This is Stacey's first letter and I decided to post it as she sent it, without making many corrections (just a few for ease in reading) and let it stand mostly as written. =) Through this honest and "full on" Stacey communicae, you will get a good idea of the complete culture shock she is in! She is a trouper and doing well despite the newness of everything, and we are grateful for your continued love, support and prayers.
Karen
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hi everyone, get ready to read!
i'm going to do my best typing. the keys are DIFFERENT here. so i´m not goin to edit at all. enjoy.
the flight was long, but the Lord blessed me with a row to myself so i was able to lie down and sleep well sort of.
jet lag is so much more than i can even explain. 5 hours is a lot to overcome when we are working insanely hard and walking about 10 miles a day. speaking of that, i have this sore on my heel that kills all day long and i have no idea why because i´m wearing the same shoes i´ve been wearing all my mission and its only on my right heel. it hurts and makes walking all day such a joy. the jet lag has been really exhausting, so much so in fact that i almost fall alseep in studies and in church and almost in lessons and i was so bothered and stressed by it that i asked the zls for a blessing after district meeting on monday. i was promised the energy "in this minute" and told to smile and work hard and remember that i have brothers and sisters waiting for me.
by the way, i can´t figure out how to capitalize yet... so don´t think i´m not lazy, i´m not, just dumb.
allow me one second to whine and say that you cannot really know the meaning of the word homesick until you have left your homeland. the littlest things like grocery shopping are a panic attack. not only is the money different, but the food... you don´t know if you´re buying what you think you are or if you´re getting a good deal or if ... i can´t even explain.
it´s different to have lunch with members and then no dinner. we work about 7 hours straight every evening and it's a lot on your feet. plus about three of those hours are in the dark and it's even more cold. i love my coat, my gloves, and my scarf... they go everywhere i go!
i don´t think the water spins the opposite way here... everybody lied.
it´s such a pain to change missions. everything i learned there is pretty much not how we do it here. for example, here instead of tracting, we street contact, 20 a day per companionship. and if they let us pull out a pamphlet and talk for a bit, we have to challenge them to be baptized. can you believe that... but we do it.
when we got off the plane, the aps, the president and his wife, and our two trainers were waiting for us in the airport with a huge sign that said welcome to the baw mission the best mission in the world. we took pictures. it was really cool, what a welcome! we went to the temple just to take pictures,then for interviews and training, then my companion and i took a remis - taxi to our apartment where i had to unpack in the dark because our light blew.
alfajores are delicious - special argentine cookie treats. i´ll send some home sometime in the future. empanadas are divine. i´ll have to learn how to cook them. milanesa are... well, the time we had it my comp said it wasn´t very good... and i agree, but i hear it can be amazing.
our area is called castelar.
everybody calls me a yankee and i don´t really like it. they don´t know about the war, they just know about baseball.
here instead of opening the gate and walking to the door to knock it, you just stand outside the gate and clap... strange, then they come to the door. can you believe that?
there are more stray dogs on the street than there are birds in the sky. everywhere i look there are dogs, but none of them give us any trouble. the ones that are gated are more scary than those that roam free.
also there is a cart pulled by a horse that this guy rides and gathers plastic bottles off the streets all day long. so you hear a horse behind you and that´s what that is.
we ordered a pizza one day when we didn´t have a lunch and it was 19 pesos - so really only like 7 bucks in america, but it still felt like a million dollars because we are so poor. we get 450 pesos to live on for the month and don´t forget that we have to pay for the colectivo - bus - and the train whenever we want to ride them. they don´t cost that much, but trust me, we have no money!
the water here is ok, it kinda tastes like dirt or sweat or i don´t know, but i drink it because it´s potable and i can´t afford to buy water. one night i was so thirsty, so we stopped by the bishop´s for water and they didn´t have any... they gave us soda water which i couldn´t stomach for the life of me. so we went to a less actives and they didn´t have any either... i was so thirsty i wanted to cry because i couldn´t believe that i literally couldn´t find water to drink!
i hear the phrase 'ni idea' about 1000 times a day. that is what people say here for i don´t know or i´m not sure. i´m sure i´ll get used to it, but it´s a really frustrating thing to hear when you ask where to find something and all you hear is i don't know.
check out bentonsmission.blogspot.com - it´s the site the president´s wife keeps ... you´ll find pictures of me on it
there aren´t stop signs here at the intersections... there are in the cities, but not where we live. so i haven´t figured out the system yet, but one of the cars always stops, usually they honk too, but someone always stops. pedestrians have no rights here, and it´s tough because i´m used to being a little bold as a pedestrian... not here
you have to keep your eyes on the ground while you walk because the "side walk" if you wanna call it that is so uneven, it can change about a foot with no notice and my comp took a fall my first day. not only do we look down for that but also because often its little brick stones like a cobble stone path but like i said really uneven, so you have to look down so you place your weight correctly on the stones or else you could seriously roll your ankle. also, i am always scouring for money... i found 10 centavos one night right after i thought to myself "man i really wish we could find 2 pesos so we could buy some water" that was the night i was dying of thirst... just so you know the 10 centavos i found isn´t much. there are 100 centavos in 1 peso and 3 pesos in a dollar, so i found about a tenth of 33 cents... about 3 cents, but i was still happy and i taped it in my journal.
by the way, in los angeles, if i had been able to write last week i would have told you that we got a baptismal date with 9 year old Melissa... obviously i won´t be there to witness it, but it was my first.
then I came here and we have 2 baptisims for the 9th of august... Azucena and Rolando. I´ve only met the former so far, but yeah, pretty cool, huh?
oh, i wear these tight black pants under my skirt and i even wore a turtle neck the other day and today i´m wearing one of the sweater vests on top of a jodi dress. so far i´ve used lots that we bought to keep me warm... and yes, my sleeping bag is my best friend. i sleep so well and cannot imagine how we would survive without it, because our apartment obviously has no heat. but we do have a little plug in heater that keeps our feet warm while we study in the morning and plan in the evenings.
so since we layer up and walk out in the cold all day and stuff i always feel like it´s halloween... or that I´m getting ready to go to a byu football game. i also remember this when we wash our hands in freezing cold water after using the bathroom because there isn´t warm water at lavell edwards stadium... so that´s what i think of... halloween and football games! does that really surprise anybody?
one day when i felt particularly overwhelmed with my life as a missionary in a far away foreign land, i asked my comp which way was north and then with all my might looked in that direction and tried to picture my family. it was a heavy thought to realize that even if i wanted to run to you, i literally couldn´t. we are separated by what 7000 miles is it? and oh yeah AN OCEAN. it made me sad to think that if i really needed to get to you, it was beyond my power to do so.
don´t worry though, yes, i´m not going to lie, i´m a little homesick, but that´s to be expected and i´m handling it the best i know how. i pray and plead with the Lord to bless me and carry me. and He does, day by day, I get through one more and learn one more investigator´s name and one more days work... oh speaking of the language... feel more than free to pray for me to get the gift of tongues again... i cannot express the frustration i have to hide when i cannot talk to my companion.... all my latin companions that i´ve ever had have always spoken english too so they understood what i was trying to say and then taught me how to say it. well with hermana torres, she doesn´t know what i´m trying to say, so she can´t teach me how, so i feel like I'm not getting any better.
Just so you know, hermana Torres is such an angel, she is patient, she is supportive, she is strong, she loves me, she encourages me, she teaches me, she congratulates me, she helps me, she is so amazing and I love her with all of my heart. She has a rock solid testimony and is teaching me to be bold and take rejection in stride. She is an incredible trainer and only has 6 months herself. I love her completely, but sometimes I feel like we´re at the tower of babel and the Lord just confounded our language... we look at each other and feel trapped. Pray for us to stay patient and to help each other.
I love you more than I can explain. Thank you for supporting me and letting me live this dream.
We get mail on Mondays now and write on Tuesdays... I´m sending you a paper letter too, who knows, you might get it in two weeks. Look forward to it!
We went shopping today and I bought this big crazy ring just because i´m in Argentina and I couldn´t resist. I also bought a coin purse for all our bus coins and a little wallet.
I have to go, but I love you so much!
Hermana Jensen
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Every Good Thing
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