Tomatoes the only food not covered in oil or fried :) YUM!

The weather has been starting to get VERY hot. It already feels very hot and it has only gotten up to 35C and in the summer it will reach around 50C about 120F. Just yesterday it was a little rainy and windy which was nicer weather but it was the day we stayed inside :P. I am sure it will be very hot this summer but it is better than being somewhere like Russia, at least I think so, jaja

We don`t have many options for fun things to do but we listen to the music we have and talk and quote movies and things like that. Or a fun thing to do is to visit cool members like Barbara. Or sometimes read in the Old Testament because there are really funny stories in there.

It is full of crazy things, jaja Or read some good talks.... and now you got a little taste of what I do. “That is the alley where I get the Lord`s chips and there is a crazy lady.” Or maybe tell the other companion about cool or funny things they didn`t know about. Like Jim Gaffigan jokes or Demitri Martin jokes. We don`t really have a lot of options for Pdays either. We have gone to the Mercadito Paraguyo in central and bought some cool things there a couple times and once went to a pizza place there in central that was good but a little expensive. I still want to go fishing but I don`t think it will happen at least not here... Hermano Fleytas hasn`t done it yet and I don`t think he will next week, jaja

In our area... there is nothing much. There is one restaurant like place but it is for asado and I`m sure is very expensive and we get asado for free every Sunday! There is a little Kiosko where you can buy hamburgers (argentina style), empanadas, and pizza (argentina

style) and we go there sometimes and buy the hamburgers because you can buy them there cheaper than at the store and you don`t have to make them. They aren`t the same as American hamburgers though. They are made out of a meat that is more like sausage than beef. They also come with lots of toppings like lettuce, tomato, cheese, ham, egg, etc. It is weird because I didn`t like tomatoes before but I have come to like them here... I think it is because it is nice to eat just about anything that is a little healthier and not fried or covered in oil, jaja

This week has been interesting, jaja We had splits and that was good, I learned some more from my zone leaders and we found some great investigators. The thing with this week was that I got really sick for a part of it. I have been sick with a cough for the last three weeks but not to the point I had to stay in the pensh but I also ate something bad and my stomach started to hurt and one night I had to go back to the pensh early but it is better now and the cough seems to have finally gone away. More than that it hasn`t really been an exciting week. Well I did find out that we are going to be getting 25 new missionaries next week and 25 the following for transfers so we will be having two weeks of transfers. I am also sure that they are going to be splitting Circ into three areas now. They have been talking about it for a while and with all the newbies coming in I`m sure they will be doing that. It will be crazy because it already is a tiny area, possible the smallest in the mission.

Well, if I had answered last night it would have been a no we didn’t get the rat yet, jaja but last night... We got back to the pensh and I saw it run behind the fridge so I hurried and grabbed the wooden rod to garrotearle. It started to climb up the wall and I smacked it off into the floor. It ran and hid inside our oven and we couldn`t see where so we turned it on to try to heat it up so it would leave. After a little searching we found where in the oven it was hiding and it ran out and we started trying to get it. Finally I hit it and pinned it to the ground then dragged it to the center and lo garroteo! We now have a penshion free of pestilence. It was huge to the size of my hand (not counting the tail).

Grandma my package hasn`t gotten here.. when did you send it?

Sorry that you didn`t get the letter yesterday there weren`t any cybers in our area that were open yesterday.

I love you guys a ton!! I hope you have a great week!

PS Drive the golf cart up and down the street a few extra time for me and maybe park in the gaymires driveway for a little while, jaja I wish that I could be there for some of the gaymire wars, it sounds really funny!

Baptismal Font in Circ

Most Memorable Mission Experiences So Far!

I´m glad you have enjoyed the pictures; I have been trying to take more of them. The little boy is named Abel and he LOVES missionary name plaques. In his prayers he always blesses all the plaques and is what he says every other thing during the prayer. It is really funny. His mom also said that we are the best here in Circ because the Elders from Italia won´t let him wear their plaques. The horses are a little farther north from our home in barrio la Floresta. I thought that you would love the baby horse so I had to take that picture, jaja


Karen one of our investigators got baptized this last Saturday! (pictures in Dropbox). Her younger sister doesn´t want to get baptized for anything... and her younger brother... maybe will get baptized depending on the day, jaja He is very back and forth but I think if we get permission from his mom and set it up he will get baptized. Karen is awesome, she was telling us last week how she wants to be a missionary like us and we told her in five years she can. She was excited and said that isn´t very long!

 Some of my most memorable experiences from the mission so far... Well in the MTC it would be the devotionals and hanging out in the dorm areas at night. There was food, rapping contests, yoga master and his entertaining things he did, and other funny things. In Cali it would be things like Gary (investigator who almost got baptized and was super awesome but his wife said no or she would divorce him). Some cool experiences that happened when we found some cool people like this one family that I forgot their name but his name was Jeremy. Mother’s day Skype call home. The good food we ate that was a really spicy. Some cool member friends from there like Steven and Alan. Also the night of the chicken surgery... that was disgusting but really funny at the same time. Here I would say every single baptism; Ermalina, Carlos, Jorge, Kati, Manuel, Seba, and Karen. Lots of funny stories with elder Santoro, also when Elder Santoro and I would also have to sneak past Ariel (we called him machete man) and hope that he wouldn´t throw a machete in our backs to get to the Pulada´s house. The visits with Hermana Pulada and her family. Me and Elder Fiabane got along really well and we had a lot of fun and worked hard together. We could have been friends outside of the mission easily so that was a fun time. Also the rat killing that is happing now.

We are having a rat hunt in our pensh. We are filming the whole thing and it will be basically a movie in the end. (Can´t put it on dropbox it is too big and would take forever to upload.) But it is pretty funny. We want this last rat to die just like the other one... Garrotearle!!! Hopefully that will be happening soon!

Today I finally got to withdraw. I took out what should be right around $100. It was $500 pesos. So you should see that this week. 

I love you guys a ton and can´t wait to hear from you next week.

"Greenie Fire"

My new companion is good! It is always funny to see the greenie fire when they first come in! I was talking about that with one of the returned missionaries here, we were talking about how when the new missionary first comes they clean the whole pension and always have a ton of energy. Then after one or two transfers they lose the energy to fight the constant amount of mud, dirt and other messes. I still clean, I´m not saying that I don´t clean but I also don´t try to have everything spotless like before. It just doesn´t work here. Then we said that the greenies when they have their first hijo end up being the one who sleeps while their new hijo is the one that cleans the pension, jaja My hijo said that that will never happen to him and that he will always clean the pension to be spotless (I said that too :P) I told him that is awesome and support him in it, but I highly doubt he will last any longer than two transfers.

But more specifically about him, jaja Everyone we talk to asks him if he is Chinese and starts making racist jokes about him, I think it will happen his whole mission. The people here are very ignorant. I told him to get used to it now because it won’t stop so he is thinking about for the summer trying to find one of the Chinese hats that they wear to support their racist comments and jokes because it would be funny. He is actually a mix of Hawaiian and Japanese.

We get along good but sometimes I feel like he wants to challenge what I tell him. He is very new and excited and has all these ´´great ideas´´. I know that I am going to be learning more about patience this transfer, jaja I am going along with a lot of his ideas so that he can learn for himself, especially because he doesn´t listen when I tell him what will happen. He likes to do things for himself instead of learn from other people. Like today he couldn´t understand that I had faith that we could reach our area goal for baptisms of 4 (I know it COULD happen) but at the same time I don´t think it will happen and we should lower it. Then we talked with the sister missionaries too and I think that another person’s view helped him to see what I was trying to explain and maybe trust me a little more, we will see. But I also want to let him try things for himself and learn for himself why things work and don´t work. Just a lot of greenie fire that is all, haha. I remember when Elder Fiabane had that, jaja.

For conference it was broadcast in Castellano in the chapel where all the Latinos and investigators, and members went. We had another side room where it was broadcast in English. I think that I would have understood pretty much all of it in Castellano but it would have bugged me to have the voices changed of people like the prophet and the apostles.
My favorite talks were probably first of all the one on Saturday by Uchtdorf. I loved the story he started with, the guy who had all the things that we do for our church listed to him then he asked why would anyone want to be a member of your church? jaja I thought that was funny. I also liked that quote of doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. I think that if more people would think like that it would help them out a ton. He also talked about some great points for things that people have said to me while on my mission. Like the church isn´t perfect because it is ran by us who are imperfect beings but that is no reason to not go. That they should go and add their talents and try to help make it more perfect.

Other talks that I really liked where Edward Dube and David A Bednar. I liked the quote in Dube´s talk ´´faith is always looking towards the future.´´ that we should always take serious all of our calling because God put us there at that time and place for a reason so we need to do what he asked. I also liked in Bednar´s when he talked about how we often receive simple but significant blessings. I think we often overlook those simple but significant blessing. Like in the story he told the lady had no unusually large medical bills or payments that she had to make. That we can receive blessings from God for the same end through different means like we may have more endurance to search out different job offers than other people. God will always answer our prayers, just maybe not in the way that we expect. ´´Your thoughts are not higher than my thoughts, but my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.´´

Our relationship with those who feed us is good, jaja that isn´t the problem. The problem is that the bishop is trying to set crazy rules for us to have baptisms. There was a, as we call it, attack the missionaries meeting this week. The bishop and his counselors set up a whole bunch of crazy rules about baptizing and told us how we were doing all these different things wrong. We talked to president who told us that he knew that what is going on here isn´t our fault it isn´t the missionaries failing but the church failing the missionaries here. President has talked to the Stake President and he is going to talk to the bishop. The way that he did it we aren´t even involved. The stake president is going to ask him about things that president has heard have been going on here that shouldn´t be (like the bishop trying to interview baptismal candidates). President told us to just to our best with the ward we have and he is pleased with our work. 

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

Training a Gringo from UTAH

Bueno, well here is what happened! We were at the house of Barbara and we got the call... We went in the other room and answered... They told us that Elder Fiabane... was going to be leaving. He went to Corrientes Capital. Then they told me that I would be.... what do you think? Leaving or staying? Well it turns out that I stayed. Also they said that I will be training another time. I had to get up early the next morning to go to Resistencia and look for my new hijo. Once there it was a long wait as always were they train all the trainers how to be trainers even if you have been a trainer five times already. That part is very boring and we all just want to find out who will be our new hijos. Then we went into the room where they all are and they started announcing who the hermanas were going to be with. Then after that they started announcing all the elders. Almost at the end they finally said Elder Pickle is going to be with Elder Mossman in Circunvalacion II.

   And that is the story of how I ended up where I was but with a new hijo. He is a gringo from Utah... well he more looks like a chino but that is because his mom was Japanese and his dad is Hawaiian. He grew up in Hawaii and at twelve moved to Utah and has lived in Sandy and went to Hillcrest High school. I had never met him before and we don`t know any of the same people but he lives really close.

   As for exciting things happening this week we have had a revolution in the barrio. jaja well kind of jaja. We got to church this week and the Relief Society President called us aside to talk to us. She took us to the Relief Society room and started yelling at us saying, ``Look at this mess you guys made! Why did you take out these ping pong tables and leave all the air conditioners running and the kitchen a disaster. You have to clean up after your baptisms!`` So first of all we didn`t have a baptism it was the Hermanas. Second of all the mess had nothing to do with missionaries it was the young men. Third of all she has no reason to be yelling at us for whatever reason. I calmly explained to her that it was not the missionaries and that when we got there to help the sisters with their baptism it was already a disaster and that we cleaned up the kitchen. And we had nothing to do with the air conditioning or Relief Society room. She then threatened to call the mission president and stormed off.

   That was one of the fun parts of the ward starting to hate us for no reason. Then in Sunday school the Elders Quorum President asked us if we wanted to leave our area who should we call? We replied the mission president. He then went off about how we are new missionaries that don`t know anything because we should call our zone leaders who would call president (that isn`t how it works, you call president EVERY time you want to leave your area and inform your zone leaders if he gives you permission). We also have been trying to set up ward council with the bishop for over a month and he won`t do it for this reason or that. We ended up talking to our zone leaders and they said try to set it for a date that coming week and if he won`t do it talk to president. So we tried and he wouldn`t so we called president. He told us that we were just going to have to try to work with the ward and serve them and try to make things happen like that.

   On the up side we found some really cool investigators that all went to church this week! They are three kids who went before with missionaries but for some reason the missionaries stopped passing. They already have a lot of assistance and we will teach them the lessons again to be sure because we can`t find a registro for them. They will probably be getting baptized here in the next coming week! They were so cool that not only did they go to church but they left to go before we got there and we met them on the way. They also stayed for all three hours of church! We are really excited for them!

   That is awesome that Nathan went a 28 on his 50! Tell him he has to break my record and make it to state this year! He has to beat 24 sec. I know he can do it! Emily also has to go I remember that she was super close and once her arm gets better her time will drop. It is very hard to do sports with broken arms, specifically swimming (trust me I know) :P.

   It is too bad there were no calls on ride alongs but that is cool that you can go again and so it doesn`t matter if there weren`t any that night you can go for more, right?

   Kaulin is 16? I fear for the world... It may no longer be safe to go outdoors... jaja jk kind of. It doesn`t seem possible that he is 16.

   That is cool that Dad likes his new partner and captain hopefully he will stay. And I am sure that he will make a great captain whenever they call him.

   As far as a car would go I think that probably a more efficient car would be better. I really liked the White Tiger but I am also a poor college student who can`t afford his classes so I think that it would be better to spend less on a car. Like my Saturn was a great car that did everything that I needed. 
   This will be a crazy week for us trying to bring everyone to General Conference. It will be held in the stake center so we will have to find a solution how to get everyone there. I am not quite sure how it will work out. We have a goal of having 8 people there. We will see how that goes and do our best to meet it.

   I love you all soo very much and I can`t wait to hear from you next week!