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
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