Whoa... I ate frogs!!!!

Elder Petersen and Eric

Dear Mom and Dad,

First off, I will have less time to write today, because I had to just set up a new email account that everyone has to switch over to. It took up a lot of my time to do. So I have a new email address for you to give to the family. This is my third email account so far! But it's awesome because it uses gmail, so everything's organized and fast, so I'm very excited. So from now on, send all emails to this address! I don't think they're going to delete the old emails for a couple of weeks until they're sure that everyone has switched over to the new system, but just send to the new one from now on to be sure. It's a good thing that you sent that email to me 3 times, because I only got the third one. You probably had that problem because of the email switch, so it should be working better for next week, now that my new one is all set up.

I didn't have a chance to tell you last week about how we got the district standards for our district. Districts here consist of 2 companionships, so 4 people. Elder Petersen and I have two sister missionaries in our district. In order to get district standards, your district must both average the standards (good thing we got extra!) and have a baptism. Well, we did it, and we were the only ones that week, and so far I believe the only ones this month in the whole Rosario mission! Also, Elder Petersen and I got the standards again this week!

Anyway, two days ago we ate with a member and had a very typical Argentine meal: melanesas, mashed potatoes, soda...and not so common...RANAS!!! Which are frogs!!!!!! Yes, we ate frogs!! And not only did we get to eat them but we got to go pick out the frogs from his bucket and he cooked them!! Believe it or not they were really good and tasted like chicken. I had a lot of frogs, and it was a good meal.

Something else crazy about food, Elder Petersen and Elder Carrillo ate worms and worm eggs yesterday!! The worms were in their candy bar and they were quite disgusted. It was funny for us, though.

And yes, we do eat whatever people offer us or they would get offended. Every time we have eaten with a member, regardless of their financial situation even if they are dirt poor in a one-room house, they make enough food to feed the whole zone...and it's just us! And if we ever stop eating, they say, "Co'me" or "Co'melo" which means eat!!! Which is vos form (I don't know if they have that form in Spain, but it's basically just another form of tu that the Castillano Spanish uses.) But it's great when we get to eat at member's houses, I love it.

As for Ramon and Guiliana, we're passing by often to keep them active. They are still doing really good. Ramon went from not even believing in God when we first met him, to being baptized, it was way cool, and he's very strong now. I wish the ward could take care of them now, but...this is Argentina. I took for granted how well set up the churches in the States are. Here, in our city at least, there is no home teaching, members will leave if they feel offended by anyone in the slightest, and even the leaders will struggle with what they are supposed to be doing. We have even seen the branch president just walking down to a kiosko in his underclothes, or wearing jeans to church. Anyway, our president is still a really good guy, who works VERY HARD for the branch, always working, he just doesn't always know how to work effectively, but a great guy. As of right now, in our church's zone, we have 650 members and of those, only 67 are active, so as you can see, we really need things like home teaching and visiting teaching. We're trying to work on getting home teaching, ward mission leaders, etc. so hopefully we can have better retention that way.

Our penche is just like a small home on the ground floor, pretty nice, although our kitchen could be better. Our kitchen is outside and we share the patio with the landlady, and we always catch her stealing our food. But other than that it's really nice.

To do our emails, we usually try to go to one of the same two internet cafes, but they are usually full, so we often go to new ones. The Spanish is coming along pretty good, I understand everything my comp says now, and some of the investigators. If they speak slow I can understand, but their typical 500 mile an hour speed is too fast for me still, and I only get bits and pieces of it.

A typical P-Day is like this: We wake up, go to the church and play soccer or volleyball as a zone, then go to lunch, then do emails, then go back to the penche for an hour or so, then leave and go back to working. That's what we've done every week so far, it's fun.

Well I'm glad to hear everyone had a fun past week, and a good Valentine's Day. We of course, did nothing for it, I didn't even know it was Valentine's till someone told me, but it was a good day of work! Sounds like Holly and Scott had a really fun time in Disneyland, and PS, I like all the same rides that she mentioned she liked!! And Marisa and David must be very excited to know that the baby is doing good. I'm glad you could all have a good time with all the activities everyone is busy with.

Well, I love you and am so glad you're doing well. As for my clogged-up ears, I called Sister Villalba and she told me to get some drops that I put in twice a day, and it seems to be helping.

Love you,

Eric

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B-A-P-T-I-S-M-S!!!!!

Eric with Ramon and Guiliana Perez

and Elder Petersen

Dear family,

BAPTISMS!!!!!!! YIPPEE!!!!

It's great to write you again, sorry last week I didn't have as much time, but this week I have a little more time. Firstly, WE HAD TWO BAPTISMS SATURDAY, WOOHOO!! You're probably very surprised since I didn't talk about anyone being close to baptism, because frankly, no one was close to being ready. But, two got ready!! Here are the names of my first two baptisms...Ramon Perez and Guiliana Perez!!!!

Ramon is 19 and lives with his girlfriend Veronica, who is 17. They have two very cute little girls. They're not married, but are working towards it. Ramon and Guiliana are brother and sister. Guiliana is 13. They are some of the best people we've met. Guiliana has never even smoked (EVERYONE does here!) Ramon's done a lot of drugs, but he's awesome, he stopped doing drugs after we started teaching him, took out his earrings, and has his life in order. Anyway, the reason why we didn't expect to baptize them so soon, is because Ramon and Veronica couldn't get a marriage date. They still haven't gotten one, and are fighting the system every day to try to get one. But we were able to baptize him because Ramon agreed to move out of his house (their house is a small one-room house, and the entire HOUSE is about 1/4 the size of my BEDROOM!!) Their home has a stove and a bed, that's it. Anyway, since they can't sleep in the same bed till they're married, Ramon agreed to live with a member of the church in their spare room, until he can get married, it's so cool!!! He didn't want to move out and leave his wife alone during the night, but they really wanted to be baptized. Anyway, the official baptism date is Feb. 13, 2010, Saturday, and the official confirmation date is Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. Anyway, I was very excited to be typing all of this, so I hope I didn't leave out anything crucial that you'd want to know. Feel free to ask me whatever questions you have about it in the next email!!!!

Cesar and Victoria are not doing so well. They could be such a cute little family. Victoria is about 16 and they have 4 little kids together. (People mature very quickly here, many 13-year-old women look like they're a mother of two, and sadly, it's usually because they are.) I remember at the beginning, when we were teaching Cesar and Victoria the lessons, how strong the spirit was, and then when we'd return to teach them some more after they had gone to church, and were keeping the commandments, all these good things made their lives so different, like night and day. Their home was so much more peaceful and happy. Their family all got along great, and I just loved going over there! The gospel truly does bless families and bring happiness. However, Cesar began to have many doubts about marriage, por ejemplo (for example) he doesn't want to get married because if he does, his wife will inherit his huge debt, it costs too much money to get married, etc. They stopped keeping their commitments and living the gospel, and stopped going to church. As a result, I saw the same family that had started being so happy and hopeful, go back to being worried and unhappy. We're trying to help them, but they've just become lazy and haven't even gone to church the last 3 weeks. It's so sad for me to see how they've lost their happiness, their free agency, and have gone back to doing drugs. Well, they're still good people, and I hope we can help them turn back again to the gospel so they can be happy and have a good family life.

I'll try to answer some questions now. Okay, I will go to a doctor, maybe tomorrow. I don't like going to doctors, but if you are so concerned about this sickness going on this long and you say it's bad for my ears being clogged for so long, then I want to get medical help.

We can't drink the tap water here, although we do anyway, because when we're out working and the members offer us an ice cold drink (the people fill jugs with tap water and put them in their fridge) we can't say no. But frankly, it's their cups that are the scariest, because people here just don't clean things. Anyway, in our pinche, we drink clean water out of those big 5 gallon jugs. A guy comes around twice a week selling them, and that's when we buy them. Also, people here love sodas, we get offered sodas pretty often, and we love it because the tap water is not safe and tastes bad, too. The people will drink soda with every meal usually. But, the dogs all drink out of the open sewers, and after a rainstorm, even the little kids will sometimes drink out of the sewers, yuck!!!

Right now it's summer and so the kids don't have school. I don't know exactly when it starts again, but I know it's coming up. Many kids don't go, though, which is why so many people we teach don't even know how to read.

In our area, there aren't any big stores, and everyone just works by doing little things to earn money to make a living. A lot of people run a kiosko from their house, or wash cars, or fix cars, or are maids, or other little things like that.

The rain storms here are huge!!!! When it rains, it really rains, and since they don't have drainage here, it floods really bad. The sewer trenches fill up first, and then the entire street floods, knee high for us usually. Last time it was really bad, I remember laughing really hard when I watched a kid riding his bike through the streets, with the water up to the handle bars. I think it's really cool to see, though!

We can't drink mate, which is sad, because everyone here offers it to us and I really want to try it. But we can drink Coke if it is offered to us (we just can't ask them for it) so that's a plus.

For transfers, I'm still here in San Martin VT with Elder Petersen. We were very excited to be together another transfer! Also, I'd really like to know my priesthood line of authority, and was wondering if you could order me a copy of mine, since I can't from here.

I'm glad to hear that Marisa and David's baby is doing good so far, and I want to know every change and update they hear!!! I can hardly wait!! Uncle Eric, ha ha! It sounds like everyone had a really great Valentine's Day, so that is cool!

We're going to get a ward mission leader and ward missionaries!!! Once we have those, the work will be a lot easier. Also, a guy is coming to fix our air conditioner Friday, so that'll be nice, and the shower...well that still sucks, but I'm getting used to ice cold showers, ha ha.

This week has been awesome, and we had the best meal I've had yet, with that guy I told you about that's "wealthy." He has a good job, and travels to Utah twice a year for his work, so they have a more American type home. Anyway, we had a very typical Argentine lunch with them. Salad with lots of crazy dressings, chicken melanesas (Mom's note: I looked it up, and melanesas are a slice of meat, dipped in egg and then bread crumbs, and fried in oil), and mashed potatoes, and of course a doble cola and a pritty for drinks. (Two very common drinks here, the doble cola is an imitation coke, but tastes like the real thing, and pritty is a lemon drink which is one of my favorites.) The meal was so good, I had probably 10 huge melanesas, 10 glasses of soda, and lots of potatoes. As usual if a member feeds us, they make enough food for an army, so there was still plenty left!!

This week we did that activity with the members here, called the Trip to Hawaii, where it's a simulation of the Plan of Salvation, our death, 3 kingdoms, etc. We had done it in our ward a few years ago, if you remember. We did ours very different here, though. We played games the whole time, and while they were playing games Elder Petersen and I would go out separately (yes, I taught it all in Spanish myself) and pull people aside to teach them the gospel. If they accepted and listened they'd get white pieces of paper, which were their covenants (but we didn't tell them they were their covenants, just that they were important to the Lord). Then later, Elder Wilkinson who was playing Satan would go over and offer them fake money which they could use to buy the pizza and drinks we had made for the activity. Well, you'd think that most people would hang on to their covenants, right? NO ONE KEPT THEIR COVENANTS! Even all the branch presidents sold their covenants!! Well, long story short, the only people that made it to the celestial kingdom were a few little kids under 8, ha ha. The people were all amazed and wished afterward that they had kept their covenants. Hopefully they do in real life at least.

Well, I'm out of time now, just want you to know I love you all, and am glad for all you do for me. I'm having a great time in Argentina, and we're having a lot of fun and success, and this next transfer is going to be even better!! Oh, I didn't mention before, we got Standards again even though we had one less day of work because of zone conference!!!! Also, we slaughtered the Standards this time, going the extra mile.

Anyway, love you all, hope you're doing good too. Loving Argentina, the people, the penche, comps, everything.

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH,

Eric

Ramon with Veronica and their two girls

Guiliana, their mom, Ramon, Veronica
and other family members

Ramon with Eric



Guiliana with Eric

Eric's housemates Elder Carrillo and Elder Wilkinson

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Another busy week

Hey family!!!!!!!

This computer just died halfway through my last letter, so I don't have as much time now to write, but I'll try and cram in as much as I can. First, so you know, it's on transfers and not zone conferences that our P-day is on Tuesday. I thought they were the same day, but now realize they aren't. This means that this coming week will be transfers, and my P-day will be Tuesday, so be sure and email me by Monday. Also, at the zone conference, the person getting our mail messed up, and no one got letters, so I'll have to wait another 6 weeks to read any of the dearelder letters, packages or letters I might have had waiting.

I'll be anxious to hear about Marisa and David's doctor visit and how everything went, and if they could tell if it's a boy or girl. I hope Stacey and Steve can find a new home soon, I can hardly believe their home sold that fast! And I hope Linzey and Dennis are enjoying their trip to Brazil.

The idea of having my camera card copied to a cd and sending the cd home is a good one, but we don't have any places here to do that kind of thing (or at least Elder Peterson doesn't know of any), but we may be able to get a member to do it. Most of our members are poor, but one family in particular has a nice home with air conditioning (small swamp cooler device) and a computer, and they're always trying to help us, so maybe they could burn my pics to a cd. I'll find out for next week. This computer I'm using today doesn't have the card adapters to download my camera card, but I also don't have any time today to download pictures anyway.

You asked about crime here, and so far we've been very lucky, and have not had any problems. People, especially the kids, yell at us all the time to give them money, or that we should buy them food, but no one has actually threatened us. They just think we're rich because we're Americans. We're pretty much living here like legit (real) Argentines, though. We shower out of a bucket with ice cold water (yes, hot water heater is broken again) or make a pot of hot water to pour over our heads, we have no air conditioner (it broke a while back), sleep in 100 degree plus temperatures, etc.

The little kids will also ask us to do magic tricks, but unfortunately we don't know any, so if you know any easy tricks that you've heard of missionaries doing or whatever, please tell me, because I'd love to be able to do magic tricks for them, and no missionaries here know any. The missionaries who were here before us always did magic, so that's why all the little kids think we can, too.

As far as the lessons go here, I don't teach too much. I bear my testimony on a lot of things, but will usually just teach part of a lesson, and Elder Petersen will do the main chunk. It's hard especially because I had to learn a whole new vocabulary to teach here. The way you learn to teach at the MTC doesn't really work here. It helped me to understand it for myself, but here we have to teach everyone like a little child, or they don't understand it. For example, many people here still think the world is flat, and that the world has like 4 countries total, and things like that. As hard as that is to believe, I am not making that up! These are actual things people have said!

Elder Petersen is better now, but I am still sick and I can't hear out of my left ear. It's been clogged since I got here. My right ear is always a little clogged but not as bad. That problem just makes understanding the language all the harder.

Things are going good here, although Cesar has become lazy and hasn't gone to church for the last couple of weeks, but hopefully he'll come back around. We found another guy named Ramon who really wants to be baptized, but once again, just like Cesar, can't get a marriage date. We even went with him to try to get one, and they're just plain backed up until the second coming! I hope he doesn't give up like Cesar because he has to wait so long. It's quite frustrating, but we're doing a lot of good here in people's lives, even though we're not getting any baptisms.

I'm out of time unfortunately, but don't worry, I'm loving it here still, enjoying the culture, having a lot of fun and doing lots of good. Will be able to tell you more next week!!

Love you all,
Eric


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A slower week due to sickness

I think this may be the street corner that
Eric's apartment looks out on.

Hey family!!!

I'm trying to send pictures as I write this letter to you (so far it's taking a long time to add each picture because the internet is so slow, so I won't be able to send too many at this rate). Hopefully it works, it's been five minutes so far and my first picture still hasn't attached, yawn.

Anyway, first, I received everyone's dearelder letters yesterday because our zone leaders had to go up to the mission home, so they brought our mail back, so thank you all for writing! I got letters from Jared, Cameron, Aunt Stacey, Holly, Mom and Dad, and Nana and Papa. I also got the "greenie" turtle card, they were all so awesome!!! But as I told you before, I will usually only get them every 6 weeks at zone conferences. Remember, on a zone conference week, our P-day changes to Tuesday. I love all of you very much and thank you for writing to me. To all distant family and friends, unfortunately I am not able to email you, because we are only allowed to send and receive emails from our immediate family and our grandparents, but I will try to write a regular letter to you when I can.

I wish I could tell you all that we got awesome stats or even average stats this week, but I can't. Here's what happened: Elder Petersen has been sick for the past 2 weeks, but on Thursday he just couldn't do it anymore, so we went to the hospital and he was given antibiotics and a few other things, as well as a doctor's order to stay in the pinche through Sunday!!! We were taken to the hospital by a VERY NICE member who made us meals every day, and stopped by the pinche like 3 times a day to make sure we're doing alright! The people here are all very nice, I love it. But anyway, so because companionships always have to stay together, I also had to stay in the pinche all day through Sunday. Even though we were cooped up all day, we made pretty good use of our time. I was able to read both the books you sent me for Christmas (Ultimate Missionary Companion, and Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Mission) as well as read through Alma in the Book of Mormon. (Mom's note: I don't think he means he started at First Nephi, LOL.) However, I did get out and do divisions a couple of times with Elder Wilkinson because Elder Carillo was "sick" again, so that was fun.

Now I'm going to try to answer a few of the 2000 questions I have been asked! Yes, they take the siesta here. I thought it was cool at first, but now I kind of hate it, because from like 1 to about 5 or 6 in the afternoon, everything is closed, and the streets are a ghost town, and the people are not too happy to be interrupted during their naps. It's really funny, too, because people are always ordering us to go back to the penche and rest (people are very caring here) and we tell them that we can't because our mission president wants us working during the siesta now. (Before President Villalba came, the missionaries could rest and do their studying during the siesta.) But that seems to make the people mad. They say things like, "Oh, what's his number so I can call him and yell at him, because you shouldn't be out here working!" Another really funny thing is that we've had many people say that they prayed to God, and they received an answer from Him, saying that he would allow us to go back to the penche and rest during the siesta!! And just funny stuff like that!

When we go out and contact people, we usually go door to door. Sometimes we clap our hands, and sometimes we knock, depending on the home, and if it has a door or if it doesn't, or if it has a gate, etc. So we do both clapping and knocking.

Here's an example of a typical day, because so many people have asked me: Wake up at 6:30, exercises until 7, shower and eat till 8, then we have personal study from 8 to 9, comp study from 9 to 10, language study from 10 to 11, then we leave and work until 12 or 12:30 when we come back to the pinche and cook/have lunch for an hour. (The big meal for the day.) Then we leave at 1 or 1:30 and work until 9, or 9:30 if we have an appointment. No dinner break at all! I wish we could have lunch later, because like I said, it takes us about 30 minutes to walk to our area, and then 30 more to walk back, so we have only like 30 minutes of work before lunch!!! And we fast-walk everywhere, and we couldn't possibly walk any faster. During one day we'll typically teach like 8 lessons for about 15 minutes each, then walking to the next appointment takes anwhere from 10 to 50 minutes, although usually like 25 on average, once again fast-walking.

Yes, they have cats here, dogs and cats are everywhere and still a problem, but there's a lot more dogs than cats, and I mean they are everywhere!!! So many strays here, and they all drink out of the sewers. (The sewers here are all open and they run along the sides of the roads like trenches.) It's also gross because they're always clogged so the only way they "drain" is via evaporation.

As far as choosing a soccer team here, I am a Boca fan now, but only because everyone in this area is a Boca fan, so it saves a lot of hassle to root for their team rather than being a River fan.

Don't worry about gas leaks or anything, because our kitchen is separate from our penche. It's like a different room, so even if gas did leak we'd be safe. I'm sending you a picture of our kitchen so you can feel safe. :) (Unfortunately, we didn't get the picture.) I took like 100 pictures of everything in, around, under, etc. of our penche so that you can see it. The more things I see here, the more I realize how beautiful our penche is. The only problem is that so far I've been trying to load pictures for almost my whole hour, and only one has loaded so far, so I think maybe I can only send one at a time.

It was great getting the debit card to work. I know that you could tell from the account that I finally remembered the PIN, but I just wanted to tell you how exciting it was, because I was able to buy a pillow, and so now I have a pillow to sleep on!!!

I'm sorry but it looks like only one picture has loaded for this week, and my time is up. I love you all very much, and I'll try to send more next week.

Love,
Eric


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