Querida familia,
Yes, yes. It is important to relax.
Relaxing mentally is something that I crave more than you know. I long for a moment of true solitude. I have been with a companion for so long that I don´t remember what it´s like to just be alone for a second. I think about that a lot… about how much I would just like to sit down for a second all alone in a silent room and think about what I´m doing and what I want to do and all that jazz. I´m trying to find a way to relax mentally a little bit each day. I agree that it is important.
I also long for a little R&R physically. I don´t know what I´ve got, or how long until it runs its course, but I¨m telling you that my cough has mutated several times. At first it was just a dry itchy one, then for a little while it was sharp, then it went deep to the lungs, then it went dry again, and now I spontaneously get coughing attacks from breathing. Hermana Benton says that I´ve just got to let it heal itself. I finished all the day and NyQuil that I brought with me and have since converted to Argentine cough syrup. It is a one tsp. dosage and not that terrible, but I notice no relief whatsoever. FYI- child Proof lids do not exist here. They all think it´s pretty cool and that they should copy us and I would have to agree. It´s one of those things that you just take for granted in the states.
Cough drops… no help either. I am weak and just want to stop time and sleep it off. I could say “we´re stayin´in the pench this morning” but that would not help me mentally because I would just feel overwhelmed and stressed about the numbers and the weekly minutia of catching up for the lost time. So far kidney stones are the only thing strong enough to keep me in the pench. But if I could stop time from passing I would treat myself to a good long nap to get over this cold and not feel guilty about losing proselyting time.
Mom – I´m going to do my best to find a way to try and do “chalk”. Sounds like fun. Thanks for sending it to me.
On Monday I get my trunky papers, so I´ll need to know the name of our stake president. Thanks.
We have been living in the new pench without electricity for 7 days now and it´s cold. That´s not entirely true. Our neighbor is sharing his electricity with us, which means that we can turn lights on, but we can´t run a fridge or a heater. I only learned on day 5 that it can handle a blow dryer. Learning curve. If the light people don´t come today, I´m going to be super bummed. The sleeping bag is my best friend, but it´s still cold at night. The apartment has no heating system and it´s winter. Full on winter.
It gets better. We actually had no water, gas, or electricity for like 2 days. Then we got gas, then we got shared lights and water. I will have to explain that all to you some other day. But having your own water is really important. All things are spiritual… when we finally got shared electricity… it occurred to me how lights (the Light of Christ) really is EVERYTHING. You can´t live without it. You can survive, but it is not a life well-lived.
Random “that only happens in Argentina” store: the other day I was walking with my comp on the sidewalk and this dog OUT OF NOWHERE ran right into the back of my legs I´m saying it charged right into me going full-speed. Imagine the shock that that would send you as you are hit by a dog. I don´t know if it was blind or what, but I sure yelled at it and then I threw a rock at it when it wouldn´t leave us alone. That´s what you have to do here… throw rocks at the dogs that give you a hard time. Sad but true.
Another dog story: there is an Alejo 2 that now follows us around our new apartment. I don´t know if we missionaries have a scent or what, but the dogs know us. It´s lame.
Last dog story. The other day there was this mommy dog and her 3 puppies drinking her milk and she all of the sudden decided that she had to head for the fence to check something out, so she got up and started for the fence. Her unsuspecting puppies were totally confused and were still drinking as she started to run for it. One of the poor puppies was dragged a good foot and a half before he fell to the ground. I was so mad at her that I yelled at her and told her she was a terrible mom. I wanted to go and pick the puppy up and coddle it, but I learned long ago not to touch dogs… ever.
Stuff you learn in Argentina: how to manipulate the way you pay for things to obligate them to give you change back. Instead of paying for something that costs 3 with a 5, you give them 2 2s so that they have to give you a coin 1 peso back. They know it too, so sometimes you have to lie and say that you don´t have it the other way. It´s something that still takes me a while to figure out. In line I carefully think about which way I want to pay, using which number bills to best rig what change they have to give me back. It is something that they just know. Oh, pay with this and then they have to give you this…. I´m very slow at it, but starting to get the hang of it.
Remember on the Alaskan cruise that night show when the woman changed her clothes/dress like 14 times really fast? Well, one of the songs that played during that show is the background for an ad that plays all the time here and so every time I hear it I think about the illusions of the girl that changed dresses super fast. I´m going to match it again when I get home… there has to be a way to figure out their secrets!
Quick story. In the beginning of my mission I bought oranges one day and was tricked into buying juicing oranges – that are no fun to eat. I was so mad that I rebelled and for about 9 months didn´t buy or eat a single orange (though I ate a TON of mandarin oranges). Then the other day we were given oranges in a take home lunch and I was hungry. My eyes were opened as I remembered how sweet and wonderful oranges are. So ever since then we have been eating oranges! I love them so much, even though I hate peeling them because my nails are short and weak. But I love oranges again… and mandarin oranges are dumb.
We are working hard with ______ to help him quit smoking, but he stood us up for the mini sacrament lesson on Sunday and we don´t know why. We are going to visit him tonight and find out. I really want him to progress because he wants to be baptized so badly. Those who want to be baptized always have a ton of obstacles and those who have fewer obstacles don´t care to be baptized. Lame.
Mom – President wants you to find and send me a talk by Elder Oaks called “doing and becoming.” He says it will help me. I´m sure if it will help me, it will also help you! Let´s read it!
The other day we went to the church to do our morning studies in the kitchen where we lit the burners to heat the room (a common heating practice in Argentina) and I was still cold, so I put a chair on top of the counter and sat on the table with my feet flying over the burner. Yep, you guessed it, I burned my nylons! I didn´t burn my feet or the socks I was wearing under them, but I have a giant hole in my nylons.. the price I pay to try and defrost my ETERNALLY frozen feet. The best warmest socks I brought still don´t even begin to keep you warm and toasty. I think that after the mission I will become obsessed with buying warm socks. Oh wait, I already was.
Mommy – what is the mission blog site? Hermana Carrasco wants to send it to her mom. Thanks.
Nata – I hope that you are all well. I look forward to seeing you in 4 and a half months!
Funny story: remember the TV show “Touched By An Angel”? Every time we street contact someone who then says they are atheist, we pull out this famous “we just want to testify to you that God is our Heavenly Father and He loves you” line. All of us do it. It sounds less corny in Castellano… at least I think. But every time that I say it, I feel like that English brunette-- and I always chuckle to myself as I remember the light that shone on her face as the music changed and she said “God loves you.” I´m like one of them!
We had divisions with Hna. Torres and Hna. Cole in Hurlingham. I went to Hurlingham with Hna. Cole and loved it. It was so blissful to walk around for 24 hours being the junior comp in some other area where they aren´t your less active members or your unmarried investigators. You teach with your heart and carry almost no stress because, hey, you´re getting on a train in the morning and leaving it all behind. You feel free and unstressed. I miss the days of being the junior comp. I enjoyed that break for a brief 24 hours. And it was even better to return to my area and be told by my companion that she and Hna. Torres had taught 6 lessons and found 4 new investigators. Our weekly numbers sky-rocketed and I just showed up to reap the benefits. It was great!
Now for the unfortunate truth of the week… No one was baptized on Sunday… I thought I already told you we had to reschedule everybody for the 19th… maybe I forgot and only told the Pres. Anyways. We have Nicolas (son of reactivating mom) who WILL be baptized without problems this weekend. But, that is the only guarantee we have. Brian (12 years old) randomly went with his uncle to campo for 2 weeks and is just gone. He still wants to be baptized and all, and it´s for the best because this uncle is an active sealed in the temple convert who will hopefully bring him to church and help him really understand and develop a testimony so that when he gets back we can baptize him and he´ll be better for it. _______ (14 years old) decided that she doesn´t want to be baptized because she is afraid of the obligations of the promise. She wants to just be close to God without being baptized. We are trying desperately to win her again, but she has totally closed and frozen her heart. In the beginning she was so great. She read, she prayed, she said she felt that she needed to be baptized… she was the strong one, and now she is almost not even an investigator. We are totally sad and lost with it all. Yamily (10 years old) is now the strongest of the Botta family she is determined to get baptized even if it´s just her and Nicolas, but the thing is that it is kinda of sticky business to baptize a 10 year old who will then be the only member of her family. She can´t get herself to church. It´s tough. We can do it, if the mom signs the paper, but it´s tough… the bishop doesn't like it because she is a high risk to go promptly inactive. We don´t know what to do, if we baptize her and lose the bishop´s confidence, the work is frustrated. We can´t be eternally responsible for bring her to church and the members aren´t that willing to help bringing her. It´s tricky stuff.
We are still trying to work to win ________. If she comes back, we could baptize her and Yamily and Brian this weekend, and then Brian when he gets back and pray that the 3 of them can develop habits in coming to church with the help of the members.
We need your prayers.
The swine flu is rising. Some 200 deaths in Buenos Aires. I can´t lie. It is seeming to frustrate the work. Even though I know that the Lord´s work is not frustrated… but it seems to be frustrated, at times.
In my interview with the Pres. he told he that I´m a great missionary and that I need to put a little more “slack in the chain.” Hmmm. Now where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, my wise family! I´m working on it. This week I even went to bed past 10:30 once! And I brushed my teeth with tap water! Walking on the wild side in my rebellion! I hope I don´t let it go too far.
Daddy – I look forward SO MUCH for you to meet Pres. Benton some day because you are both so wise and so influential. I know you two will be great friends!
Gotta run. I love you. I miss you. I know the Lord hears our prayers!
Take luck and have joy!
!
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