Week 9: (no title)

Hey! I'm here again! I hope you all have had another amazing week even though I'm not in your lives!

Things have been pretty interesting here in Argentina, the election is over, we're still missionaries, you know, nothing really big. This past week has been all over the map. From rainy days to sick days. But all another day in the life of a missionary!

This past week we had another Capilla Abiertta (Open Church) , church tour, in our Zone. All of the missionaries in our zone went over to another area and we went out and advertised all over the area for people to come and see the church and see what we believe and what we do in the church, it was really good. That took all day Saturday, and then this week we've been planning for our Capilla Abierta here in Catán 3! Elder Tolentino and I have been planning a lot and trying to figure out where all of the members (active and inactive) live so that we can send out the missionaries to go find them and invite them all back to the church, and also the same with all of the old investigators. We're hoping for a good turn out Saturday, but we'll see. 

I got sick this past week on Wednesday, we couldn't leave the pension because I was kind of half dying. So I layed on my bed all day while Elder Tolentino worked on the list of names for our Capilla Abierta. Then that night we had to travel to another area, Adrogué because I had to go do a bunch of Visa papers the next day. So we traveled 2ish hours by bus and I was praying that I wouldn't throw up the whole time, and yay! I didn't. We slept in the Adrogué elders pension. Slept, then the next day woke up, and that is when I threw up. Then we traveled around all day with a bunch of other new missionaries as we went to different places to fill out visa forms and stuff. Whoo! What a party right! Eventually we returned back to our pension where I was able to sleep and rest and I was fine by the next day!

Today we had a Zone activity, our Zone is all Elders, because the majority of the areas here in the Zone aren't um.... suitable, one might say, for Hermanas. So we played some futbol, and ate a ton of Churi Pan, (Sp?) Which is this amazing asado sausage on bread with some ketchup or chimichuri sauce, good stuff. 

Other than that, the week has been pretty normal. We've been out searching a ton so that we can find new investigators. But we're having a little bit of trouble right now. Almost all of our appointments fell through this week, and we taught probably 4 lessons, granted we couldn't do anything for 3 of those days because I was sick and the capilla abierta. But I've been getting really good at contacting people though. The language is coming extremely fast, the gift of tongue's is amazingly real. I feel like if I didn't have it for one day I would be completely lost all day with what's going on. But we've been searching so much this past week. And we had this one day, where all of our appointments fell through. We had a member with us and everything and they all fell through. So we decided to go out finding. So we were knocking some doors and doing some street contacts, but for about 2 hours we had found no one, everyone was either to busy or didn't want to talk to us, or not home. As we were walking to go find in a different area, Elder Tolentino and I started talking. He said he had asked the President, because we've been searching for investigators for 2 weeks, why he thinks we haven't been able to find anyone. He said the president said that we need to have more faith. At that moment I realized what all of my thoughts were. Every time we would talk with someone or every time we would knock a door, I didn't believe that we were doing any good. I didn't believe that we would get anywhere by talking to the person. At this moment I realized what was happening. I was getting what I expected. All along I had been thinking we would get nothing, and we got nothing, then I would ask in my mind "why can't we find anyone?" I realized how important it is to have faith, how important it is to believe that you are going to find someone, how important it is to believe that the person you talk to is going to let you in, or make an appointment. We have to believe that the best is going to happen or God cannot reward our Faith, because we have none.

Anyway's, just a thought of what I learned this week. Also I remembered that my companion shaved all of his hair off. He got a haircut last week, and paid 50 pesos for it in a barber shop. I don't think the people in the barber shops know any more about cutting hair than I do. Because it was horrible. So he tried to fix it with the Zone leaders cutters, but messed it up even more, so they just cut it all off. I've heard it's about to get a lot hotter, so I guess that'll help haha!

That's all! Yours, always smiling

-Elder Slack

Elder Tolentino's haircut

How I take pictures of me when I'm sick

 

Week 6: When your plane leaks, just tape it!

Hey Hey! I´m alive!!

Sorry this computer is a little bit hard to use, because some of the keys on the keyboard are moved around. But I will try my best.

Anyways, I had a long flight last week, it was crazy, we went to the airport in the morning by trax and we hopped on, it was a short 3ish hour flight to Atlanta, and then we had essentially no layover time, which was nice because we didn't have to wait. We got off at the airport and hurryed over to our next flight and got on. The next flight was pretty interesting. We all boarded, then when one of the flight attendants went to shut one of the overhead packaging things, it started spitting water out of the handle, and this was right before we were about to take off. And so she shut it, and it's spitting water everywhere, and people were getting wet, so she reopens it and it stops. Then to fix it? What do you do? Well just tape it of course! It´s a several million dollar plane and we´ll just tape the plane why not. So the flight attendant put some paper towels and tape all over it and it held the water for the rest of the flight, very interesting solution I thought, but it worked I guess.

Over that 9 hour flight, I slept for probably 2.5 hours or so. I was pretty tired all day the next day. But we got off and I met my mission president, his name is President Thurgood, and he´s from Idaho. And we met the rest of the new missionaries going to our mission who all already spoke spanish and had gone to the Argentina MTC, because they were all from around south America. We ate some interesting pizza and some amazing empanadas and interviewed with the mission president, each one individually.

Then we met our trainers!! My companion is named Elder Tolentino. He´s from Peru and he´s about 4´ 11´´ I would guess, he´s awesome though, really great missionary. And he only knows a little bit of English, so I´ve been learning spanish amazingly fast. Legit, the gift of tongues is so real. I can understand so much spanish, it´s easier to understand than to speak. But I can understand the majority, I´d say probably 75% of what people are saying, or if I don't know the words I can fill in the blanks usually. And I can communicate with a lot of the people pretty well, no where near perfect, but well enough. I usually only talk if I have something directed at me, or if it´s my turn to talk in a lesson. But all is well!

Turns out, my mission is about half as big as I thought, apparently back in July they split the mission, so now there is a Buenos Aires East mission that was 6 of the stakes of our mission, and we got 2 stakes from the West mission, so we don't have the ocean in our mission, which is alright I guess. But bonus, We have the Buenos Aires temple in our mission!! So our mission president said that we'll get to go there probably 4 or 5 times during our mission, which I´m super excited for! Temple in spanish!

Here in Argentina is completely different than I thought it would be. My mission is Buenos Aires South, but majority isn't in the city, they've got a lot of cars and buses and public transport and stuff, but also, in the area that I´m in they've got a ton of dirt roads. Only the main streets are dirt. Also, there are a ton of "wild dogs" that run around. They aren't like rabid or whatever, they are just a bunch of strays. They have no owner and kind of go and do what they please, so many of them. They'll travel in packs of 5 or 6 sometimes and kind of just run around looking for food or other stuff, they usually don't bother you even if you come up and try and pet it, they'll just run a way. But the other day, I saw this sweet dog, It wasn't a stray dog, it was in someone's house, but it looked like a lion almost, it had like this huge mane, and was all tan, and it´s face looked slightly feline, but it was a dog it was the strangest thing!

Also, the music here is interesting, sometimes I'll hear american music, and I'll be like, "Hey I know that!" but majority of the time the Argentines listen to their music, and it's kind of like polka music with some interesting bongos and lots of Spanish. very interesting indeed.

Also, I´ve found it a slight benefit to being a white boy around here, there are a few people who want to yell at me as they drive by. Either by yelling at me "White boy" or some other things, it´s kind of cool. I almost feel like I'm a celebrity here in Argentina! And I´ve had one person tell me, that after they met me. "Wow, I´m going to be popular now, I know a person from America" needless to say, that made feel pretty cool. 

My spanish is progressing amazingly fast, but I'm struggling hardcore with rolling my R's, I can buzz my tongue and make noises, but I can't for the life of me use it in words. Whenever we're walking I keep trying repeatedly to say the word "perro" which is dog. And my tongue just doesn't want to say it. It's quite disappointing. But I continue to work on it. On the other side of things, they want all of the Latin missionaries that speak spanish to learn English, and my companion is struggling with the words juice, and jewish. He can´t say his J´s.

Something I found out the other day, apparently in spanish, a rooster no longer say´s cock-a-doodle-doo. Apparently it´s kí-ki-di-ki. Just a little fun fact of the day.

But other than that the work is going great, I really love it here, the people are very nice, but the conversations are a little different. They talk a lot about where they are from, which country, because there are a lot of people from Paraguay here. And they talk about the different accents of spanish, here it´s castellano. Where the ll makes a zsh sound. kind of. It´s interesting. But all is well, we are fed lunch almost everyday, which is way nice. And we walk a ton. But I love it!

The driving here, just crazy, we ride in buses sometimes and when we ride around I get a bit afraid, because people essentially just do what they want. In our bus the other day, this light had been red for 5 seconds and he just felt like going, so he did.

It´s fun, all is well! But, I´ll see you all next week, hopefully those who want this are getting it, Paz Fuera!  (peace out) 

Elder Slack

Just tape the plane

Again, me with my trainer, Elder Tolentino and President and Sister Thurgood

Living in Argentina

Week 2: Strange things in the night!

Hey hey! I'm alive! Week 2 has gone by so freaking fast! It's been a great week, tons of learning and exciting things happening, general conference was great! It was so cool to hear from all of the prophets and apostles here at the MTC with all of the missionaries, the spirit is so strong here!!

I need to start off and apologize, I had this moment last week when I sat down, wrote all of my emails and my big group email and I sent it out to a bunch of people and then my time was up and then probably 15 minutes later I thought... Wait... did I send that to my mom and dad? Sorry!! I don't think I did, also sorry to anyone who wanted to get it that didn't, friends or family, I felt really bad and wanted to hop back on for 5 seconds to forward it to you, but Obedience is key and I had to stick to the hour that I am given.

Anyways, I just loved general conference it was great! There were so many different things said that I thought applied directly to me! And getting to watch all of the sessions was a nice little break from the normal schedule here at the MTC, we just got to sit back in our horribly cramped uncomfortable stadium seats and enjoy their words for us. Honestly it was great I loved it apart from the seats that are meant for Elementary school sized kids, I can never feel comfortable when sitting in them no matter how hard I try or how much I move around.

The rest of the week was just incredible, I'll try and touch on a few of the highlights. I've essentially gotten used to the MTC schedule now, waking up at 6:30 is a cinch, at least if you get to bed right at 10:30, there are a few elders who just don't care and stay up later every night and every morning I hear them complaining about how hard it is to get up. I try and tell them, but they always want to do other stuff besides sleep when 10:30 rolls around.

We got 2 new districts in our zone this past week, they're an interesting group of kids, a lot of them still have the total high school mindset going on here, and they're all about the social life and trying to look cool and impress everyone else with their girlfriends and their extreme workout regiments. It's kind of weird, every night probably 6 or 7 people from our floor have a big pow wow in front of our room where they all try and show off their muscles and see who can do the most complex kind of push up and the most pull up's and then some people will stand around and talk about how "back in high school" they could do so many more push-ups. It's kind of weird, but whatever.

Story of the week, it is quite a doozy! My companion, Elder Hall if you didn't get my last weeks letter, he's an interesting kid, we get along really well, but we just have different personalities, I want to work hard all the time and he just wants to mess around and have fun all the time, it works out though because we kind of balance each other out. So just the other night, I was sound asleep in my bed, I was having the weirdest of dreams that you'll have to ask me about some other time, but in the dream I hear this banging and it is really annoying, I have no idea where it's coming from, but all of a sudden I wake up. And I'm thinking why in the world am I awake at this time of night? I look at my clock, it's like 2:45 in the morning and I'm super confused, so I just go back to bed. Well I sleep well the rest of the night, then I get up the next morning, everything is fine and dandy. Then Elder Hall starts talking and he's like where were you guy's! I was freezing all night! Why didn't you wake up! And we're like whoa whoa, what are you talking about? Because he just starts getting all grumpy about nothing we know about. Well as it turns out... That thumping I heard in my dream, was Elder Hall thumping on our window, it woke me up, but he didn't keep knocking. Elder Hall had slept walked out of our room, up the stairs, through the door and to outside, he said that he woke up by a tree over by the fence here. He was trapped outside for 2 and a half hours!! He couldn't get anyone to wake up, he was just freezing outside in his G's until finally around 4 am a security guard was taking his morning round about and he spotted him and let him in. We died when we heard his story, but also turns out he woke about 4 people up, but they all decided not to get up because they were to tired and they didn't know what it was, and some of them assumed it was some kids just messing with the MTC. But, from now on Elder hall is sleeping with his key and key card attached to him. 

Other then that, the week has been pretty normal. We've been teaching these 2 people consecutively almost every day. But just the other day after we finished our TRC lesson, which is just essentially another person we teach in Spanish for more practice. And we finished, we walk out of the room and we see our other investigator, and he's all dressed up, in a nice shirt and tie and has a name badge on that say's Hermano Brown. Elder Hall and I are confused right now and he just tells us to follow him so we go and we get to watch the other missionaries in our district teach on these camera's they have on a live feed from every room. And turns out, our investigator that we taught on the 3rd day, Who was named Guillermo, is actually Hermano Brown another one of our teachers. Quite surprised actually, but I like teacher Hermano Brown a lot more than investigator Hermano Brown as Guillermo. He is super energetic and excited about teaching the gospel. He keeps telling us that he's not here to be our friend, he's here to train us so that we can go out and baptize the WORLD!! He's awesome.

Other things, food is still food. I borrowed someone's card reader so I have pictures this week, we had the relief society general president come talk to us last night for our Tuesday night night devotional, it was awesome she said some amazingly inspiring things. I'm still learning Spanish, it's getting harder now, but I still love it.

I just thought of another story, I know you hear all the time of language switch ups and things that people say and earlier this week when Elder Hall and I were teaching a lesson we were teaching and Elder hall was trying to talk about Joseph Smith and tell our investigator that he was the start of the Restoration of the church, well it came out as "José Smith es la esposa de la restauracíon" Which translates to Joseph smith is the wife of the restoration, and our investigator just gave us this really weird look and then we realized what he had said. 

Anyway's I'll tell you more next week! Keep everything real for me and stay awesome!!

Elder Slack

Argentina Buenos Aires South Mission

Mailing Address:

Elder Stockton Gerald Slack

NOV02 ARG-BAS

2007 N 900 E Unit 97

Provo UT 8462

P.S. My companion is the big redhead one in a few of the pictures. Also if anyone still doesn't get it let me know.