Eric with his zone, enjoying P-day at the zone activity in a park (Parque de la Agricultura) in Esperanza, which is a small city about 40 minutes north of Santa Fe.Hey family, what's up!!!
I'm in Esperanza right now, because for P-day today we had an awesome zone activity here. This morning we left first thing and came to Esperanza, where we played soccer as a zone and had an asado. It was soooo much fun, haven't had that much fun in a while, because everyone in my zone is the best. I've been really blessed because I have always been in great zones with great people. By the way, my team won when we played soccer.
Esperanza is a really nice city with a very beautiful park. Parks here are better than in the States! I forgot the name of the park back home, the one that has the paddle boats and mini amusement center (he's talking about Liberty Park), but this park here is kind of like that, as you'll see from the photos. I took a bunch of photos of the park, but I'll send you the one with the zone first. The photos are taking forever to upload so I probably won't be able to send very many, but eventually you'll see them, it's a great park.
Zone conferences have been changed now to every 3 months, which means that I'll get packages and mail every 3 months now. I think it is a church-wide change, and not just for my mission. But it'll be okay because sometimes the zone leaders have to pass by the mission home for whatever reason, and while there, they get our stuff. For example, today we received letters!!! I got tons of great letters, including Dad's book that he sent me about 400 tips for missionaries, and I got two dearelders from Mom and another letter from Dad with an article. I was way excited because I didn't know anyone had passed by the mission home and that we'd get mail today!!
A lot is happening here in Argentina, I think something special is going down here because we have lots of Seventy's coming, as well as members of the Twelve. (Church leaders) I think Argentina is about to fulfill its prophecy of the dedicatory prayer when Argentina was set apart for missionary work, of becoming one of the strongest countries in the gospel, like a strong tree. First you have to prune the branches, which is what's going to happen here, I think. Either way I'll keep working hard and doing my best to help it out.
It really is pretty here in Esperanza, probably because they have lots of money so it's clean, unlike Santa Fe. Santa Fe, specifically my area, is one of the dirtiest places in all of Argentina. The whole city looks like a garbage dump. Every field is full of garbage, every street is full of garbage, etc. It's very dirty, but I love my area just the same.
We have a nice lady who washes our clothes, and we convinced her to go to the States, which she is now going to do, and is getting her visa. Apparently she has a boyfriend there in San Diego, so now she's going to go there and have a better life. She has a washing machine, which is somewhat rare here, so the clothes are always nice and clean (mind you, it's an Argentine washing machine, which basically means a bucket with a spinning arm, but it still does a decent job.)
Yes, there are plenty of dogs here in Santa Fe and everywhere, every part of Argentina has an abundance of dogs. There are dogs on the roofs, yes, people put their dogs up there, but it doesn't stop there. We see dogs EVERYWHERE!!!! On roofs, on top of cars, in cars, in the sewers and fields, even in the middle of streets laying down. This causes many accidents, and I've even witnessed a car accident here due to dogs laying down in the middle of a busy road. The dogs are everywhere you can imagine. I always hope the dogs fall off the roofs when they bark at us, ha ha, but so far no luck, though my comp saw a dog fall from a roof once. There are also lots of dead dogs. I probably see a dead dog laying somewhere every day, often decapitated, half eaten or rotten. Also sometimes cats, though not so much. The dogs here are not like dogs in the States. Lots of them are weird and diseased and mutated and sick, but there are some nice dogs here, too.
The culture is the same in pretty much all of Argentina, which means you clap at the houses. If the house has a gate you stand outside and clap, pretty standard stuff. It's pretty funny because sometimes next door neighbors will come out of their houses, thinking we were clapping for them. Ha ha, I'm certainly going to miss clapping when I'm in the States again. There's a lot I'll miss, but there's a lot more I miss about the States still.
Yes, everyone kisses on the cheek and all, but the members here are pretty good, they know all about the missionaries and the rules, so they never try and kiss us on the cheek, and sometimes you get the occasional member who talks to you in usted form because everyone knows we use that. Others try and fail, doing a mixture of vos and usted, which is pretty funny because they like to make fun of us for not being able to speak and they can't! But the majority just don't try. Outside of the church (I think he means the mission) NOBODY speaks in usted!!! I really like vos form because it's not a "formal" way to speak. Vos symbolizes trust and friendship, as well as respect, so their usted is almost like a cold way to speak. In fact, the only things that speak in usted here are the missionaries and the stop signs that say "PARE." I really wish we could speak in vos because it's so much different from tu form, but that's okay I guess, for now I'll just talk in vos to the kids (we have to for them, they're confused if we speak to them in usted.)
Yes, the language is coming along good. You asked me if I've dreamed in Spanish, and you know what, I wish I knew!! I haven't dreamed for months!!! Or at least I can't ever remember them, ha ha.
That's exciting about Spain winning the World Cup, I'm sad that Argentina lost, but really excited that Spain won instead. Most Argentines are as well, many of them being from or having heritage in Spain. It was actually a good contacting day, because everyone was happy about Spain. I was hoping for Argentina, Brasil or Spain to win, in that order. I didn't really care about the US winning, since nobody there really cares. It was a shame that Argentina lost to their bane, Germany, again, which is really annoying because now instead of everyone asking us if we're from the States, they ask us if we're from Germany, and they usually aren't too happy when they ask. So basically, both before the World Cup and after, us white people are always just the most discriminated against, ha ha. It's funny because now when we tell them we're from the States, they're a little happier about it because at least we're not from Germany, so I guess that's one good thing about it! I certainly would feel bad for any German missionary working in Argentina right now. No, we didn't get to watch the Spain game, but we heard all about it.
I have to go right now, but I will finish this email when I get back to Yapeyu in like an hour.
(Second email of the day.)
Okay, so now I'm in the ciber (cybercafe) again, in my own area now, and we have a really nice ciber, I'm impressed.
I'm going to have to find a way to put my pictures on a cd or something, because I have so many of the park and the pench. I prioritize so you get all the pics with people, but I like the area pics too, so I'll try and figure out a way to get those to you. I'm trying to upload more pics here, but it's really not working, so maybe that one picture is all you'll be able to get today, sorry.
As far as my area, it's going good, and we are working hard every day. We have lots of good investigators and people we are working with, although the majority of them just have to get married or attend church enough times, but yeah. When I got here we started doing English classes, somehow my comp had never heard of that idea before...?!?! (It's a pretty common thing missionaries do here.) Anyway, last week, on the day of English class, we went to the church and got ready, and ended up with 11 people who came, mostly kids. We put in a gospel message at the end. Well, that is hopefully going to get some new investigators who want to hear more. Everyone knows that the best way to enter a house in Argentina is using the kids and snakes, ha ha. (Snakes? We have no idea if that is a typo or a joke...if anyone knows, don't be shy, let me know what he means. Maybe he just meant to write "snacks"?) For example, last week we taught a kid in the street, and then the next day when we went to his house, his parents saw that their kid was friends with us, so they decided to listen, too. That's a whole other story for another day, though, because I'm almost out of time.
I loved the photos you sent me, and yes, we have many alfajores like that. We have pretty much every type you can imagine. Both the kind at the panaderia and the kind in the wrappers are all good. I'm glad you got to try that kind, hopefully you'll be able to try the empanadas the next time because they are popular around here too!!! And if they have milanesas, try them!! They're not super special, but they're good, and pretty much everyone has them daily, along with pasta.
I love you all very much and hope for your well being always. It was great seeing you all happy all together in the pictures. My prayers are with all of you, especially Aunt Lisa and Uncle Roland in this hard time.
My love to all,
Eric
Although Eric was unable to send us any pictures of the park, I was able to download these pictures of it online. It really does look like a fun place to go for a few hours of recreation after a long week of hard work!
No comments:
Post a Comment