Monday, May 25, 2009

I'm alive, yes hard to believe I know.

So, what happened since I left the MTC? Well the flight took forever and I didn't get much sleep, but I was able to give out a Book of Mormon and a pass along card. I went with my district and some others going to the mission south of us and some going to Buenos Aires. Once we got there the international airport wasn't that impressive at all.

After arriving we went to the Buenos Aires temple. Some people from the church were there to pick us up and then we went to the temple. After the temple we went to the hostel, it's called, and ate the food there that was a lot like spaghetti.

After that we were going to go get pictures but weren't able to because the people that were to pick us up came like an hour and a half early. O well. We then went to the other airport that is for domestic flights only which was actually a lot more impressive. We then flew to Bahía. It was really dark at this time so it was cool to see Buenos Aires at night from the sky. My pictures didn't turn out though. After arriving in Bahía we met our mission president and ya know, he doesn't speak any English. That was interesting.

The next day we went to the office and filled out a ton of paperwork and such and then went to the stake center there. I got assigned to my new companion, Elder Rios. He is from Rosario which is in Argentina, but he speaks really good English. I'm in a little area called Rauch which is really small. The branch has about 40 members and the building is tiny!

So as for castellano (that is what they call their language down here because it's a little different from Spanish) it isn't going great right now. I can't understand anyone. I can't really speak it any better either. But as I understand more, it will become easier to learn Spanish.

Today is the 25th of May which is their 4th of July. We went to a branch activity for the branches here in Tandil (we have to come into Tandil for P-day because there is nothing in Rauch). They made this soup that is kind of good but looks terrible. They throw just about whatever in it. The food in Rauch, because it is a "field community", doesn't consist of a ton of beef like most everywhere else.

This companion thing is kind of getting ridiculous. My companion; he's interesting; he works hard but has had some issues with a lot of rules so I'm really trying to work with that strength that he has. He was literally watching the movie Twilight my first day. So the next day I had our companionship study on obedience and such and he's doing better.

We're in an interesting position in Rauch. Every door has been knocked on in the past month or so and now we don't really have anywhere left but we were able to get 4 investigators to church, which is great. We also got two baptismal dates as well. So we're working on referrals only now.

It doesn't look like you're going to get pictures today as I can't figure the camera and computer out. The computer popped up for a second but now it isn't there and I can't fix it because it is all in Spanish, and this keyboard is terrible!

Letters take 3 weeks to get here through dearelder.com, but send them anyway!

Thank you for your prayers

Elder Sands