My birthday was awesome!

Hey family,

Thanks for everyone's letters and the package!! We actually had the zone conference on Friday, and that is when I got the package. The zone conference was really cool because it was like half our mission was there. I got to see Elder Vanderholm my old MTC companion, and a lot of other good missionary buddies!!! It was a really fun zone conference, but the best part was receiving my package and letters and cards, ha ha!

So it ended up that for my birthday I was in Feliciano. Elder Rojas and I worked as usual during the day, and then in the evening we bought a cake and I ate cake and opened my presents, it was way fun. I loved opening all the gifts and seeing the little letters and notes. I missed you all, of course, but despite that I still had a way awesome birthday because I felt like you were all there anyway!!! Your gifts were all awesome and were things I'd been wanting! I took pictures, but even in La Paz the computers don't have card readers, so I can't send them to you yet!

So THAAAANK YOOOOUUUU to everyone for the gifts and cards!!!!!!!! I love all of them and am using them already. (Mom's note: Shipping to Argentina is so expensive that his gifts were quite limited in size: ties, candy, small magic tricks, mini sewing kit, fold-up umbrella, etc.) The candy is already gone, ha ha. I am very excited about the money everyone put in my debit card account to buy stuff. I can't wait, today I am going to buy a cd player and I already bought a couple of inexpensive soccer jerseys. I'll send pictures of all this as soon as I can!

Regarding the pictures, I haven't been able to find an XD to USB converter yet. I found converters for SD, Micro SD, and everything BUT the XD! Today I'll look again. (I am in La Paz now, more on that in a minute.) But if I can't find it, then that would be great if you could send me that cord, but I hope I can find one today because if you send it to me, it will take forever before I receive it.

Okay, the reason I am in La Paz is that we spend a lot of our time here working. We leave Feliciano on Tuesday mornings at 5 a.m. and travel by bus to La Paz. We have our district meeting and then we just start working, and we don't leave until Wednesday night. We also have to come down to La Paz some Saturdays and Sundays, too. So as a result, we'll probably never get the Standards, because all the contacts and everything we make while in La Paz get counted toward the La Paz's missionaries' stats. It's okay, though, it's all the same work, but anyway, that is why I am in La Paz a lot.

I had to buy a second sheet set and towels because here, I have to wash things by hand and then air/sun dry them, so the whole process takes a few days because nothing dries fast. So, I put on the other set, while the first set is drying.

I'll try and answer some of your questions now. The bigger kioskos I told you about have enough food to get us by (noodles and rice) and they have milk, too. But we can't find "real" milk here, just the stuff that is sitting out on a shelf in the carton and can sit there for 2 years, because they probably just vaporize anything healthy and living inside of it. It's not the best but it gets the job done.

As far as meat goes, we have tons of that. Feliciano is all about the cattle, and there are gauchos and cattle everywhere around here. So as a result of all the cattle farming, we actually have more carnicerias (meat shops) than La Paz does! Every corner has a meat shop on it, so we can get meat pretty cheap in Feliciano.

At the time when I first arrived here in Feliciano, we didn't have any investigators, but right now we have about 15. The only problem is that it's harder to stay in close contact with them because we're always traveling, because the people that are learning about the church and thinking of being baptized need daily contact. Nevertheless, the work is going well here. It'll be great to get some more members. Right now we have an assistance (that must be the Spanish word for attendance or membership) of about 20. Last week was pretty fun in church. It was definitely the smallest church I've been in, but it was really fun and cool because all the members are so close.

We are not too far from the borders of Brazil and Uruguay, but I don't think we'd be able to go to the border ever. We mostly spend our P-day traveling. But I'm going to find out to see if it's allowed, and if so, maybe one P-day we could.

School in Feliciano is pretty much the same as it was in Venado Tuerto. School is only 3 to 4 hours a day, that's it, either in the morning or the evening. In the schools here, you only progress if you can pass the classes. As a result, you can have an 18-year-old that is in second grade, and crazy things like that!! But they don't really think education is important like we do in the States.

Yes, our area is a lot of fun and we have some crazy animals here. We have some risky toads, but as long as we don't mess with them, the toads never attack us. There's also a weird animal here that doesn't exist in the States. I forgot what it's called, but basically it's a BIG hamster!! It's really weird to see, but that 's just Feliciano.

Mom and Dad, thanks for everything. And Dad, thanks for the inspirational stories, I love reading those, they always help me a lot. Thanks for everything you sent me, and the warm clothes too, I can feel the seasons changing so I expect I'll need the warm clothes soon.

Well, got to go, love you all and thanks to everyone for making my birthday so great!!!

Love,
Eric

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