Things you might not know about Argentina

Yes! Rocio was baptized and confirmed this last week! Unfortunately Vilma didn´t want to... But we are going to be working with Jenifer (Granddaughter-daughter of Vilma) and we hope that Vilma will want to get baptized at the same time as her. We have set the date of the 8th of March for Jenifer and we think it will happen. We want to be able to have that one more baptism before the end of the transfer.

The best day this week was the baptism day! Baptisms are always the best! Rocio was really excited and it all went really well. The only bad part was the sacrament meeting that was right after her confirmation was probably the worst that I have ever been to in my whole life... maybe... It is debatable between that one and my old primary teacher’s homecoming, haha. The whole meeting was old people giving talks and they didn´t give talks... they just pulled out principles of the gospel, teachings of the prophets, bible dictionary, etc and read from them very brokenly. It was super long and boring... ugh. If I wasn´t a missionary I probably would have left and came back after sacrament meeting. 

We haven´t had any success in finding any new investigators. It has been really bad in our whole zone right now. Fontana is pretty down on numbers specifically the sisters who are having only 3-5 lessons a week. The zone leaders are in the same spot too. But hay que trabajar no mas. (I don´t know how to translate that well... You just have to keep working... but it sounds better in castellano)

We are yet again without water and still no other penshs to move into. We are looking all over and there just aren´t any. Almost all of Fontana are these houses called viviendas which are government funded houses that can´t be rented. Sometimes they do anyway but it doesn´t work for us because that is illegal and we aren´t allowed to rent them.

There is a huge problem with Argentine money right now. The value of the money in Argentina is failing super-fast and our monthly income hasn´t gone up. I am fine for right now but I spend my money well and don´t have problems. I think it will make it very hard for other missionaries really soon. One liter of milk when I got here was 4 pesos right now it is 12.... TRIPLE!! That is ridiculous! Prices keep going up each week. Luckily eggs are still only one peso so I eat a lot of those. Also rice and noodles are cheap so we eat a lot of those as well. Our monthly allowance started out at 900 pesos and around Christmas time went up to 1000. So while the prices have tripled here our income has gone up less than ten percent. Also the price to take out the money has gone up from 20 pesos to 50 pesos. So really the extra hundred we would have gotten is just taken away and the collectives (busses) were only 2.50 and now are 3.75 but never have change so they end up charging 4 pesos each time. I don´t want to take out the money here because it cuts the value in less than hallf and that isn´t worth it. I also am not allowed to take the money out in dollars because the argentine government knows that dollars are worth way more than pesos and that pesos are worth a lot less than 5.5 to the dollar. It is really more like 13 to the dollar and going up each week. 

There are a lot of missionaries that go home but I hardly ever hear about it. The other day I heard that 9 went home last transfer but I heard that they were all medical. The only one that I know for sure was a Hna Patterson who went home because she was sick. She left at the same time as me and she has had health problems the whole time.  

Things you might not know about Argentina

1.     All the houses are made out of brick and cement. They then cover the brick and cement with a layer of cement and paint it. That is how an Argentine house is made, haha

2.     The sky seems really big here because there are no mountains where I am at.

3.     Every Sunday the people make asados and the streets smell like it

4.     The biggest pastime of the people is to drink matte and people watch or just play soccer

5.     People sweep there dirt here, they also water it

6.     The city of Resistencia is named so because when the Spanish Catholics invaded the indigenous people were resistant to change their religion (today they still are, haha)

7.     The biggest worshiped things around here are gauchito gil and the virgin maria because people say that they relate more to them than Jesus

8.     The main form of transportation is the moto

9.     The main food consists of guiso (noodles or rice with a sauce and beef or chicken), milanesa, or if we are lucky empanadas or pizza. All things are covered in lots of oil though si o si

Oh, can you send me the recipe on how to make a sourdough starter? I would like to make one! I have been making lots of stuff recently like tortilla (the only ones here are super expensive), pizza crust, bread and I would like to try to make a sourdough starter. 

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