Nate's Letter Home - Nov 27, 2017

Writing the date just made me realize that it´s been two months from today that I got on the airplane. Crazy to think about, the weeks have flown by.

We´re coming off of a bit of a spiritual high from yesterday because we were able to get 3 new baptismal dates. The first two we got were these people named Ricardo and Maria. They are in their forties. They were a reference from a recent convert. They were really friendly with us, invited us in, gave us some Coke. We talked about lesson 1 and the BoM with them. It was a really good lesson, they asked us a lot of questions and talked to us about a lot of stuff. Near the end my comp looked at me and gave me the nod, except I didn´t know which nod it was. He mouthes the word baptism to me and I´m like oh crap, he wants me to invite them to be baptized. I was pretty nervous but I have the invitation memorized so I was able to do it. They thought about it, and their first reaction was obviously that they don´t feel ready yet and they want to know more. We explained that we knew they weren´t ready yet but we also knew they could be ready by the 23 of december. They agreed to prepare themselves. That night we met with an investigator named Franco that a member had brought to church the past two weeks. He had a lot of questions for us, some of which were really hard questions, and we tried to answer them the best we could. We taught him lesson 1 as well and gave him a BoM. We asked if he would be baptized on the 30 of december, and he also said he didn´t feel ready yet. But we assured him we would help him be ready and so he agreed to prepare for that day.

On Tuesday we went out to Rio Legre, which is the part of our area that is more out in the sticks. We found several new investigators out there. But we clapped this one house which was really more of just a shack looking thing out in the middle of nowhere. After we clapped we saw this guy open the curtain he used as a door, with a huge knife in his hand. He doesn´t say a word, only gestures with the knife for us to come in, then walks back inside. Me and my comp looked at each other for a second, then we just shrugged and decided to go in. I remember as I saw my comp walk through the curtain to the house, I had the thought that there was probably a 47% chance he was going to get stabbed. Well, we didn´t. Turns out he was just cutting up some tomatoes and onions. He had a movie with Matt Damon in it blaring on his TV, so we could barely hear each other. But we tried to talk to him a little about the BoM. I´m pretty sure there was about a 90% chance that he was super high. Either that or he was just a super chill guy, hard to tell. Anyway, I found the whole experience kinda funny.

I should probably tell you about Friday. I think it was about 4 in the afternoon, we had come back to our apartment to change so we could do some service. But we got a call from the person and she told us we would have to do it next week. Well that´s not really important to the story, but anyway I was running up the stairs to grab something. I don´t remember what. There is tile on our top step, and that´s the one I slipped on. I landed on my right shin right on the edge of the stair. My comp was down in the bathroom and he must have heard the thump. He asked if I was ok and I told him I´d be ok. I paced around our room trying to walk it out, it felt like it was bruised pretty bad. After a while I noticed my pants were sticking to my leg, and so I rolled them up and saw my leg was bleeding everywhere. I went downstairs and my comp came out of the bathroom and helped me clean up the blood. The wound looked nothing like I was expecting. It´s like a circular hole in my shin, kinda looks like a bullet wound or something. I have no idea how, we went and looked at the stairs and didn´t find anything that would have done that. Anyway it wouldn´t stop bleeding so we just taped some gauz (no idea how to spell that) to my leg and called it good. We had a lesson to get to. Well when we got back at the end of the day after walking a ton, the gauz was soaked so we took it off, and we put some rubbing alcohol in it, which stung, and then put another bandage on it. The bleeding didn´t really stop until today, although it´s still oozing a little. But it is getting better. I got some pretty good pictures of it, looks like I got shot or something. 

Thursday night, a little while before we went to bed my comp reminded me that it was Thanksgiving. I had completely forgotten. I decided to eat one of the bag of Hi Chews I still had to celebrate. They were really tasty.

To answer mom´s question, I´m not supposed to recieve packages. There´s a good chance they´ll never get here, and if they do then I have to pay for the value of the stuff inside or something like that. Also, to answer your question about how much I cook, the answer is not much. The members here are amazing. They pass around a calendar each sunday to sign up to have meals with us. We have lunch pretty much every day with members. Some days we even have dinner. Breakfast is usually the only meal we have to worry about each day. I´ve mostly been eating eggs, probably too much eggs haha. I´ll usually scramble up about 7 eggs to eat each day. I eat cereal quite a bit too. 

I already know I´ve forgotten to write some stuff but I need to be done. Hope you have a great week.

-Elder Shelton

Nate's Letter Home - Nov 20, 2017

Hey fam,

I´m writing a bit later than usual today because the ciber we use for emailing was full so we went and ate lunch and did our weekly planning and then came back. Also, a few minutes ago we got interupted by the power going out. I´m not sure if it´s related but while the power was out we heard a bunch of guys yelling really loud and then the ciber owner went to see what was going on and ran back in and called the cops. I guess there was a fight or something. Anyway, a few minutes later the power came back and now I´m writing this.

It´s been another week of meeting a lot of amazing people, hearing a lot of spanish, not understanding much, lots of walking, and unfortunately a lot of appointments that have fallen through. Schedules don´t really exist here so it can be hard to catch people at their house. Although, some good news: we got a baptismal date. It was probably the easiest baptismal date I´ll ever get, but I´ll take it. We visited this family that has been inactive for a long time and they have a 9 year old daughter that hasn´t been baptized. We went there to talk a little about baptism but before we could ask her anything she flat out told us that she wanted to be baptized. We were like, well that was pretty easy, and we set the date for the 9 of december. I might be the one doing the baptism so I´m pretty excited for that, although we still have to teach her a few of the lessons and it´s a little difficult because her parents have to be there and they work a lot.

We have a few investigators that have some obstacles to overcome before we can set a date with them. This one guy Alfredo is a total capo (capo basically means stud). He reads from the book of mormon everyday, we had to give him this giant copy because he had trouble seeing the small one. The only problem is his smoking. He smokes a ton each day and he hasn´t been able to quit. He´s cut his smoking down a lot ever since he got the word of wisdom lesson, but he hasn´t been able to fully quit. I hope we can help him to. 

It´s crazy how fast your shoes get dirty here. I remember the first day I got to the area and saw all the shoes in our apartment I was like wow, these guys must be veterans. You could hardly tell what color the shoes were they had so much dirt on them. But after the first day of walking my shoes looked exactly the same haha. That reminds me, on wednesday it was really hot and there was a bunch of wind. Since all the roads are dirt and straight, the dust can get insane. We couldn´t see very far in front of us and it didn´t take long before we were covered in dirt. I definitely chose the wrong day to wear contacts, that´s for sure. It was pretty painful. Anyway, later that same day, clouds came out of nowhere and it dumped on us. I didn´t have my jacket or anything so I got soaked. All the dirt that was on me turned to mud, it was a mess haha. I´m glad it rained though because the temperature finally cooled off. The first part of the week was crazy hot. We were sweating the minute we left our apartment in the morning and didn´t stop until we came back at night and took off our clothes. I thought maybe I was just being a wimp but all the natives were dying of heat too so it must of have been hot. But ever since it rained it cooled down a lot and has actually been a little chilly. In fact it´s raining right now as I type this. 

On P day I finally did some laundry. We fill up a bucket with hot water and put some detergent in it and wash our clothes in that. Then we hang them out back to dry, which takes forever. Not sure how good of a job I did, but my clothes smell good now at least.

Oh yeah I forgot to mention, I was able to pull my money out this time. We took the train into Merlo this time and pulled out money at some ATM´s there. I pulled out a bunch of personal money too.

Also, on friday we had to go into the capital for tramites, or paperwork. It was a bunch of waiting in lines, handing people papers, waiting in more lines. Kinda like the DMV. It took several hours but I think I´m finally legal now. While we waited for the train back to our area me and my comp had lunch at this pizza place. It was probably some of the best pizza I´ve ever eaten. We also got a glass of coke and that really hit the spot. Never thought I´d say this in a million years, but I have become a coke lover. It just tastes better down here for some reason.

Anyway, hope you guys have a great week. Sometimes the spanish can be rough, but I love it here. I don´t understand a lot of what they say to me but I know it will come with time. Right now I just try to say what I can and my comp helps out with the rest. 

-Elder Shelton

Nate's Letter Home - Nov 13, 2017

First Week in the Field

It seems like like a long time since I´ve written and a lot has happened. I already know I´m going to forget to say a lot of stuff.

We left the MTC tuesday morning and went to the mission offices. There we had lunch with Presidente and Hermana Resek, and we got told a bunch of stuff that I don´t really remember too well. Finally we got to meet our trainers. My trainer is Elder Pietz, he´s from Louisiana and has been out for about a year. He is also district leader. Some dude came and picked us up in his car to take us to our area. By the way our area is called Mariano Acosta and our zone is Marcos Paz. Anyway my comp was talking to this dude the whole way there, it was about an hour drive. We found out that he wasn´t even a member so we talked a little about what we do as missionaries and the book of mormon and what not. When we dropped him off we gave him a book of mormon because he seemed kind of interested. I´d already made my first contact before we got to our apartment. Anyway, I put my stuff in the apartment and then we immediately left because my comp had appointments. Next thing I knew we were in the house of an investigator teaching a lesson. I hardly understood a word they said but I was able to say a few things. Also later that night we went to the church to give a blessing to this lady who was having health problems. My comp gave the blessing and I realized as I put my hands on her head that this would be the first time I´d use the Melchizedek priesthood. It was a cool experience.

The next day was full of making contacts, teaching lessons and meeting members. We clapped (I´ll explain clapping later) this one house and met this young couple and an older lady who I assume is the guys mom. They let us come in and we talked for quite a while with them. We found out that this guy had really bad problems with being nervous and so he took medication to help it. But people kept robbing their house for the medicine because I guess if you take it when you drink alcohol it makes you really high or something like that. Anyway these people had a ton of hard problems and so we talked about the book of mormon with them and gave them each a copy and they were really excited and grateful. 

It feels like I´m in a different world down here haha. We walk all day on dirt roads. There are a few paved roads, like the road we live on, but most are dirt. The houses blow you away when you first seem them. The houses look worse than probably the poorest areas of the US. At least the outsides do, some of the insides aren´t too bad. Our apartment is actually kinda nice though, at least nicer than I expected. We have a toilet that flushes(sometimes) and a shower with warm water(sometimes). We got a fridge and a stove, it´s actually a pretty nice place and I´m happy with it. There is another companionship with us so four of us live there.

So the neiborhoods here are all on a grid system, which I like. And every house has gates in front of them. I use the words gates loosely, sometimes its just like a barb wire fence, but still, everyone has a gate. So there is no knocking on doors here, instead you stand outside the gate and clap. Its kinda weird but thats just what they do down here. 

On P day we took the train into Marcos Paz so we could pull out my money, but when we got there, there wasn´t any money left. So I´ve been basically living the life of a begger the past week. Luckily my comp loaned me about 300 pesos and I was able to buy some cereal and milk and bananas. Hopefully there´s money next p day so I can have some. Also the other companionship in our apartment bought some shin guards for me so I could play soccer with them. We went to the church by our apartment that has a concrete court for basketball and soccer and we played there.

Friday we did some service for a lady in our ward. We cut her ¨lawn¨, which was really just a bunch of waist high weeds, with machetes. Yes, machetes. It was actually kinda fun. I don´t think you can say you have become a man until you cut down a field with a machete. 

On sunday, I had to introduce myself in sacrament meeting. I got up, said my name and where I´m from and shared a simple testimony, it wasn´t too bad. It was also their primary program, and that was something to behold. There was only about 15 kids total. Also I don´t think anyone in the ward can play the piano so they used a boombox for all their songs. And the congregation sang all the hymns acapella, and it was not pretty. The kids were pretty crazy too. Some of them were running around the stage or down into the congregation during the songs.

The members here are amazing tho. We have lunch with them almost every day, and sometimes dinner too. The people here are really generous. They always invite us in and give us a cold glass of coke during the day when we´re hot and sweaty. These people don´t have much but they are always willing to help and talk. We´ve clapped a lot of houses and people are almost always willing to come out and talk to us about religion, even if they´re not interested in joining our church.

Well, we don´t have any fechas right now but I think they´ll be coming soon. Usually the hardest part is to get people to come to church which is at 930. People usually are working or just don´t go to bed until like well into sunday morning, or they just don´t sleep at all saturday night. Another problem is marriage. Most people don´t get married cause it´s a hard process and for some reason takes about a month. Another big problem is smoking. A ton of people smoke here. We have a few investigators with these problems but hopefully we can get past them so they can be baptized.

Oh i forgot to mention that yesterday while we were clapping a house, i saw something i can say i´ve never seen before. There was a dog right next to me as we were standing at the gate, and I looked down and the dog was gnawing on this massive severed pighead. Yes, an actual pighead. It was pretty nasty, it had a bunch of flies and whatnot crawling on it. It was pretty hard not to be distracted by it as we talked to the guy that came to the gate.

Well there´s a lot more i could say but i don´t have the time. It´s been a fun week and I hope we can have some more success this week. Hope everythings going well back home.

-Elder Shelton

Nate's arrival in assigned mission (Buenos Aires West) - Nov 7, 2017

Dear Family and Friends of Elder Shelton,

 We are writing to inform you that your missionary, Elder Shelton, has arrived safely in the Argentina Buenos Aires West Mission. We have enjoyed becoming acquainted with him and are excited to be serving together. 

 Thank you for the sacrifices you are making at home to have a missionary in the field. We know the Lord blesses and cares for the families of the missionaries.

 Please, find attached some pictures of him and some guidelines of the mission which will be useful to know.  You should also be getting an email from him next Monday.

 Warmest regards,                          

President and Hermana Resek

Nate's Letter Home - Nov 2, 2017

Week 5?

This will be my last letter in the CCM, which is crazy to think about. Time has flown and I hope I'm somewhat ready for the field.

So last Saturday we went street contacting again, this time with my normal companion, Elder Tanner. The area was a lot harder this time around compared to last time, and by that I mean no one would listen to us. We got dropped off in a pretty busy part of the city. There were tons of little clothing shops, lined up one after the other on several blocks in our area. It made it hard because it was pretty loud and busy and no one had time to listen to us. Eventually we decided to go to the other side of our area, which was more residential and less busy. We had a few good conversations with people but still struggled a lot. The people in the city are really good at ignoring. Like when you're passing someone on the street and say hola or Como estas they'll either just completely ignore you or they'll wait till they're pretty much past you to respond so then you can't stop them. So anyway we hadn't had much success at all by the time Ciesta hit, which isn't good because it gets really hard to find people during ciesta. It's crazy how the entire place just shuts down right in the middle of the day. When we went back to the crazy busy shopping area again it was like a ghost town. All the shops were closed and they all lower down these garage door-looking things and lock them up so the entire place now looked like abandoned warehouses. The streets are pretty much empty so it was hard to find anyone. Despite this our best experiences happened during ciesta.

We came across this one teenage kid sitting on the side of the street, I think he was waiting for a bus. He had a crazy nose piercing and looked like the kind of kid you didn't want to talk to so we thought he would just ignore us. But we got talking and turned out he was a really nice kid and was willing to listen to us, even with our bad spanish. We found out he had a friend that was Mormon so he knew a little bit about us. We talked about a bunch of things, can't remember a lot of it. We explained about the book of mormon and gave him one and challenged him to read 3 Nefi 11. He then told us his friend had already given him a BoM so he gave it back, but he said he would read it when he got home. We also gave him one of our pamphlets (That's probably not even close to how you spell it, I struggle to spell stuff in english now) about the Restoration and wrote down the address to the nearest church.

Quite a while later, we were starting to feel pretty worn out. Everyone we had tried to talk to in about the past 45 minutes had either ignored us or flat out refused to talk. We just kept walking though, and I was kind of zoned out trying to think of a way to get someone to talk to us. I almost didn't even notice this guy that walked right buy us. Luckily he stopped us and asked us something. I wasn't quite sure what he said, but we were glad to have someone to talk to. This was the first time someone had started a conversation with us. This guy turned out to be really awesome, like a golden investigator. He was from Peru and had just recently moved to Buenos Aires. He had an uncle that was Mormon, and he had learned a lot about our church from him. He was very patient with us luckily because there was a few times that we had no idea what he was saying. He had stopped us because he had a question but it took us quite a while to figure out what he was asking. We were finally able to figure out he really wanted to go to our church but didn't know where any of them were in Buenos Aires. Luckily we had the address of the nearest church with us so we wrote it down for him and he was very thankful. We also found out that he had read some of the book of mormon with his uncle and he said he loved reading it, but he didn't have a BoM now that he was living here. So we gave him our BoM we had with us and he was even more thankful. One of our district goals that our teacher set for us was to invite people to be baptized, so I asked him if he would commit to being baptized. He said he would like to, once he goes to church and reads more from the book of mormon. We wrote down his contact info too for missionaries that actually serve in that area. 

When we were waiting for the bus, we went into a store and bought a Coke. It was the most refreshing Coke I've ever had in my life, although that's not really saying much because I've never really liked it. I've heard that we might be drinking it a lot in the field since our drinking water isn't that clean.

So the first floor bathroom has finally been finished remodeling. Before, every Elder was using the bathroom on the second floor (my floor) and it was crazy crowded. Sometimes there was a line of about 15 people for the showers. Last week Presidente came in and saw how bad it was and decided to change things up. So we had to all wake up earlier at 6:15, and people in shedule A would shower then, and people in schedule B(me) would shower at 6:45. It kinda worked, but it was still crowded. Well anyway, the other bathroom opened up and we thought that would solve all the problems. Except for now, anytime someone is showering downstairs, there is no water pressure upstairs. If you put it to ice cold, then there's enough pressure for water to actually come out, but if you try to turn it a little bit warm, the pressure completely dies and only drips come out. Needless to say, us on the second floor have been taking some cold showers. 

It's crazy to think I'll be leaving this place on Tuesday. I still feel like I don't know much spanish, but hopefully I can figure it out on the way. I don't know when I'll get to write next, it might be a week and a half because I think P days are on Monday in the field. I'm sure I'll have a lot to say by then. I hope Amanda feels better and you have a great week.

-Elder Shelton