Looking forward to calling home on Sunday!

These church pictures are from the batch of pictures Eric sent last week

The branch president checking out the church roof for leaks

This is the church

Another view of the church

Hey family,

It's great to be writing again, and it will be even better when I get to call this Sunday!! I'm very excited to make the call, and it's like you thought, we'll make it from the church in the afternoon. I think I'll be able to make the call around 3:00 p.m. Argentina time, which I think is 12:00 noon your time. I hope that everybody will be able to be there for the call so I can talk to the whole family. But if some can't make it, I understand, but I want to talk to everyone!

Regarding your question about the carbon monoxide detectors in the pensiones (apartments), yes, all have them, but they don't work. At the last zone conference, President Villalba said we need to have them all on, and everyone said theirs doesn't work, and that's because they don't. So the mission is supposedly going to send everyone new ones, but who knows about that. Things work differently here than they do back home. At least I am glad to have the detector you sent me so my comp can't kill me, ha ha! Don't worry, though, I feel fine now.

I'm glad you got the pics I sent last week and enjoyed them. I'll take more! Yes, as you noticed in my picture, we have bikes, but the bikes are broken. (Made in Argentina!) So we can't use them unless we take them somewhere to get fixed. It is very rare to have a bike in our mission, because in order to have one, you have to buy it with your own money and then leave it behind when you get transferred. So no one really wants to buy a bike here, and in most areas it would just be stolen from you right away. However, Feliciano is a very safe place, so it would be okay here if they worked. We walk everywhere, which is good, because it's easier to talk to people on the street. Because of the smallness, it's very peaceful and safe here. I believe it's the smallest town in the whole mission, and it's so tiny we don't even have a Grido, which is a chain of ice cream stands and shops that are everywhere, except Feliciano.

The only problem we ever have is the people here are mad because I'm from the States. Also, right now we are in the time of year when the Argentines fought for the Malvinas islands (Falklands) against the British, but they lost, so they are especially sensitive about it this time of year. I believe that the islands were owned by the British for many years, but the Argentines claim it was theirs, so that's why they fought but mostly they just lost a lot of lives and since it happened in 1982, I think a lot of people here are still missing their family members and friends who died then. As a result, they hate all English speakers. Even though it was the British they fought against, they hate the States, too, because they think we're all the same, and they call us los Ingleses. (the English-es.) Even our branch president told me he hates Ingleses, ha ha. This war sounds kind of like it should be old news, but here people are still talking about it, and they have not stopped thinking that the Malvinas are, or should be, theirs, and that those Ingleses are stealing their land.

I've come to hate the question, "Where are you from?" because as soon as I say I'm from the States, many people tell us to leave, and they tell me to tell Bush to stop killing people. But it's okay, I guess, because there's still plenty of good people here. The members are all really good. We're having an activity this Saturday to get references, which should be good, too.

We're teaching many investigators, one of which is going to be baptized in 3 weeks. I don't know if I mentioned her yet, but her name is Angelica. She's already read the Book of Mormon (from 3 Nephi to the end) and has started from the beginning now. She loves it and wants to be baptized. After I explained the baptism doctrine, I started to ask her if she wanted to be baptized, and before I could finish she was shouting "Yes!" I started to ask, "Will you follow the example of Christ" and she shouted "Yes!" To clarify my confusion, because I've never had anyone quite so eager to be baptized before, I added "and be baptized", to which she said, "yes, of course!" It's really cool to see someone so interested and anxious to learn. The only problem with her, is that her son has brain problems, and she has to travel to Parana and stay there on the weekends because he's going to have a huge operation, so she hasn't been able to attend church. However, she says this coming Sunday she finally will be able to come. After she's assisted (attended) twice, she can be baptized. We're teaching many other good people, who will hopefully progress to baptism.

This P-day I'm in Feliciano, and I'm going to write some letters. The last P-day we spent in La Paz, which was a blast! Remember I told you about the asado we were going to have. The asado was awesome. We all went down to the big lake, and to get to the lake, we had to take this awesome trail which was through the deep jungle. It was really lush, and looked just like the way the movies depict the deep jungle. It was really cool, I'm mad I forgot my camera to photograph it, and no one else brought theirs either. But anyway, after we got to this lake, it had the good beach sand and we had a huge asado. The food was really good, and we had the whole place to ourself. We played soccer, ate food, and played Uno, it was a great P-day.

Loving Feliciano, although the traveling's a pain, but this coming week is transfers, so who knows where I may end up, anyway. (Transfers are Wednesday, so next P-day will be a day early, Tuesday!!)

Tell everyone I'm very animated (excited) to call home this Sunday, and hope I can talk to everyone. Love you all and hope you are doing well. Will talk to you around 3 o'clock Argentina time!

Love you all,
Eric

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