Real Life Minecraft

Ok so what’s up family.  Cool.  So we had transfers.  I stayed here which is cool cuz I didn’t have to pack up all my things and I don’t like doing  that.  I got to stay in this pension and that is pretty good too because it is a pretty good pension.  I got to stay in Salta which is cool because it has mountains and things and it is not as hot as Tucuman or Santiago.  That’s good things and I’m happy about that.  My new companion is Elder Soto.  He is from Peru.  He is a recent covert.  He has been a member for a year and a half .  He is really cool .  I like him a lot.  We get along super good.  He is a super good missionary.  Its going really well.  We are doing a lot of work things.  His family is all Jehovah’s Witnesses.  He is super cool.  A super good dude.  I like him a lot.  And he is trying to learn English so I am trying to help him with that. 

I am older now.  My Birthday--that was a thing.  My comp made me an egg sandwich thing for breakfast.  It was really big and really good.  It was really nice.  He is a pretty good cook.  And the members made me cake and pushed my face in it because that is a tradition here.  It is actually pretty fun.  I am going to bring that one back to America.  You make two cakes and one gets destroyed by the person whose getting older, the Birthday person’s face (I have forgotten how to speak English) and you eat the other cake. So that will be pretty fun when that happens.  Thanks for the Birthday Emails!

We ended up baptizing Luisa, which was really good actually and really a miracle because so many things had to go right for that to be able to happen.  And it all went great and it all worked out.  It was really crazy and stressful a lot of it, because of a lot of things. But it just goes to show you that when God wants something done, it gets done!  So that got done and it was good.  I got to baptize her because I was the only one who taught her who was still here.  That was cool.  When I baptized her, the water was super cold.

We are also building her a house because she lives with her sister and her sister is super mean. So it is like playing Minecraft in real life.  It is on a hill and there are a ton of trees.  So we go sometimes in the morning and cut trees down for awhile.  We are building her house out of sticks and whatever else people find.  The ward is  really helping her out with all these things.  It is going really well.

We have also done a lot of other service too.  We moved some dirt. And we have done other service too but I can’t remember what it was.  So mostly moving dirt and cutting down trees.  We did other things.  We also did a lot of work.  Talked to a lot of people.  Walked A LOT.  That is pretty much all that really happened.  It has been really good.  It is pretty crazy.  There is only like 8 months left of my mission .  That’s pretty nuts.  It is going pretty well.  That is all I had to say about our week.  I have felt really good all week.  I am really excited to keep doing things here and  hope I get to stay here.  I like it here.  That was pretty much our week.

If you have questions, send an email with just questions.  If you send a long email with questions throughout it I don’t know what the questions are.   If you have questions, put the questions at the top and I will answer them if I know what they are.  It is super hot in Salta.  Summer again.  My least favorite time.  It is going really good.  I am really healthy.  I am not throwing up anymore.  People are giving me less oily things.  That is nice of them.  I started exercising again this transfer so I am super tired.  I will talk to you guys later!  BYE!

The Last 3 Weeks

OK it has been like 3 weeks  - Elder Birmingham is packing his things and going to Tucuman this transfer. Cool! So it is like 3 weeks of things and I haven’t written any of the things to home.  A lot of things happened and all the days seem the same to me and then its Monday and we just play soccer and do other things.  So we have done a lot of interesting things and been a lot of interesting weeks and like three weeks ago I guess it would be so many things happened and so many stories. So we are in the same ward as the Assistants and so we kind of just get to do whatever they say sometimes. And so three weeks ago they had a member person say  “Hey my daughter is 9 and she needs to get baptized.”  And we were like Yes! -  because we thought she would be in our area, but then we found out it she lived in their area. So that was fun. And then they were in different provinces, really far away, so guess who got to teach all the lessons to a 9 year old in 3 days. That was us. We taught are all the things in three days and then they found out she has been going to church for forever. And so she was going to get baptized on Saturday. So we had to teach her all the things – that was fun. It's cool. Then one of the days Elder Birmingham got bit by a spider or something and his arm swelled up. And so he didn’t know what to do so I cleaned it with bleach. Cause its a third world country thing. Well it worked, -but he did scream for his mom a lot. Also now the Argentine peso is maybe worth $.02 in America maybe a little more. So you could say its going well the economy here – good things. They are going to rob my comp in Tucuman. Here in Salta I will just line my pension with leather bound books and mahogany. Because here I am a rich man. And so what else did we do… we found some cows in the streets  - I think I sent some pictures of that home. We just did service one day and we were walking back an there were just cows because there are cows. It was weird but it was something that happened. Then on one of the other nights we found  - nope this crazy spirit guy found us…  he was funny but also insane, he is like haunted or something and we believed him so we gave him a Book of Mormon and asked him where he lived and stuff. He didn't really want to tell us. So then I was like okay well this book is for you read it and feel better. He just wanted to know why he was haunted or something. He just wanted to talk. Then there is the other times where we are out knocking on doors and we accidentally contact churches because they look like houses. And they turn out to be churches. So that's fun.  Also three weeks ago I did splits with Elder Garcia from Guatemala yes there is another one and he is newer, and in my district. But he is getting transferred.  The girls call us or whistle at us in the street… it happens like at least once a week. So that's good??? Lets see there was the other time we went to Floresta in and going to this house and one member and name is Pasquale He has a son that’s a little different and does lots of drugs. So one time he just decided to show us that he had a knife and then began to drag my companion around by the hand till we got to his house. That was funny. Thats 's good times in the mission. A different time we did some service where we put some dirt into some buckets and carts and we made a cart out of different carts. So we did that and moved a bunch of dirt. Faith moves mountains or people do with shovels and wagons.   I sometimes show pictures of my family to people and everyone says my mom is super young. So mom you look young in Argentina, and in America. So way to go, I guess? Then more recently what else -  we have Bruno’s baptism – he is the guy that never prayed before. That we got to pray, and then he liked praying and he liked church and then  he like my companion and so he wanted to get Baptized before  my companion left. So my companion baptized him. But other people told him that my companion was leaving. So that was a thing. Then that was pretty much that all the things that were super important. Today we got to do an activity for family history which went insanely wrong, so many things, we did it on this mountain tourist look out place, and so yeah, we got the car up there and then the car was too big and blocked like the road and then everyone got mad and there's this witch lady that was yelling at all the people and she wasn't happy and we weren’t  happy and then we set up all the things and they told us to move all the things and then we moved all the things and then we had to go back and get the things that were forgotten and we got back and brought the things that were forgotten, and by then they already finished so we just took all the things down and went back and that was the activity. So that was good. Today there are transfers and a whole bunch of things are changing, but that doesn’t matter. My new comp is from Peru name is Elder Soto. We will see how that goes. Um what else do I have…. Oh yea. So  this week we ate a lot of oil on things because they cook all the things in oil here, So I had to do some baptism interviews and during one of them, well I only did one  - because of this story - So I was in the baptism interview and about to ask the last question and then I had to throw up, so I got to up and she pointed at the window, cuz I told her I was going to throw up out the window. So I did in the middle of the interview. Yeah so that how this week went. Good things, fun stories. That was like one of three vomit fits I had that day, so got to love that – best two years? What else… Today we had four hours of church  because there was a baptism before church so next week I am taking an hour off…On Saturday we did some service – it was ok we helped build part of a house. We  made rock cement and shoveled things and made fun of the way people talked. It was fun. It was good times. What else is a good story… pretty much all the things that are going on. One of the assistants - he is finishing his mission now and his parents came to get him because they are going to go on vacation for like a week go to the big waterfall that is over by Brazil or whatever…. So they are all doing that kind of thing. So his parents were just of there during lunch and we had to go to the office and stuff. So that was weird. But good. We ate lunch with them then a different family and I got to translate for the mom the whole time.So that was interesting.I think those are all the stories that we really have. That's about it, we did all the things all the crazy people so many crazy people. Oh yes another fun thing, So this week was the “Holy Week” so a bunch of people walked really far with like statues and stuff, because one time there was earthquakes or storms or something, and so someone went into a church and pulled out a statue of a virgin and took it outside and all the stuff stopped happening. So now every year around this time they have a giant march from the edges of Salta to the middle of Salta, where we are. So that was a thing we did and so those are all the stories that there are. I think that's about it for the last 3 weeks, lots of service, lots of things, lots of people, one baptism… -  I guess kind of like 2 baptisms.  But its ok because the other one, no one cared that we went to the baptism, or that we taught that girl anything.  They just liked the assistants so that was good as well so yep that's probably all the things that there are so I guess I will talk to you all a different time. -Bye!

Pictures from this week

Salta from the Sky