19 August 2009

The First Week in Argentina

Hey! Haha sorry I kind of left you hanging last week. But, I´m alive and doing good! Buenos Aires is awesome! I´m really starting to love it here! Well I guess I´ll talk to you guys next week, I´m really busy.......ha sike!

So I´m right in the middle of Buenos Aires, in a zone called Capital. My area is Parque Chacabuco and its way cool! Haha the road rules here are crazy! People kind of just do whatever they want and its similar to a high school hallway. We play frogger every time we cross the street. Even the crossing signs are crazy. Instead of a picture of a person strolling casually like in the states, it has a person sprinting for his life. And the school crossings have a parent yanking his child across the street! In fact, yesterday a guy on a motorcyle was being chased by a remis (taxi), drove up onto the sidewalk, and almost hit me as I was doing a contact! My companion pulled me out of the way just in time! Haha! Everything here is very European , including the cars. They are all either ´Renaults´or Peugeouts. The Spanish sounds really European and they are really proud of their country. They don´t even call it Spanish, they call it Castellano because they want to be different haha.

So I live right next to the park, in the higher end of town. However, there is a part of our area called the villa. The first time we went there, I was blown away. It is very, very poor. What the villa is pretty much a bunch of government funded brick building in shambles that are built high and very close together. To navigate in the villa you have to walk through these passageways that sometimes are so narrow that the sun doesn´t shine in them. There is one main passageway in the middle where there are little candy, cake, fruit, and whatever else shops. The people who live in the villas are very poor. Their whole house is about as big as my dorm room. They cook, sleep, live, and get cable tv all in this tiny little room. There are several members and investigators in the villa (visha in Castellano) and so we go there everyday. We can´t drink the water there and all the members offer it, so I´m lucky I've evaded it thus far. But the people here are happy for the most part and are way humble! Most of them make their living by having little shops set up in the street for sewing, selling food, washing cars, etc. Some parts of the villa are so dangerous we have to have a member with us, but for the most part, people respect us there and we don´t have problems. In the villa and near the villa are perros de la calle, or dogs of the street. There are dogs everywhere! But they are all tame and now I´m used to seeing them.

The people here in general are really nice and want to talk, but everyone is either Catholic or don´t believe in God. The food is amazing! They have empañadas and asados (Bro Newcomer, you´re cooking is way authentic, by the way) and I´m already addicted to dulce de leche. I don´t know why its not in the states, its awesome. Their ice cream is also way, way good. They also love American food and music and I hear American songs all the time. Oh and they have the donuts called facturas that we had for breakfast one morning. So nice.

So my Spanish has gotten a ton better! Just being here one week, I´m able to understand about half of what is being said, and with some people I can understand everything. My president said he was very surprised at my language. The funny thing is, I haven´t studied it that much. Just high school, mi padre, and the MTC for 2 months. I´m thinking I´m getting some help from the spirit for sure! Well, i get mail every 6 weeks! We had a zone conference yesterday, so I got mail then. But now I have to wait 6 weeks! The best way to contact me is by email, I can just print of the letters and take them back with me. I love it here and we´re working hard! We have some promising investigators, I´ll tell you how it goes with them. Their names are Noemi, Tomas, Valeria, and there are more but I don´t have time to write them. My president is so so cool and I think I´m in for an awesome time here. I love my companion and we´re already good friends. If you want to look on google, here´s my addresss.

Emilio Mitre 1148

Its right next to parque chacabuco. Anyway, yeah we´re working hard. Its hard at times, but we have faith that there are lots of people here for us to baptize, and wére going to work a lot with the members to find people. Well I hope you enjoy the pics, if you want a pic of something else, let me know. I´m doing good and really love it here. It so cool to help people come to Christ every day! Thats way cool that Nathan was in the church news! Well, I gotta get going.

Ciao!

Elder Hales

2 Tim 2 10

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