20 questions with Elder Pickle (Well at least 12)

1.      Was that a picture in dropbox of a spider bite on your hand? Is it doing better now? I don´t know if it was a spider bite or a mosquito.. haha but it is gone now. 

2.      Have you been able to get money off of your debit card? If you have had a problem let me know and I will contact the bank here and let them know you are in Argentina so not to freeze the card because those are expected charges.I tried to withdraw money today and it said that the transaction wasn´t possible at that time, I don´t know why... so there will be like a 2 peso charge or like 40cents but it didn´t work

3.  What is it that you were pretending to drink as you came in your apartment?

I wasn´t pretending, that was some sort of alcoholic bottle with apple flavored tang, haha but there are a ton of flavors of tang naranja, manzana, ananá, mango (orange, apple, pineapple, mango)

4.  Also the picture of the brownie with the note that said I enjoyed last night now you enjoy this. What? You have some explaining to do ha ha?

The brownie was Elder Santoro, haha he just left the brownie and note, it was funny so I took a picture of it. 

5.      Were you able to get the pictures to your investigators so you can stop avoiding them?

Yes, we finally got the investigators there pictures, but no we can´t stop avoiding them,,, jaja they want us now to eat a pig´s head with them (the brain more than anything) and we really don´t want to... jaja and they still want us to buy stuff from them...

6.      Do you have a quote from the week? The funniest conversation or thing someone said to you?

Dang, there are, but I can´t think what! I need to start writing them down so I can remember! That is a good idea! I can remember laughing about different things but not explicitly what, but  one funny thing is Barbara´s son Pachon has a phone that elder Santoro has called a couple times and talks to him as the ´´other´´ elder Santoro, jaja and the whole conversation takes place with them in the same room and the other elder santoro tells pachon to ask the elder santoro that is in the room with him questions and he does, jaja

7.      Tell us more about who you are teaching? How many people are you teaching, how are they progressing? Do you have any favorites?

Right now we are teaching several people, but our focus for this coming week is Diego, Gisel, y Gisela. Diego hopefully will be getting baptized this week if we can convince him that he doesn´t need to learn more because he is ready. But he wants to watch a video about Christ so we will show him that and then hopefully he will say he is ready. But we has a surprise baptism!!! We didn´t think that Carlos was going to get baptized and we technically killed him last week but we stopped by to invite Ema his friend to go to the ward baptism and asked him if he wanted to go. He said oh, I still need to get baptized huh? So we said yeah! So he said is it the LAST baptism? And we told him yes so he said ok. Then he went to change to and get shoes. We were waiting and couldn´t believe he had said he was going to go but then became worried because he wasn´t coming still. After a little time he showed up and we had to go to our pension to get baptismal clothes and bon bons (we promised him bon bons if he got baptized). Then took a remis to the church because the other baptism was already starting. We got there just in time to have him try on the clothes find the right one and get baptized. Then He said the next day he would come to church for the confirmation. So of course that would have been far too easy and he didn´t want to go up in front of the congregation and get confirmed so he wouldn´t even leave his house. So we got permission from the bishop to confirm him in his house. At this point we came up with our plan to confirm him which involved 4 bon bons for bait. We spent our first bon bon by giving it to Brenda because elder santoro had promised her one, so that one wasn{t very effective but oh well. Then we told Ema he could have one if he brought us Carlos so he ran off as our attack dog. We told Cati (Carlos’s sister) the same. Ema came back with no Carlos but said that he was coming. We told him no bon bon until Carlos was there. So we waited for a while and miraculously he showed up! Then we gave ema his bon bon and told Carlos he could have his once he was confirmed. We then brought him inside and confirmed him and gave him his bon bon. Since Cati had disappeared we gave the fourth to Ema and Brenda´s younger sister. And that is the story of our crazy baptism, jaja

8.      It seems like you are getting along with your companion well. Tell us more about him and the things you do together? Yeah, my comp is really cool! He is also studying computer science engineering and so we talk a lot about that! He has taught me a lot about it and I now have a whole list of programs and things that I will need when I get home! He has also taught me stuff you guys will like! Imagine this... Unlimited HD movies and TV series the day they come out... sometimes sooner! All for free! I couldn´t believe it but it will be so cool! We also have talked a lot about harry potter, jaja and I forgot a lot about it and how good it is but I want to read it again now, jaja I think we have basically talked about the whole plot and other books and some games and movies and tons of stuff, jaja But he is cool comp!

9.      When are transfers? Are you for sure staying in the Resistencia mission?

Transfers are next week and I will most likely be staying here in Circ 2 with my comp because I´m technically training. The only way that I will be in the other mission is if I get transferred to Misiones this transfer but that is very unlikely. 

10.  Try and give us an idea what Formosa is like

Formosa, jaja is like if you were in the short buildings of downtown salt lake and you beat them up. Then add bars to all the windows and fences to all the lots. And changed all the streets to mud. And put sanjas on either side of the road (Above ground sewage). There are dogs everywhere. The most common mode of transportation is motorcycle. There is an area called pasillos that is the most dangerous part of our area, but that is where most of our investigators are right now, jaja a fair amount of drunk and high people you have to avoid. Mud, mud, and more mud, jaja While listing that out doesn´t sound to pleasant, it really isn´t bad, jaja I like it here and it is weird but the days pass a lot faster here than they did in Cali. A lot less door knocking which is really nice. And we baptize!! I will think of the best way to describe Formosa and write it next time because this kind of sounds depressing, jaja

11.  Have you had to speak in church yet?

I gave one talk one week when the bishop´s wife didn´t show up because she was sick, but it was really easy, only como 20 min on faith in Christ and I just found a few scriptures and it was easy. I also almost had to teach one Principios del Evangelio class but we watched a movie instead. 

12.  Have you seen the new training video yet? If so what does that mean for you?

I don´t know, what training video, jaja there are a lot :P

 The armadillo that is there was caught by Hermano Flytes (owns the house we live in). We ate it in some empanadas last Sunday. It was really good!

 It has been raining a ton here and we have been in mud for the whole week and it is supposed to keep raining until Thursday and the mud will last beyond that. The biggest problem is we can´t dry our clothes in the rain, haha

I love you guys and I can´t wait to hear from you next week! Love you so much!

 

Avoiding the stalkers :)

I am feeling good, no side effects from the water as far as I can tell :P from the food a veces a good case of #3 if you know what I mean. And yes I purify my water with my water bottle.

The baptisms fell through this week :( Carlos was busy with his mud fight and didn´t want to go and Diego wasn´t there all week and still hasn´t watched his video about Christ yet so he would have said he wasn´t ready even if he was there, but we are going to try to have them do it next week with the ward baptism and the sisters in the ward might have one too. 

Spiritual experiences... I would say that the best for this week was probably zone conference. We had zone conference were President was there and gave a training to us and two other zones. He talked about charity and the importance of it in missionary work. Hermana Heyman talked about love. It was great!

Yes they celebrate Father´s day in Argentina and Happy late Father’s Day Dad!!! The extent of celebrating it was basically there were only 20 people in church that day (the mud didn´t help either!) Oh, but we did have some really good fish with our asado called dorado that is a river fish here that was rico! 

My favorite parts of the day are probably lessons, studies, and sleeping and my least favorite waking up and walking everywhere, and being hunted by Ariel, jeje

So I figure that last part needs explaining, jeje Ariel is the husband of Ermalinda who we baptized two weeks ago. They have been asking us for photos of their wedding and her baptism but we didn´t get a chance to go last pday because of lack of time so we have been trying to avoid them, haha and also every time they see us they force us to buy stuff like pan with dulce de leche inside or chicken or other things that we don´t want or need. Because of that we have had to sneak into Barbara´s house the last two times because she lives right across from them, haha so we call her and she says, ok Elders I will turn off the porch light and leave my front gate open so you can get in quickly, haha She is really capo and then always has food that we never eat enough of (she makes more than we can eat and forces us to eat more and then send more home with us). 

It rained a ton here last Friday during zone conference. When the conference was over no remise (taxi type thing) were running at that time (no one works when it rains) so we ended up staying in the central chapel talking for hours. There were lots of stories about the summer time here and how you are soaked in sweat by the end of the day and that it is impossible to sleep without fans running during the night. There were stories about horrible pensions with lots of snakes, spiders, rats, and cockroaches.

The people always say that Emily looks older than Mom but that neither looks old. Some say that Dad looks really young others that he looks his age. But they always think that it is a picture of our family without the mom, haha oh, once or twice someone asked if Emily was the mom, haha

The people here like to watch soccer, go to bolichis (clubs), and listen to their really nice stereo systems. They may live in not very nice houses at times but they always have really big and nice stereos, haha. Oh and how did I forget the huge thing of Argentina drink their matte! That is huge!

Don´t worry I took pictures and will continue to do so even if it takes some time to get them on here!

I love you guys so much and I will write a little more if I have time but I need to print my letters and write Cody! Love you guys so much!

 

 

 

A Day in the Life of Elder Pickle

Es muy loco que he sido acá por tres semanas. No parece como eso mucho teimpo ha pasado....

A day in the life of Elder Pickle...

  You wake up, tired with the light on so that the rat didn´t try to bite your toes that night and think...

My Shower

 Is it my turn to shower first or do I get an extra 30 min of sleep? Then shower or sleep. The shower is reasonable warm and the good thing is that it never runs out of warm water because it is electric. Then we have studies until 12 because I’m training again. Then we go to a member´s house for lunch which is huge. Lunch here is bigger than dinner at home. So we eat something along the lines of milonesa or fideos for lunch. Then we go out and teach lessons and contact and stuff until nine at night when it is time to return to the pension. If we decide we want dinner that night we go buy the food a couple streets down at the store and we have a pizza or something like that. Then we have planning and get ready for bed. And that is the normal Argentina day, haha

As far as investigators we just had the baptism of Ermalinda and I was the one who did the

Getting married

ordinance! It was really cool, it was my first baptism! (Well my first real baptism that was my investigator). We had lots of things happen before they were ready to get baptized but we pulled through and everything worked out! They had to get married, she didn´t want to on the wedding day but her husband made her, she yelled her way through the interview (she likes to yell at her kids...), the day of the baptism EVERYONE was in Paraguay to go to the temple so her husband was mad and almost left and that would have made the baptism impossible. But all in all it worked out, haha and we should have two more baptisms this week with Diego and Carlos. They are both around 12.

We haven´t really been able to do any cool Pday activities yet... the first week was just getting accustomed to here, the second we had stuff to do for the baptism and this week it rained and everything is mud right now, haha but hopefully next week.

I´m excited to get my package, I didn´t think that I would get one for a long time, why is it that you get to send an extra? Sounds good to me though! Oh and what is the best way to get money off the card and avoid fees? atm? Cash back? idk, haha

Yes, we walk everywhere, haha and I think we figured that we walk an average of 8mi a day. It depends more than anything if we have more lessons or not. But our area is small so we don´t walk too much. The areas that aren´t in the city it is really long walking distances every day, haha

I love you guys very much and will write you more if I get a chance but am almost out of time! Love you guys!

The pension



Washing my clothes

 

Frying up some lunch

 

A family of blondes?!?!

Right now our main investigators are Hermalinda, Carlos, Diego (all have baptismal date), and Cynthia. We go to their houses almost every day if not every other day. And yes, we are always searching for new people to teach! :)

I think we could list the similarities between the U.S. and Argentina and that would be faster, haha but Argentina is really different. Most people ride motos acá and lots of people walk everywhere. The roads are made of dirt with dogs and other animals all around. On the side of every road are ditches called sanja or sewer is I´m pretty sure the translation where all the plumbing for the houses go, and yes it stinks (but not as bad as I thought it would). 

The weather here is great. It is the ´´cold´´ time of year, but the weather is perfect. The members say that I’m crazy because I don´t have a jacket on, haha but it is really nice outside. The summers get really hot and we have to wear sombreros. 

Washing by hand is a pain and we are basically washing every day, but the plunger washer makes it a lot easier and I´m glad I don´t have to do it totally by hand. I don´t think anyone else has one down here. My comp hasn´t seen one in his year and a half on the mission. There are pictures if dropbox will work, it is going realllly slow...

Yes, I can print the letters.

No calling in the ward, we have one of the bigger wards here in Circunvalación. But the members are great. We stop by one named Barbara a lot and she feeds us every time, haha 

I had to buy new rechargeable batteries for my camera because I found out the airport took mine :( but there was a recharger left in the apartment by the last missionary who didn´t want it so that is good.

All the members here love to see pictures of our family and when they look at our pictures they always think that mom is my sister, haha every time. They also say that we are all blonds, all of us, haha I try to tell my companion that you guys have brown hair but he won´t have it he says we are all blonde. 

What are some good remedies for being sleepy a lot? I don´t know why but I have been sleepy since I have been here and drinking more has helped which is what Hermana Heyman said to do but I still am tired at times... just wondering if you knew anything that would help.

I will probably be here in Circunvalación for 4 transfers. I will be here with my current comp for 2 because he is my trainer and then I will most likely be a trainer for someone here after that because of the large group of missionaries coming in. 

So I also found out that President is loaded, haha my companion said that he is on Forbes 100 and is the only Mormon on it. He is always staying at these crazy fancy five star hotels around here, haha He is a really good lawyer. 

For food here we have eaten things like Milanese (kind of like chicken fried steak), Fideos (pasta with chicken), bore bore (soup with corn, chicken and bean like things), empanadas, fried tortillas (nothing like a tortilla), pizza, and because we are lucky asada every Sunday!

My companion has also been giving me some of his Argentine candy that is really good. He gets a package full every month because he is from Buenos Aires. My favorites are Mantecol (which is a peanut butter like candy bar kind of resembles peanut butter play dough) and Alfavor (the delicious cookies Rob talked about filled with dulce de leche). 

I love you guys and will write more if I have time. I am going to try to get dropbox to work, but I love you guys so much!