Feliz Cumpleaños a Amanda
So we only have an hour of email time so I hope I get to say most of what I want to. And before I forget, I won't be able to email you until Saturday, because we are going to the temple again Thursday.
The flight was really long, I'm glad I wont have to do that very much. I flew with 10 other Elders to Atlanta, where we met 11 other Elders and then flew to Argentina. We all got picked up at the Buenos Aires airport in a bus and were shipped off to the CCM (MTC). The first day was really hard because I was running on about zero sleep and there was a lot to take in. Our first night, we're pretty sure we heard a bunch of gunshots haha.
Our second day, Friday, we got to go to the temple. Luckily they had an English session just for us. The temple is literally right next to the CCM and takes about 30 seconds to walk there. Its really cool and looks amazing.
Saturday and Sunday the North Americans got to watch Conference in English. Conference was really good but the chairs here are no buena and it was both an uplifting and painful 10 hours. We had a two hour testimony meeting after so it was very hard to understand. I was able to understand most of what the gringos said, but about 5 percent of what the Latinos said.
Almost all of the food here is amazing. I'm probably going to gain some serious pounds while I'm here. We had this one meal where it was just a big old slab of beef with some mashed potatoes and it was probably the best thing I've eaten in my life.
The teachers here are all Natives I think. Our districts morning teacher is from Argentina and our afternoon teacher is from Columbia. The teachers speak pretty good English, at least enough to explain when we don't understand what they're saying in Spanish. We study a lot. When we are not in class or eating then we are studying or preparing a lesson. Although sometimes our district has had trouble completely focusing during study time. The people in my district are awesome though, we all get along really well.
My companion and I have already given 3 lessons in Spanish to our "Progressive Investigator". It's been pretty rough put we have gotten through them. We ask her questions during our lesson and we only understand about half of her answers, and it can be pretty frustrating because we can't express all the things that we want to. But we are able to say quite a bit considering we've been here only for a week. His name is Elder Tanner by the way, he was the one we met at the SLC airport. He's a really funny kid. He is struggling a little bit with Spanish, and it kills me on the inside every time he tries to pronounce a Spanish word, but I know he'll get it eventually, porque tenemos el don de lenguas.
This Saturday, we are all going proselyting. Like actually proselyting. They are going to drive us somewhere like an hour away and drop me off with just my companion and we have to talk to people on the street. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to understand what anybody says to me, but I guess it will be good practice. I'm pretty nervous for that, to say the least.
My roommates are amazing. They are 8 of us all in a room that's probably about the size of my room at home. 4 of them are Latino, and we have a ton of fun before we go to bed trying to talk with them. We'll try to speak Spanish with them and they try to speak English with us. It usually just ends up being really funny and we laugh all the time. The Latinos call us "shankees", which is Yankees but with the Argentine sha sound, which I find really funny. The bathroom on the second floor is under construction, so all of the Elders have to use the bathroom on the third floor, which is where our room is. The bathroom gets pretty hectic at times haha. We did our laundry for the first time yesterday. We weren't entirely sure what we were doing but our clothes came out clean so I guess we did ok.
We get an hour of physical activity a day where we get to go outside. So far, the weather has been mostly cloudy and cool and it has felt amazing.
It's weird being surrounded by Spanish all the time. The cooks, the maids, our teachers and even the missionaries are speaking Spanish all the time. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's going on haha. But I really like it here, I've had a lot of fun and already learned a lot and hope someday I'll really be able to communicate well with the natives.
I have a lot more I could say but I've ran out of time. Talk to you next week.
Yo sé que la Iglesia es verdadera. Sé que el Libro de Mormón es la palabra de Dios. Sé que José Smith fue un profeta de Dios, y Dios restauró Su Evangelio a través de él. Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y Redentor, en el nombre de Jesucristo, Amen.
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