Eric with Sonilda, the landlady who does so much for them
P-Day fun with one of the districts
Eric's birthday celebration with the Sanchez family. They made him dinner and a cake. There is a birthday candle on the orange tray.
The Sanchez family
With a family in Las Delicias, Rosario
Eric wrote about this picture: "Stella and Rodrigo, they are getting baptised on April 23"Hey everyone!!! I hope everyone's doing great!! First, thanks so much for the birthday package, cards and letters!! I love them so much!! I've already enjoyed all the candy, and am still enjoying the other stuff. And thank you to Grandma and Grandpa, Nana and Papa, Aunt Lisa, and Holly and Scott for the birthday money!! I haven't decided what I want to use it for yet. Thank you so much!!
I really enjoyed that xylo thing, it really is genius! (a frisbee-type toy) So today we were playing with it, and having lots of fun with it. We were throwing it around the church in San Martin because it's got lots of space, and we were getting some good throws. So good that it actually went up on the roof! So now I'm going to climb the 30 foot high chain link fence to get it!!
I also enjoyed everything I got, of course, and so did Sonilda. Ha ha, Sonilda seems to be freaked out by American stuff. I handed Sonilda the Elf card you guys sent me, which is awesome by the way, and Sonilda opened it up and in fear threw the card when it started talking!! It was pretty funny, because she's never seen something like that before. She thought the purpose of the card was to scare people, and well, it worked for her. She also told us she slipped on one of my bouncy balls while cleaning and almost died, which is funny because every day it seems she tells us of some "near death" experience that happened while cleaning.
I plan on gifting the bouncy balls to the family Sanchez, which is the family that we enjoyed my birthday with, and is the family in the photos I sent you. They're 6 in that family, and they're awesome. (one of the kids is not in the pictures.) I absolutely love that family and they really love us. For my birthday dinner, they made spaghetti, as in they made the noodles themselves from flour, and did everything from scratch!!! It was super good and we really enjoyed it. After that we talked a while and then we played that cat and mouse game you sent me which was a huge hit! I love playing games with Argentines because the simplest things just amaze them. They're super cool and it was fun being with them. They also made a nice cake, which got burnt on the bottom, but we enjoyed it just same. Their names are: (youngest to oldest) Lucia, Alma, Agustina, Alejandra, then the parents Alejandro and we just call the mom Hermana, and I can't remember her name. Alma and Agustina are baptized, and we are working with the parents to help them live the commandments better so they can be baptised someday.
The family really likes us alot, and this last time that we went over, LOL the youngest daughter started calling me daddy! Well, that just goes to show that I am getting old! I truly can't believe how time has flied! (I guess he has been speaking mostly Spanish for so long that he has forgotten how to conjugate the verb fly!) I can't believe I'm 21 now and I also can't believe that Maya's 7 months. I've been telling everyone in this country that I have a niece that's two months old, but now I realize she is 7 months, ha ha!
So today we'll be passing by to say goodbye to the familia Sanchez, because both Elder Towner and I are leaving!! I'm going to be training again, this time my child's from Utah, woohoo! So naturally, I'm not zone leader anymore, which is sad because I had some good new ideas for that, but I've been called to be a trainer, so I'm really excited for that. Elder Towner is not going to be a zone leader anymore either, he's just going to be a normal companion.
I'm going to Ramallo in San Nicolas, where I'll be whitewashing the area with my new hijo. I'm super excited and expect great things. That area has been absolutely DEAD for the longest time, so I plan on changing that!!
I've been writing and sending pictures from the church, but the hermano who works here has to go and he's closing the office, so I'll try to finish writing from some other ciber. Love you, bye.
***Second email, later in the day. In the meantime, I emailed him not to climb the fence to retrieve the toy. (Of course by the time he read my message, he had already done it.)
I'm back to finish the letter. Alright, so yes, in case you're wondering, I climbed up the perilously made chain link fence and found the xylo on the middle of a chapa roof. (corrugated metal) Upon testing the chapa, I realized it had no support and would cave in, so I then had to find some branches and fish it out while balancing on the bricks that go around it, but I got it!! Ha ha, right after that, I threw it and it went on top of the AC section which is only like 10 feet high, so we got that easy. It just flies so high and good, but it's hard to control.
Anyway, we played some soccer and then some Uno. It was super good. I'm going to miss all of this a lot, because I'm going out to another 2-man pench, but it's in a tiny pueblito and we are two hours away from any other missionaries! So, it's going to be crazy! But it'll be good. Tomorrow I go to the mission home where I'll give birth to my new son. (mission slang for picking up his new greenie.) I'm really going to miss this area, Sonilda, the pench, the members, the investigators, and the city of Rosario, but I'm going where I need to go.
I don't know if I told you yet, but we have two sure baptisms for the 23rd here. It's Stella and Rodrigo, the mom and son that went to conference with us, and the next week after that, her daughters will be baptised also. We passed by last night to say good-bye and they were very upset that we were leaving, but promised us that no matter what they're going to be baptised on the 23rd, so that's good at least. We've been teaching Rodrigo a little guitar and he's getting pretty good. I'm going to miss that, but that's the mission. And I'm going to miss all the American fast food I can get here.
I'm also going to miss all the crazy and cool things I have seen here in this area. The people all try and decorate their cars to look cool and "fast and furious." For example, it's common to see cars that have stickers of air vents in the hood, or stickers of a racing gas hole, and they ALL take out their mufflers so the car engine sounds low, and they all put the racing gauges inside their cars, although they're not hooked up so they don't measure anything. I think every bullet bike I've seen here is fake, but anyway, yesterday I saw a ghetto car, all decorated, and it had blinds all inside it. It was pretty cool because the people here don't even use blinds for their homes, but this car had them.
Another crazy thing I saw here is a marijuana plant the size of a small apple tree!! It's absolutely huge. I had no idea they could become that big. I'll try and take a picture of it. It's sad that many of the people here smoke marijuana daily, and no one cares so they just do it openly. It's just one of the many things we have to help people with here.
Well, there is so much and so many people that I have loved here, but I will look forward to going to the new area and working hard and preaching the gospel to the people there!
Anyway, I must go, I love you all very much and will inform you about the new area next time!!
Love,
Eric
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