Santa Fe is awesome!

Eric with his new companion, Elder Herold

Eric with Elder Renlund. Eric is wearing a hat in Argentina's colors to show support for Argentina as they play in the World Cup. Elder Renlund has the hood of his sweatshirt up for warmth, because there is no heat in the apartments.

Hey family, what's up!!!!

Firstly, I'm in the city Santa Fe now and it's awesome. I really miss Casilda, it was such a great place with great people, but I love my new area too. I mean really, I've been so lucky with areas. I absolutely love this area. The only thing it's missing is a great relationship with all the members and the investigators, but that just takes time.

In my area we have a Walmart!! It's not actually in my area, but it's close, and we're going there to buy our groceries today. After buying warm milk from small kioscos my whole mission so far, I'm very excited to be able to go to Walmart and get some real stuff. Also, we have a McDonald's!!! So needless to say, this area is very awesome.

Our pench is the coolest thing ever. It's kind of like a 6-man pench, and is BY FAR the coolest pench I've ever had. It was originally an 8-man pench, for 4 upstairs and 4 on the main floor, but now it's a 6-man. My comp and I live in the downstairs, but we have lots of space because we are the only two! Then upstairs there are the other two companionships. In addition to that awesomeness, we have a HUGE GARAGE in the back, in which we (the 6 of us) play soccer for our short exercise period every morning, and we sometimes play a little in the evening, too. It's very big and is awesome to be able to have that in our pench! We also have a HUGE GRILL to cook asados someday. I'll send you some pics of it next week. Our pench is like a mini Fort Knox. We've got a massive gate surrounding it and massive bars on every door, window, crack, or whatever! I guess that's because this pench has been broken into 4 times since the missionaries have been using it, and because we live in one of the most dangerous areas of the mission. We also work in one of the most dangerous villas, or ghetto slums, in the mission. The particular area our pench is in is a little better area than the area my comp and I work in, but don't worry, we'll be fine. So far all the other areas I have served in were safer areas, but I still really like this area.

It also helps that I'm with a cool group of elders. Arriving here was like having a reunion....one of the elders that lives upstairs is....Elder Welker!!! From La Paz!! So we're excited to be together again. His companion, believe it or not, is Elder Renlund! Elder Renlund and I went to school together, and he was in my American Problems class!! I remember him because in that class, he represented Russia, and he gave my country financial aid, ha ha. In addition to that, of the other two elders who live upstairs, the zone leaders, one of them is the Elder Rojas from my zone in Venado Tuerto! (Not the Elder Rojas that was my comp in Feliciano.) And then Barbara Hansen is in my zone again, and then my district leader turns out to be from Riverton! (Riverton is a town about 20 minutes away from where we live.)

We have a really nice church here. My comp and I work TWO areas!! Which is pretty intense. So every Sunday, we have to go on divisions and we both attend a different church session. We work in Yapeyu and San Agustin. The one is a ward and has about 35 people that attend, and the other is a branch and has about 75 people attending! I think it would be good to combine the two, but of course that is not my decision to make. They are both really cool congregations, and due to the many members, we have lunch almost EVERY DAY! That really helps us out so much!!! So I'll be eating good here, between all the great members and the McDonalds, don't worry about that!!!

This area was crazy when Argentina played Mexico in the World Cup on Sunday. We were at a member's house and were just finishing lunch when the match came on, so we got to watch it this time. It was very intense throughout!! Let's just say that after Argentina scored their first goal, it sounded like Argentina was being bombed. There were loud explosions and bright flashes and all kinds of crazy things. People shot off guns, and they did the cannons, and fireworks, and everything, not to mention all of the screaming! After the second and third goals, it was more like Argentina was being nuked or something, but just to witness all the craziness was a lot of fun! After Argentina won the game, the explosions and craziness continued, and everyone was out driving in their cars, honking their horns and celebrating, with every car filled with people hanging out the windows and even some people balanced precariously on top, and everyone waving the Argentina flag everywhere you looked, and everyone wearing crazy hats and blue and white. So it was all very fun, but it can be dangerous too, because almost all of the people end up getting very drunk as part of their celebrating, so we have to be careful. I'm excited to see the next match against Germany.

I guess I'll try and explain about the English classes. I thought I had explained it before, but I guess not, so I apologize. Ever since my first area, except in Feliciano, we've taught classes of English, they are simple classes and a lot of fun. In Venado Tuerto, we always only had one guy show up, so we just talked to him and taught him whatever he wanted to know how to say. In Casilda, I still had small groups, sometimes only two or three people. It's not anything fancy, you just teach the people whatever you think would be good, so you could just talk with them, teach them some phrases, teach them how to introduce themselves and get to know someone, or teach them the steps to pray, or how to bear their testimony, etc. It's pretty fun for everyone. We're starting up an English class here now too, because Elder Herold wasn't doing one before, so hopefully we can have some good success from that, because it can be a good way to find some new investigators. I assume that with all the members and other people here, we'll actually have a big turnout and I might actually have to come up with a more official lesson plan!

Yes, I received Cameron's letter a while ago, and am going to send him one soon too. I actually just finished writing him a letter but still need to send it.

I think we have a lady that does our laundry, so that would be so cool not to have to hand wash, so I'll let you know once we take care of that later today, because I am not sure how it works here yet.

Our shower is the best I've had. In fact, it RIVALS A SHOWER IN THE STATES! We don't have a hot water heater for the pench, but what we have is a mini hot water heater thing on the shower. There's a little box on the shower head and somehow it instantly heats all the water that passes through it to whatever temperature you want. The second you turn on the shower you have hot water, and you can have that hot water as long as you want. In addition to that, it has lots of pressure, it's AWESOME!!!!!

I still miss my beloved Casilda, but I do love the new area here. I expect to come to love the members and people here, and hope to find lots of good new investigators to teach.

I am glad to hear that the baby shower went good, and loved getting and seeing all those pictures.

Well, I better get going, just know that I love you all and that I'm having lots of fun and am busy doing the best I can to serve Heavenly Father and teach by the spirit and bring the gospel to his children.

I love you all very much,
Eric

Eric captioned this picture as "One more view of my beloved Casilda."

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