May 9, 2011

Thank you so much for the recipes!! I will put them to use right away! 

Wow... I am so tired right now... it´s 12¨30 here, and I can tell you... Getting up in the morning is difficult. I go to bed SO exhausted, and it always seems like I never have enough time to sleep. I keep dozing off during personal study, so it´s been taking me about 20 to 25 minutes to read a stinkin´ chapter of the BOM! Frustrating... Alright, well I´m going to begin from the beginning.. 

We got delayed on Monday at the airport so they carted us back to the MTC for another night. We woke up at 4am the next morning to catch our flight to Atlanta at 8am. When we got to Atlanta we had 8 hours to kill. I went to Chili´s with E. Wible and we had our first real meal in 2 months! Then we went to the terminal and I got the chance to talk to my lovely mother!!! It was so good to talk to you mom... Anyways, we then got on the plane and slept through the night and woke up to Buenos Aires. The sunrise was INCREDIBLE. The sky was painted BRIGHT orange. It was the most incredible thing I´ve ever seen in my entire life, holy cow. We got to Buenos Aires and then were carted off in a van to another airport to get a flight to Neuquen. The driving in Buenos Aires is kind of like Mexico, if you want to go, you go! It´s so funny here. Oh, and Jared and Chris!! I´ve seen my first Peugeout, Citroen, Renault... and they have some weird forms of Fords here too. I saw this Fiesta that looked so much cooler than our type. Also the Civics here are a lot nicer. They also drive a lot of motorcycles, called moto´s down here. Sometimes you´ll see a whole family of 5 on a moto! It´s hilarious! When we were in the van I saw one Argentine pop a wheelie on his moto for about a block, about 50 metres. Hahaha!!! Got to Neuquen and met our Mission President and Assistants to the President. I love them all. We went to the mission home and had a meeting with the President. Then had a small snack of empanadas... Because they don´t eat flippin´ dinner here!!! What the heck!!! They have a decent sized breakfast, then have a huge lunch, then don´t eat dinner at all! It´s the most frustrating and terrible thing for your metabolism! Haha, anyway.. we went to bed and got up the next morning at 530 to make us legal residents in Neuquen. That took awhile, afterwards we went back to the house and had another meeting before lunch. They drink a lot of soda here, too much, actually. Had more meetings with the President, had some roleplaying practices on how to invite people to be baptized, then right after that, they set us loose. Ha, we went tracting not 24 hours into Argentina! It was such a good experience. There are dogs on EVERY street and every corner, every roof, garbage can, and inside every fence. The ratio of dogs to humans is 7 to 1 in Argentina. They have a dog called a Dogo. It´s a mix between a pitbull, rottweiler, and every other mean dog known to man. It´s bigger than a Great Dane, It´s jaw is stronger than a pitbulls, and it´s made of PURE MUSCLE. Elder Slaugh showed me a picture of one, and it´s leg looked like a bulging Superman´s thigh. And here´s the best part... They´re illegal in the US because of how dangerous they are............. GREAT!!! Hahahaha! They´re the best guard dogs, I dearly want to see one. 

That night I got on a bus for 10 hours to Esquel, my first area! It´s this little town about the size of Mapleton and Springville combined, tucked away in the mountains. It´s such an awesome place, I love it here. I met my companion, Elder Slaugh, he´s from Pennsylvania. Our Pension, or apartment is pretty small, and we´re actually going to be asking if we can move somewhere else. But today, this morning, we spent the beginning of our Pday cleaning up... I probably had a pound of dust from sweeping... Disgusting. Anyways, when we got to the Pension I dropped my stuff and was given 200 pesos to buy food. We went to the store, and I bought some milk, which comes in bags... It´s very strange. And a bunch of other stuff. Went back, unpacked a little bit for lunch and then went to work! First day was good. I met many members and had a few lessons with some Investigators. Went to bed that night pretty tired. Woke up the next morning and we worked out, E.S. has a pull up bar, which is incredibly amazing, so I did pull ups and push ups while he lifted weights. Then we went for a jog around the city. First full day of walking like a missionary, which is actually my normal pace of walking.. shin splints like crazy! Taught a lot of people and had lunch with the Gonzalez family. Big chicken leg and about a mountain of rice. They all drink a lot of juice down here as well. Oh... and I didn´t mention that I can´t understand the language at all. AT ALL. What I thought I knew at the MTC... I know nothing! I remember Kolt telling me that the first week he got down here, he didn´t understand anything either because of the way they speak, they drop a lot of the last syllables of words and don´t pronounce their s´s. We walk everywhere, and it´s the funnest thing ever. I will admit, this is probably the hardest I´ve worked in a long time. Ever in my life, probably. It´s constant stopping people in the street and stumbling across the language, trying to get my message across. Sunday was very fun. Went to church and got to play all the hymns in Sacrament meeting, Priesthood, a special musical number for my welcome during Sacrament meeting as well. The church is very nice, actually. The funniest thing about Argentina is this... I haven´t seen one single soul that is taller than me. In church, I am the tallest by at least 4 to 5 inches. I love it. Obviously. Hahaha! I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting in broken up Castellano. It was good, and I think the members have really taken to me. One of the Hermanas came up to me afterwards and said, I´m your mother now. Haha, But never will she be able to replace my incredible mom... Never. I love you mom... I know now at just how well you prepared me for this mission. I can´t stand the uncleannliness of the Pension, so I´m cleaning it up whenever I get the chance. Shopping is easy, I can cook, I can basically just... take care of myself in a foreign place, even though I don´t know the language. It´s all thanks to you. If I´ve never said just how much I love you... I´m telling you now. You´ve done more, and I will never be able to thank you for the things you´ve done. 

I wish I could talk more, but we´ve got only 40 minutes.. mission rules. And I´ve come to find out that when you´re obedient, blessings come. These first few days have been HARD... you don´t know how frustrating it is to not understand a word that´s said around me, but I´m trying, and as I pray, I know it will come. I just want you all to know that I love you. I love each and every one of you so much. Missionary work is so difficult, but also rewarding. We will have a baptism this Saturday with a 21 yr old named Diego, what a capo! Stud in english... Well, I have to go, we´re going to have lunch with a member and have pollo de disco. Some kind of delicious chicken... Anyways, I will be working hard, and until next week, I say unto all of you, who I pray for every night, Ciao!!!! 

Amor, 

E. Cuthbert