Monday, August 17, 2009

Happy San Martin Day! San Martin is the Gorge Washington of Argentina, Chile and maybe also Uruguay. Every major division street in Argentina is named after him or at least all of the cities I've been in.

There might not be any pictures for awhile as my camera card broke and I need to get a new one.

My sister asked for a funny story so I remembered this one I was really embarrassed about. There is this one time where my first companion was buying a pasta frola or kind of the closest thing they have to a pie down here. As he was buying it, I found out he was paying for it all with change, which of course is really rude! So I offer to pay with bills. Now keep in mind that this is my second week mas or menos. So I do that and after wards I ask my companion why he was trying to pay her in change! He answers that practically everyone down here wants more change and all of that so I felt really embarrassed! So that's a funny story.

My new area is really big, well not really, but when compared with Rauch, its huge, maybe about 4-5 times the size. There is about the same amount of members so there is a lot of work to do. The missionaries before us didn't do much so the members have a lot for us to do which is fantastic. When we arrived the apartment was terrible so we went and cleaned and cleaned and then cleaned a little bit more. It was really bad. We also spent a lot of time trying to look for some maps of the area too. We have three; one from the church they made, one from the local government but really old, and one that we just found and all together they have it all, but separately they don't have very much so it is really difficult to find some stuff.

There are a lot of changes happening in the mission and I'm really excited about it. This mission is kind of coming out of its dark ages you might say and now it's really going through some dramatic improvements. My district leader is 18. Apparently if you go to a church school you have the option of going on your mission early so he already has 9 months and he is still 18. I wish I could have left earlier but none the less I'm excited to be out here!

I know this is the true church. I know Christ lives and he loves us. Have a great week!

Elder Sands