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.