First letter from Argentina! 7/22/24

 

Hola!

Quite a bit happened in the past 7 days, I'll keep it quick haha! First and foremost, MTC is done, and I’m glad to be in the field! Good times all round, excepto for getting here... first a 9 hour Flight to Buenos Aires, with a 4am wake up, then once we got there, the leaders go "you got the same thing tonight!" I was so done haha! But yeah, got up at 4am again, and I still haven’t caught up on my sleep schedule!

It was fun to meet President Walton! Such a nice man. He read my introduction paperwork and said- “I see you are a black belt, that’s good because this is a working mission!” 🙌 I also told him I won’t be a troublemaker.😂 Mom I’ll give him the Texas pasta noodles when I see him next week😂

I did meet up with my trainer, Élder Monson (not related to Thomas S.) and he's been showing me the ropes... He is amazing! We get along really well. He’s been out a year and 9 months, so only 3 months left to go… I will likely be his last companion before he goes home. He plays the piano, is SUPER clean, and he’s hands down one of the best trainers in the Mission. I’m lucky!  He makes pancakes every Sunday! 

It’s pretty fascinating how much missionaries do in a day, we plan out every hour and there isn't a minute to spare... Very much "anxiously engaged" in the Lord’s work!

Quick summary:

-We don’t really knock doors here! Everyone just claps 7-8 times outside the front door and that's the standard. 

-We've been visiting people left and right the past couple days, and it does NOT slow down... Service everyday goes CRAZY. We already have 3 appointments this week helping families in their backyard.

-This area Carcarana is a relatively small town, but there are lots of people to talk to. I would say it’s the size of our Woodforest neighborhood back home.

-Street dogs everywhere! Mom & Kassie called them “Perros tristes en la calle” when we visited Guatemala.. here they pronounce it like “cajshe”—

-Got a bit under the weather the past couple days, but we're doing fine... I hope haha

- Hot dog sandwiches. Wow. Top treat: Alfajores… dulce de leche cookie cakes!

-“la siesta”: literally 4 hours (noon to four everyday) where everyone just naps! 🤣We use that time to study since no one is out and about during that time

-Argentinian Spanish sounds like a different language, the accent is completely different. I think what I say makes sense, but I’m not sure about my conjugations. There’s a funny grandma here that makes fun of my accent haha

-We had an investigator who came to Church for the first time. He’s a heavy smoker, we taught him the plan of salvation. Hopefully he comes back

-The people are so nice and humble. We only do Missionary work through the members, rather than seeking people out

-We live in a really nice place- Elder Monson said it’s the nicest he’s been in his whole mission, it’s a 2-story house. Apparently there’s generally always running water and electricity here, unlike what Stephen had in Guatemala- sorry bro haha

-The funny guy with the hat in the picture: best member ever— goes tracting with us. Not sure why he took that picture of Jesus from the church building…😂

-We teach an English class! Thursdays for an hour at the church- we put up these flyers.

-We had a combo baptism/birthday party… It was in our church, which is also a 2-story building. The chapel is on the second story, and next to that is an overflow/gym area. They had a bouncy house for the party!

-Church starts at 10am, but everyone is late… so we really start at 10:15. They are about 30 people that attend.

That’s it till next time!
-Kenny
























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