as a ritual and then had a whole ton of tortas fritas. It was pretty awesome.

Other than that, I  ate a lot of alfajores and walked around a lot. This is gonna be a short one because I{m kinda low on  dough since its the end of the month and this ciber is spendy..

I love ya guys! Do good things!

Maximo Bazolo

So this week was a blur.. transfers are always crazy and this time I actually participated in them. I said goodbye to all the people in Rawson and headed out on a super comfortable bus to Comodoro.

We arrived in Comodoro at about 12 and their wasn´t enough taxis to take us to our area, so we stayed at the missions "casa grande" for the night. Its just where the secretaries sleep and where all the new arrivals come to and where all the missionaries who finish leave from. There´s like a million beds there... so I swapped stories with some other Elders who I hadn´t seen in a while and then headed off to Abasolo in the morning.

The whole area is pretty poor, but the people seem like they´re pretty humble. The area is kinda on the outskirts of town, so we have some sort of makeshift houses and then part of the area is a forrest. Its actually the most green I´ve seen in the Patagonia, so thats pretty nice.

A couple days in it started raining.. and it didn´t stop all day.. we went out and the roads were literally rivers, our apartment had turned into a sort of island. It was switching off hailing and raining until I was soaked and frozen to the bone. So we went back to the pension to avoid frostbite and or death by drownding. The next day there were some drowned dogs in the streets, so you could literally say it was raining dogs.. cats are a little less common, probably because there are so many dogs..

So that was my week, we´ve been doing a lot of contacting since we´re opening this area and tons of people have been open to listen. Its amazing! My companion has one transfer more than me and he kinda struggles with the language, but he wants to work, and thats all I ask for in a companion!

I love ya guys! Have a great week!!

Doughnuts

This week has been a doughnut filled week. In other words, it was good. I finally got around to using grandmas recipe for doughnuts! I made some dough one night, raised it, and threw it into the freezer. Throughout this week I've been cutting off portions-since it was a grandma recipe it was intended for like forty people-and frying them up. It´s been awesome. 

Not only have the doughnuts been good, but the work has been growing as well. Its kinda sad though since I´ll probably be leaving next week.. we met this girl-Lucia-who really wants to turn her life around, she´s quitting smoking and drinking and wants her baptism to be a sort of rebirth into her new life. We have a few teenagers that we play soccer with that have started coming to church and are really sincere and interested. The other day we met this guy on the street just talking to people(we try to talk to ten new people every day) turns out he was a member who hasn't been to church in 38 years and he came to church this Sunday!! He kinda reminds me of the guy with a lot of hair on jumanji.. 

Anyways, that's that. I´m super excited for general conference and I hope you guys will go prepared with a specific question because I know they´ll be answered! I love you guys! Have a great spring break!

Penguinos!!!

Alrighty, this week has been a week for nature... Yesterday, on the way back to the pension I found a massive three inch bug crawling across the street. Naturally my first desire was to take it back to the pension for a pet. My comp wasn´t agreed, but he´s kinda a stick in the mud. Then I decided to take a picture with it. I lifted it up by its leg and held it next to my face.... thats when it sprayed me.. apparently it was some sort of mutated giant stink bug, because juice got in my mouth and on my eyes... it was reeeeaaaaaallly disgusting. I ran out of the pension and threw it across the street in the general derection of the catholic church-theyre our neighbors. So that was that. I showered, brushed my teeth, but the pension still smells funky... 

Today we went to see the penguins. There were a bajillion. Like literally there were thousands just chilling in the dunes around the beach. We took a tour bus thingy and we went as two zones. It was super fun. There were penguins, armadillos, guanacos(llama sort of things), and ostriches. That is pretty much every single wild animal the Patagonia has. I feel very fullfulled. I was with Elder Meadows-my comp from the MTC-and he took pics that he´ll send me, so don´t you worry yourselves.

On the bus on the way back, Elder Meadows had peanutbutter, so we had peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches. It was heaven. over here, peanutbutter is like gold. Its impossible to find. And then someone had chex mix that their parents sent-we don´t have that either-it was like I was back in good ol´merrica. If something has come in a package from Amerrica it tastes better, no matter what. If I sent an alfajor to you guys and you send it back, it would gain goodness. I think its the freedom in the air.

Anyways, I only got a little time, so I gotta go. I love ya guys!

P.S. I´ve gotten super patriotic since I´ve been here..... 

Episode VI Return of the Drunk

Sooooo.. the other day we were waiting for a member to come with us to an appointment; some kids were playing soccor tennis, so I decided to join in-its like four square, but with two squares and you can´t use your hands.. anyways, on this particular day I happened to be wearing my newly mended pants... As I lifted my leg up rather high to kick a ball, the range of motion of my leg became un obstructed by my pants.. what I´m trying to say is: I ripped my pants. Again. It was about seven inches long. It´s beyond my powers to repair. I found a couple of old pair of pants in the ZL´s pension, so I´m good.. 

However, the lesson we had after that fell through, so the member took us back to the pension and I changed... theeeen we had nowhere to go. So we asked the member with us if they knew anyone in playa that we could visit. Turns out they did. That's how we met Angel and his family. Angel is a professor of math at the local school and eight months ago had an accident that resulted in everything below his arms being paralyzed. They actually had the missionaries in their house for new years a couple years ago and had gone to church a bunch of times, but then they moved to the beach and weren't visited again. He seems really interested, he had lots of questions and he said he´d read the BOM. Soo, we´ll see how it goes! We've only visited him once, so I´ll find out more later today!

Also, while we were on the bus we passed by the same stop that Elder Sanchez got kicked in the face on. Aaaand, what do you know, the same drunk was there... and what do you know, he was drunk again.. he was actually drinking alcohol out of a hollowed out melon, so he´s a professional drunk. Nothing really happened, I don´t think he remembered us, but he did not pay for his bus ticket with pesos, but music.. him and his girlfriend sang to the whole bus. She was actually pretty good, he was... terrible. 

So, that is the scuttlebut, its starting to get cold over here, aaand I love ya´lls!

And no one eeever wants to dance with the fool who went and.. ripped his pants.

Los Dos Lobos.

This week was a slow one.. since Elder Verges broke his leg we've been in the other area all week and haven't been able to be with investigators.. so imma keep this one short and sweet:

Last night I was gettin all art and craftzy looking though a ton of Liahonas(the church magazine in spanish) so I could find something to laminate onto my new agenda. I found this sick picture of a wolfs head, one side was super scary and rabid and had sharp teeth and the other wolfs head looked sagely, wise calm and had golden hair.. so I took that because it looked cool, but then I read the article, it was a goodie:

So there was the old Cherokee guy talking about his life. He told his grandson that there was a fight inside him. A crazy fight between two wolves. One of the wolves is everything bad, angry, jealous, lying, pridful, greed, etc. and the other is everything good: hapiness, love, peace, faith etc. The grandson then asked his granfather with wolf wins. The grandfather replied: The wolf that you feed. 

So, what can we learn from this. Well actually its pretty self explanatory. Whatever thoughts we allow to stay in our minds, is what we will be. If we think bad things, it will lead to bad deeds, and if we keep our thought clean and pure, we will do things that are clean and pure. So thats all folks, watch what wolf you feed, watch your thoughts that lead to deeds. Change your thoughts and you will change yourself. 

Love you guys, and make sure you know what wolf to feed!

 ...don't ask...

 Christmas came ten months early!!!!!

{What it should say is Ladies Toilet}

Good ol´ borrachos.

Let me tell you the story about how my companion got kicked in the face by a drunk:

First I gotta give a little background, this weeks been super unproductive. Since Elder Verges broke his leg we´ve had to go back and forth to the clinic in Tralew and have three companions and go back and forth from area to area wasting lots of time. So really in the work area its been a slow boring week. We did, however, have a baptism-one of the hermana's investigators-and a talent show, which was actually pretty cool, way cooler than any talent show I´ve been to. They sang songs about the Patagonia that they had written and played guitar and stuff, it was sick. 

Anyways, so on Sunday we were with Elder Verges, helping him pack his stuff so he could go to the office(since he can´t walk they're sending him there) and then we left to the bus stop to go to our area. We left Elder Verges with the zone leader, so it was just Elder Watkins, Elder Sanchez and I. We walked to the bus stop and had just barely missed the bus, that means we had to wait like thirty minutes for the next bus. 

We were sitting on this wall thing waiting when this drunk guy walked up to us. At first he seemed plenty nice, asked us what team we were-River or Boca-and we responded. Then he asked us for money, and we said we had none since we were missionaries.. I actually only had four pesos, enough for the bus. Then he was talking about how we need to solve our problems in our own country.. I really didn't say much too him. Elder Ellis told me to speak the bare minimum to drunks. Only respond cordially, don´t engage in conversations, since drunks are crazy unpredictable. 

After that he he was asking us if we knew how old god was. He was like,"you guys don´t know how old god is, I do." Then he started saying how we don´t believe in god and stuff like that.. That's when Elder Sanchez stepped in. 

Elder Sanchez is from Panama, he played professional soccor and he´s a great kid.. he's just a bit hot headed and has a problem with respect... So, Elder Sanchez asked him what his problem was, and the drunk said he didn't have a problem. Then the drunk asked him where he was from, Elder Sanchez asked him why he wanted to know.. then the drunk started naming off random places, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, etc. Elder Sanchez asked him what his problem was again and the drunk guy bent down, got really close to Elder Sanchez, touched his tie a little bit and told him he didn't have any problems with us.. That's when the drunk kicked Elder Sanchez in the face.. 

Elder Sanchez-he was sitting-reached down and picked up a big metal pipe from the ground, and stood up ready to swing. Elder Watkins and I got up and got in between the two of them.. honestly, I could've taken that drunk, alone he´s an Argentine, so that means I was like a foot taller than him and Elder Watkins was there, he´s like two feet taller than the average Argentine. Anyways, so we got between them and we walked back to the Apartment.. 

The dumb part was that there were like ten other people at the bus stop and not one of them lifted a finger.. I lost a lot of respect for Argentines in general yesterday.

Then after that we took a later bus, I made some empanadas, and we had a nerf war until the whole incident was forgotten.. 

So yeah, don´t talk to drunks, they´re crazy. And if you see some drunk messing with foreigners, please help them out. Peace! Love ya guys! 

Smile.

Lotsa letters this week, lotsa sillies and sinceries and because of your guys´s letters I write mine with a big sonrisa on my face. Sonrisa is smile in spanish I love it, I know it probably has no connection, but it sounds like sun rise and thinking about that makes me smile too. Smiles are like little sunrises, a face without a smile is like a world without a sun. Dark. Having a smile on my face brings light into my attitude and brightens my day, all I have to do is think of sonrisa and the corners of my mouth turn up a little. Smile. It´ll make any trial you have easier. There are so many things to smile about ever day, all you have to do is notice them. You may think your day was horrible, but there is always something that was good, something that can make you smile. Sometimes its so small that if you aren't looking you wont see it, so look for all the little good things in your life. 

Yeah, I just wrote that, I should turn that into an essay contest. I don't even know where that came from, it just flowed from my fingertips. I should be an inspirational writer:) 

This week was wellll... not the most productive. On Monday we had to do a bunch of doctor stuff, my companions parents freaked out when he said he was going to the free hospital, they made this huge deal out of it and wanted to send him back to America. Personally I would've just got er done and told my parents after the fact. Then the next day we went to Tralew to a clinic and that ate up most of that day. The doctor said he should just use these eye drop things and after a little bit they would dissolve it. On Wednesday we had a zone conference and I sang Mas Cerca Dios de Ti with three other people and some violins. I did have a verse that was a duet, so that's something to brag about, but before one of the assistants pulled my aside and informed me that my fly was down, that may take down the bragging rights a bit. On Friday we went on exchanges and I was in Rawson main instead of the beach. Then on Saturday we had a beautiful baptismal service of one of the Hermanas investigators. She was the cousin of two awesome members. She's perfect. Also, we did the same musical number, but my fly was up and I had to sing a solo for one of the verses since the hermana that sang with me in the zone conference wasn't there. That time was a bit more of a success. 

I love all of you guys, and I thank you for all of your letters of encouragement and support!

My first trip to an Argentine hospital.

This week has flown by, and this morning has been a little hectic, so I don´t have my journal, which I can usually use as a draft for my weekly letters. I´ll be playin by ear for this one. 

Pretty much at the beginning of this week I felt pretty good, just a sore throat-I can´t spell that word without spell check-nothing I couldn't handle. Since my companion is a gringo with only two transfers more than me, I have to talk a lot more, which I love, and now I talk to everybody. People we pass by on the streets, people watering their yards, and because of this we have about five more people that want to hear more about our message. 

Another great way we've been finding people is through playing some fútbol. We had no appointments, and we had exhausted all of our options, so I talked with some kids playing soccer in the field in the middle of our area and asked if they wanted a couple more players, they agreed and we commenced. It was a great way to show them that we´re people too, some people see the tie and white shirt and think we´re salesmen or FBI or even worse... missionaries and because of how we look they treat us differently. But when we played soccer we were able to joke around and talk with them and show that we weren't robots from the united states coming to steal their brains. After we all got tired we just started talking about random things and naturally they were curious about why a couple of gringos were all the way down in Rawson, so that led the conversation to our purpose as missionaries and the gospel. Then we asked if we could teach them a lesson, since we were here to preach the gospel and they sat down on the soccer court and we taught them about how god loves them, and taught them how to pray. The kid who said the prayer was really sincere. It was neat to see how seriously the kids took our lesson. All of them wanted us to come and teach them more. Unfortunately I doubt their parents have the same desire. We played with them again the next day and one of their parents was playing too, he invited us to come over, however, since this hospital business we haven´t been able to do much work. 

And that brings me to the subject of my first look into a foreign hospital. It was pretty ghetto, just like most things here, but not overly so. People just sort of walked to the door they needed to go into emergency etc. and knocked. and then waited. We waited around for like two hours with "my bloody stump of a foot" 9 (from the Office) until they let us in.. but at least it was free. That's all that really matters..

Anyways, talk to you guys next week! I love you guys! 

He later writes back to say.....

I just wanna say that I subsequently remembered the exact hospital story, and while my first story was not incorrect, I did not mean what I had written. 

Okay, so here's a more complete version of the story. My comp had been having eye problems for the past couple of days. His eye was suuuper red and on Sunday we discovered a bump on his eye, so we went to the hospital, which was free and we did have to wait like two hours. They told him he had a corneal cyst and to come back tomorrow to remove it. So he went this morning and they said to come back at three so they could chop up his eye. I don´t envy him. I wouldn´t want to go near one of these hospitals with an injury. Hopefully they don´t get the wrong eye.

Terrible, horrible,. no good, very bad week...

This week was a whirlwind. Literally. It was super windy on Monday. Windy and dirty are a bad combination. You could see the wave of dirt coming towards us and I thought to myself,"Oooohh my bones are achin, a storms comin better get home quick Annie¨ but I just kept on working, so in consequence to that I got a nice little sore throat, because of that sore throat I got a stuffy nose and a cold, and then somehow that all peaked into a feverish, sleepless night where my tummy hurted. However, now its subsided, all I have is a sore throat, so we´re back to square one. Overall though, it wasn´t a bad week. 

My new companion came in on Tuesday and I stayed up till two waiting for him-that might´ve contributed to the initial sickness. He´s white-claro- has blue eyes and is a little bit taller than me. His name is Elder Watkins and he´s from..... wait for it... Kaysville.. Yes Scott, Kaysville. Apparently he played on the same soccer team as Carily and Shannon and went to Davis and had some classes with Carily. What a small world. We talked of Kaysville things. Its weird being able to talk in English, but it is nice to get a bit of a break from just Spanish and to be able to actually talk about everything. With Elder Ellis we were very limited in subjects, so we could really become great friends. Lemme see what else..? He doesn´t talk an awful lot, but I like that in a man. I do speak a lot more Spanish when we´re with investigators and members because he doesn´t dominate the conversation. Elder Ellis would just talk the whole time and I would sit back and let him at it. 

Other than that this week was pretty uneventful, there´s like a million people at the beach and no one is in their houses. Its the peak of summer vacation, so everyone is going places like Brazil or the beach a lot, also its really hot, so people are napping more. In other words it was pretty difficult to find anyone. 

I finished the BOM last week, so I started again this time just reading a chapter a day and I came to the part that Saraih is complaining, and Lehi  comforts her. I applied that scripture to members of the church, some people take the the commandments of God as a burden and others see them as a blessing even before they see the blessings. He said that he was happy that he was led out of Jerusalem before it had been destroyed and that he would receive a land of promise. That's how we should be, grateful that we can avoid the traps of the word and inherit the kingdom of heaven. 

Anyways, lots to be grateful for, I love you guys and thanks for the letters!!

A Day with Dolphins

Well, transfers was yesterday and I´m getting a new companion. A gringo. Mixed feelings, it´ll be nice to be able to actually talk to someone, but at the same time its better for me to have a native since I'm forced to use the language 24/7. Then again it might help me learn since he´ll be able to define words and such since he knows both English and Spanish. Who knows, I guess I'll find out! I would say a phrase from high school musical 4 sums up my feelings "nervous, but excited"

We had a baptism on Saturday too! and once again nervous but excited would describe the situation beforehand. We were going to have a member baptize Elsa, but he fell through, so she asked if I could do it. I had to get the prayer down in Spanish and say it in front of her family and a ton of people. I was super nervous before hand, but when it came down to it, it was a really special experience. It made me think how much God loves us individually. All of us. I know that God loves me because I've felt his love, but rarely have I felt his love for others and that's what I felt on the day of Elsa's baptism, a small part of his love for her.

Elsa is super sincere. The first week I didn't really know how excited she was or how strong she felt about the church, but a couple days before her baptism she changed. She was super talkative and happy, before that she had always seemed a little shy and didn't participate too much but she bore her testimony and told us about how the first time we met her she read the book of Mormon, prayed about it and felt an overwhelming feeling of peace. Now she want to share the gospel with the rest of her family. She has a brother in Rawson main that the other missionaries are starting to teach, and we´re going to start teacher her kids (they´re around 16-18). Its just exciting and amazing to see how the gospel has changed her and how its changed how I see her. 

Lemme see, also I went on exchanges with the zone leader Elder Holland-I know-and he´s leaving today. He´s really on top of things, his nickname is trunky Holland, but from the couple days I spent with him he was the exact opposite. He wanted more time, he was working hard to the end. He actually said that he wished time would go slower. I hope that's how I am, a missionary on fire. Always. I work my hardest so I won´t have any regrets when I look back on the short two years I've had. 

Also I saw dolphins. a herd of dolphins-or whatever it is you call them.. school?. But yeah, I didn't have my camera since I was running, but I saw them jumping up and down in the water. 

Love you guys! stay sweet and stuff!

 I don't know who wrote this, but whoever it was, I will find them, and I will convert them.

translated: "Without politics or ideologies, Christ is the true path and the life"