Week 12: Christmas is coming, and it's not snowing.

WOW!

It's Christmas already?? What is this? There is nothing like snow here. I'm slightly sad that we will not have snow for Christmas, but it's alright.

It keeps getting hotter and hotter here in Argentina, we've been working a ton this last week. Elder Tolentino and I are trying to improve a lot of things in the way we work, there is so much that I want to improve on. But in the heat, it gets really hard the days that we have appointments that fall through, I've been bringing 2 water bottles with me throughout the day to keep from getting dehydrated. It's really really nice now in our pension that we have air conditioning, makes it so nice when we go to bed not to be covered in sweat. 

This last week has been really great. It started out the first day in our new pension, we wake up in the morning to no electricity or water. That's alright, we were able to talk to the renter and we could bathe in another empty apartment. We got power back that night, but we haven't been able to cook very much all week until literally last night/this morning, I was able to continue to make a smoothie some of the days though, so that was really nice. 

We had another Capilla Abierta the other day, it went smoothly, it was for another area in our zone, so we went in the morning to help out to invite a lot of the old investigators or less active members, as well as anyone we could talk to in the street. It was really good, and then that night we had the ward Christmas party. It was really different than what I was used to, but it was good. The food they had a was a little under planned, so not everyone ate as much as they wanted, but the food that they had was amazingly delicious. As well, the missionaries of our ward along with the young men and young women. We sang in front of everyone, in case you didn't know, latins... can't really sing. They are pretty much tone deaf. Haha! But it was great, all of us tried to sing, and we just sung it out loud and it went well(ish). 

As well Elder Tolentino and I, we did a Family Home Evening in the church this last week. It was really good. We talked about Christmas time and all the traditions that we have as families and as friends, and also some people talked about how they don't like Christmas because we are expected to be with our families, but hey that's alright, they can have their opinions as well. But we talked about how it is really important, that not only that we not only remember the Christmas season, but that we also remember that Christ was born. That he came to this earth, lived, died, and was resurrected for us. And if we can just remember Him everyday, at least for a minute, we will have more joy in our lives. It's great that we remember Him now during this time of the year, but also we should be thinking about Him for the rest of the year as well. 

They've got a few different traditions here in Argentina, on the night of the 24th, everyone stays up until midnight, then they open presents and eat a huge dinner, then they sleep until around 3 in the afternoon. Also, they always eat asado!!! The meat here is the best thing ever. We eat a lot of chicken too, but if someone makes us asado for lunch, it is the best!

But anyways, I hope all of you have a great holiday! Christmas and New years! All is well, all is happy! We've been sharing this message with everyone as well. To help us remember why we celebrate Christmas, and why we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, if you go to www.christmas.mormon.org you can find a video that explains it all. And you should all do it right now! Because you are on your computer! It's only 2 minutes! Do it!

Chau!

Elder Slack

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Merry Christmas!

Suspenders!

Here we are singing!