Week 012 - The Perks Of Not Really Knowing Spanish

Hey Cute Fam

I’m loving your Easter good times.  Sorry I had to miss it.  I was too busy preaching the word. NO DAYS OFF.

All these Catholic Joes really hype up the Easter holiday around here, with parties and such, especially on Friday. Probably why it’s called a Good Friday. This one lady I talked to for a while was like, “so what do you do to prepare for Easter"? I was like, “uh, think of Jesus and open Easter eggs". Na.  But she was all confused on why I don’t put ash on my head, and fast French Fries for 40 days, then party on Good Friday. I think she’s got the wrong idea for celebrating the resurrection of the savior. I celebrated the savior cada dia son!

Church was funny because there were no talks about Easter on Sunday. The Branch President told me to talk about the priesthood, and Elder Hill was asked to talk about the importance of teaching the gospel. Don't worry. I gave a little testimony of love for Jesus in the end. I give a lot of talks here because of the low supply of members. It’s sweet, I love giving talks. It kind of gets your mind focused on things.

Anyways, I totally miss having a good Easter dinner. One of my favorite Easters was probably that one at Grandma and Grandpa Arnett’s home, with the adults all fighting over that egg with like 20 bucks in it. Whoever made a video of that Easter did a fine job, Probably Uncle Chris, Mr. Video Man.

Yeah, this mission has got me psyched out of my mind (imagine the angry elf from Elf). I talked about Ricardo a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, he’s totally lame, he’s been hiding from us, and all his friends told us he left town for life. Well, I’m sorry Ricardo that we scared you off so much that you had to make your friends into liars. But we had two new investigators who we taught twice, and they totally wanted it like Donato. Daniel Catolino and Ernesto. All three were making quite the friendship at church. Studs. Now we have two set dates for April for the two of them. Donato actually showed up for the lesson we had with Daniel when we asked him to be baptized and I asked Donato, "how did you feel after your baptism and received the Holy Ghost?” Donato after was like, "Oh no, I don’t have godfathers". Ah, come on Donato, "Get loose." It was kind of funny. And me and Elder Ricra joke about it all the time. Donato actually received the priesthood yesterday, and now can bless the sacrament. He just gets more studly every week. It’s totally crazy though, because we only met him 4 weeks ago.

People get so hyped up on soccer here. This past week was the Argentina vs. Chile game, and I don’t know what was going on, but our neighbor downstairs was hyped out of his mind. I swear, all of Galves could hear his dirty mouth. According to Elder Ricra he had a dirty mouth. It’s kind of one of the perks of not really knowing Spanish. Which by the way is going a lot better. I understand most people. Especially when I went on splits with Elder Hill who came to Argentina the same day as me. I think people just see two white American kids and starts speaking way slower. How nice.

I made a new friend the other morning. I’m always running by this guy’s house and he always says hi. So I say hi back. And this has gone on for a couple of weeks. But one day he comes up and talks to me and says "Gonzalo." I had no idea what that was, so I said, "uh yeah, si." His name is Jorge and he owns a carneceria. This is totally sweet because now we go there for our meats and he totally hooks us up! I asked for like 40 pesos of meat, and he gave me like 65 pesos of meat. We are going to teach him eventually, but I’m worried about losing our sweet hookups and good times in the park when he says hi.

So we’ve got this other missionary in Galves, and he was totally normal, until I was talking to him the other day and he started to explain to me about secret combinations and all that jazz in the Book of Mormon. And he showed me all of the scriptures he’s marked, and quotes by Ezra Taft Benson who has apparently spoken about this. But he’s totally obsessed about this, and that the Gadiaton Robbers are on their way back to take over the government and microchip us. I think it’s interesting, but I got scared when he said he has been “testified of Jesus Christ of this.” I was worried for my life then, thinking a huge thunderbolt was going to hit us.

We have so many of these old church videos and they are all in Spanish. Like the old cheesy videos. It’s awesome. So me and Elder Ricra watch those district videos about the missionaries, and Elder Ricra is so funny about it because he’s obviously seen them like thousands of times since this is his 19th month. So he’s always making fun of little mistakes in the videos, or little weird expressions the missionaries make sometimes. It’s actually kind of funny.

I’m too pumped for general conference. We get to go to Santa Fe for two days and see all the MTC buds. That's pretty neat. And watch GC in Spanish. I wonder what Uchtdorf’s Spanish voice sound like? I’ll have to let you know next week. I totally agree dad, about his talk, "The Gift of Grace" was a fantastic talk, and I totally find inspiration from it.

Miss you, and glad that you had another successful week, and Easter. Dad is killing it with all of these campouts. Get Emma to write me about her high school adventures, I want to hear. And tell Sarah congratulations; Erin Greenwood is totally going to that mission too.

Elder Greene

Almost forgot. We are always meeting Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses, I love hearing from Jehovah’s Witnesses, because they totally think they are going to convert me every time they talk about the apocalypse. I have like 4 different books from these guys, and they all have super cool pics. But on Saturday we had a meeting with Lali, and I think I talked about him before but he is a retired pastor for Jehovah’s Witness, and he brought over a friend and they wanted us to ask them questions, because they believe they have the answer to all in their little books. So 30 minutes in I tell them to read the last verse in chapter 49 of Isaiah in their bibles. And it was so awesome because they both didn’t say anything for no joke like 5 min; reading quickly through Isaiah, and then Lali says " Isaiah is muy symbolico" oh you’re right!! But right after instead of us asking questions he started asking questions about the Book of Mormon. Pretty sweet.  So he reads the Book of Mormon, and we read his funny little books with animated pictures of Jesus. These pictures are dope!

Week 011 - The Guys In Front Take Your Trash

Man, you guys look great, even though you are posing. You guys are so Texan. My opinion of the rodeos have totally changed now. Maybe Texas isn’t stupid and ole.

Alright, this week has been way awesome. I had two experiences which might not live up to visiting Beyoncé’s childhood home, but they were pretty great.

First off, Donato was totally baptized. My first baptism ever. He is so pumped out of his mind with the spirit right now. It was so awesome dunking him in the homemade font, made of pipes and a tarp. King of baptismal fonts. He was so excited, and when we went to walk with him from his house, he was all dressed up nice and sharp and ready. His wife died this past week, and it was real hard on him and the family, but we were talking to his kids, who are adults and have kids of their own. They were saying how the church has been a super good experience for him, and he has definitely changed to a happier person. I was like duh… it’s the Church of Jesus Christ. They don’t want anything to do with it because they are Catholic. I was like, “come on… you don’t want these endless joys?”

Anyways, the baptism was super awesome, and Elder Hill got to baptize Rafael, who is a younger kid, and for some reason the Branch President brought adult sized pants, so when he was trying to get out of the font, his pants were coming off. He was pretty pumped too.

Another cool experience… I also gave my first priesthood blessing. You remember Hermano Pujol? The stud who gives me the best handshakes ever?  Yeah, he got bit by this thing called a Dangy. I don’t know, but that’s what everyone calls it. And when you get bit by a Dangy, your body starts hurting like crazy. People say it’s like diabetes for 6 months. Not sure what that means, but apparently you are in pain for a while, and you can’t really do much.  Anyways, we get a call from his wife, and we went to the hospital. The doctor tells us what’s going, and we go in and ask if he needs anything. So he tells us he wants a priesthood blessing, and Elder Ricra says, “Alright, Elder Greene is going to do it.” I was like no way, and took out the ol blanco bible, and learned the words, and gave him a blessing that he was going to be well and work again. Then, the next day he didn’t feel a thing, and was back at his home and church two days later. Aww man, the faith of that man is ridiculous. Actually, the faith of all the members that show up is awesome… to go to church, which is in a garage, while everyone else goes to all the other churches. But they go to this one because they know it is true. And man, he knew that he was going to be feel better from that blessing, and the thanks he had after was way awesome.

I am so thankful to be worthy to hold the priesthood right now.

We have a few members who have trouble coming to church because they are older, and they keep saying that they can’t do it. So we’ve been teaching them at their homes, and trying to build up their faith. They can do it. They just don’t try hard enough. Anyways, one of them is named Electra, and she’s super awesome and hilarious. She lives alone, and she has lived alone her whole life… kind of lame.  She’s super small, and she totally reminds me of that doctor guy from Luigi's Mansion. You may know what I’m talking about Katie. But she’s always telling us this story of how she got robbed 3 years ago. I don’t know why. It’s probably the story of her life. So, one day she asked us to clean her backyard, and we were like, "sure totally." But we soon learned her backyard isn’t a super simple mess. The entire backyard is covered in trash. You cannot see the ground, and there’s probably been trash there for years. And she wasn’t even asking to clean the trash. She was asking us to cut down the 4 ft. tall grass and super bushy trees. So this turned into a two hour project that was not finished. I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t know the guys in the front take your trash.

And by the way… the way they take trash here is way cool. They don’t use garbage cans. You just take the garbage bag and put it in these cages that are 5 feet off the ground so dogs can’t get them. These cages are everywhere.

And the dogs… like I said, dogs are everywhere.  And I think if you want a dog, you just take one off the street. But a lot of the ones that live in the street run in packs, especially in the mornings when we are running. I had this one dog that wanted me to play fetch with a bottle it carried. So whatever, I fell into its trap. But this other much smaller dog went and grabbed the bottle. So the original dog was just staring at this small dog as it walked way. But once the dog had made it to the street, like 30 yards away, the bigger dog went full speed, and BOOOM! Rammed this tiny dog over in the street like a bull, and took the bottle and walked away. I ran away right after, because I didn’t want to deal with that.

Love you guys. Here are some cool pics.

Week 010 - The Iglesias Is Going To Be Filled

Awesome. Totally jealous of your good times. And Happy Birthday to you Mom. Pizza and donuts is a jolly good ole time. Katie makes some killer cakes, so that must of been good. Sounds like it was a great and happy birthday again. 

Oh the Hotfields. They are a good time as well. Through pictures and stories, they seem to be killing it wherever they go. Hopefully they got a little taste on why we moved there. Because Texas is for winners. Totally pumped to hear that Tommy put his mission papers in, that is really cool. Tell me where he’s going when you guys find out. 

And thanks a lot for sending me our other cousin’s email… Jared. I really enjoy his emails and his good times.

I love the story about Dad getting to bless the sacrament. I can’t believe all the different allergy breads you needed. We gotta figure out this weak stomach thing that’s been going on in America. I mean… the water here kills plants, and the people still drink it. I’ve slowly started drinking it, so then my body will be able to control anything. Actually, we are supposed to have this fresh water machine coming, and then we’ll drink from that; but it hasn’t come, so we are just drinking poison water. The thrill of drinking the water is incredible. Actually there’s this really cheap bread that everyone eats with everything (and I eat it too). But because people eat it so much, a lot of it gets stuck in people’s stomachs, and they have to get a surgery where they pretty much squeeze out all the bread in the stomach. Crazy right! It’s probably made with the same stuff as that Subway bread, with all the foam pad ingredients. 

Anyways, it’s turning into Fall here, and the mosquitos are buzzing, and the cockroaches are moving, and its great. For some reason the seasons are backwards here. I don’t know, some things are just not universal. Like daylight savings. Your right Dad, that is a lame tradition, and I don’t think it goes on here. At least I didn’t participate in it. Maybe I’m just an hour late to everything. Who knows. 

So... for e-mails and such, I go to this video game store.  It’s like the only place in all of Argentina with internet. We come early in the morning before all the big gamers show up after school. They’re kinda behind on all the technology stuff. Like I’m typing on a box computer, you know, the ones that aren’t flat. And they are two generations behind on their playstation systems. Come on guys, we are on playstation 4… not 2. Ha! Whatever. 

The weather here is getting better and better. I have not had another hot day like on that first night we arrived. Like it’s hot, but not as hot as people are trying to tell me it gets. Or maybe people just don’t know what hot truly is. But it’s been really nice. And since it’s been so nice, everyone has been up and at it. Everyone is running through the streets, especially children. Seriously…like little kids are just let loose without their parents. One little girl was riding through the streets on her little tricycle (like I said in my other email). Every man for themselves on the roads. Also, everyone seems to know each other, or everyone just loves to say “Hi” or “Ciao”. Ciao is like Hi and Goodbye. So a lot of times I have a hard time when I walk by people and they say “Bye” to me. I finally figured out it’s “Hi” too. 

For reals though... I think everyone is just plain nice.  And it’s because everyone has some sort of faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone is Catholic here, and the only people who get mad at us for knocking on their door or saying “Hi,” are the people who don’t believe in God. We met this funny guy, that I didn’t want to stop talking to because he was so funny. But he kept saying, "Nope. I only believe in myself." I was just like… “are you kidding me? What are you talking about.” But I think he was getting more and more mad as we were talking to him. "DIOS ES MUY BUENO." Ha. What a curious fella. 

My companion is funny because he gets very surprised when someone says they don’t believe in God, and he’s always like "Wow. Very interesting." We do a lot of contacting here door to door, because we don’t have a lot of members that we can get references from.  We seriously only have 5 members, so I’m always giving small talks about whatever is on my mind. Even though we only have 5 members (that show up), they all have crazy cool faith in the gospel. I mean you kinda have to... when you go to a church that no one in the area goes to.  We have a member who… every time he shakes your hand, he squares up like he is in the army, and gives you a firm handshake with his arm at a 90 degree angle. We are going to change things around here. You see. I’ve been having this vision that one day, the Iglesias is going to be filled, all 27 seats. That will be the day. 

Donato has been doing very well, we moved his baptism date to the 19th, and he really wants this. He is totally down with all the commandments. He can’t really see, so he can’t read the Book of Mormon, and he has a hard time saying prayers. But he wants it, and he wants a testimony. He’s such a capo. 

We actually have two other baptisms on the 19th. A younger guy, Raul, who has a wife and a kid. And another younger boy, Rafael, who is 11. His mom just became a member a couple of weeks ago, so that’s really good. Usually Galves has only two missionaries, but now it has 4, and Rafael and Raul live in the other two missionaries area of Galves. 

Like Donato, we had another capo we actually taught in the street. This was kind of funny. We saw Ricardo washing his car, and we were like, “you need some help?” And he was like, “no.” And then we were going to bail. But we stayed and talked to him, and my companion was like “you wanna hear a little message?” And he said “yes.” So I started talking in Spanish… just saying whatever I knew... and pretty much our little message turned into the whole first lesson (we should’ve just sat down), and we asked if he thought this message was true. He said yes. So while he was washing his car in the street I just pulled out the baptism question, and BOOOM, he was like “yah, this is something I wanna do!” Boom. Now Ricardo is getting baptized in April. What a capo. We are teaching him again today. That was probably the best car wash he’s ever had. He couldn’t come to church yesterday, but he said he would the next week. 

We are teaching another family... the family Chevrando (thats how I say it, and not sure if it’s spelled correctly). They are very cool, and they have a firm belief in Christ. But they don’t go to church. They like us a lot, so we’ve been going there a few times. Funny though… we asked them to be baptized 3 times during the lesson. Elder Ricra would explain the 1st lesson and ask "Do you believe this is true.” And they would say “yes." And Elder Ricra would ask them to be baptized, and they would say they are Catholic, and Elder Ricra did the same thing two more times. It was awesome, maybe one day they’ll understand. 

We have this other guy named Sebastion that we met two weeks ago, and he is so funny. We don’t progress with him at all, but he loves to compare beliefs. He’s kinda like one of those freelance guys, that believes everything because he’s really smart, and likes all sort of different ideas. But we explain a question he had through scripture, and Sebastion gets all excited about the scripture and compares it with some book or video he has.. He loves Monty Python and he knows that i think it’s kinda funny and i get a kick out of it, and it kinda influences him. Anyways we don’t go there often, only when we are hungry, because he’s way good at cooking and he makes us stuff. 

Anyways, it’s been a good week, and I totally miss you guys and your cool adventures in stupid ole Texas.

Elder Greene

P.S. I was wondering if you can send me Tyler Greene’s address and Ross Rubio’s email

Week 009 - Why do we not have Siesta in America

Hey everyone. You guys all sound great.

Like I said before… Argentina is awesome... or at least Galves. The people here are so great and loud. So I have learned people here don’t speak Spanish, its Castellano. So it’s like Spanish, but every time you say "ya" in a word, it’s actually "sha." So everyone is always asking me how my Castellano is going, and when I go to the ATM it asks if I want English or Castellano. I always do wonder if it’s sinful to push English. I am pretty much trying to go all Castellano down here. It’s easier when your companion is a native speaker. But he is also trying to learn English, so half the time he talks and I don’t know if he is speaking Spanish or English because his English is not to swell. He knows this. And he’s from Peru. And Peruvians for some reason can’t turn up the volume past 5. So there is a little bit of a communication problem going on, but we are still killing it and work together way fine.

Check this… I totally had my first actually lesson on Tuesday. Usually a lot people we make appointments with bail out even if it’s like the next day. Dirty dogs. But not Donato. We found Donato and gave him the first lesson. And you know what he says… This is true. So I asked him to be baptized and he said yes. Donato is such a capo (cool guy). We gave him two other lessons and each time you can see him down the street standing waiting in front of his house exactly when we schedule. He is too pumped. And he’s a grandpa so we´re trying to get ahold of the rest of his family once we fully convert him. Super cool experience.

I still can barely understand people. Some people have no teeth, and to me it is like not even words are coming out… just like mshmshmshmshmsh. Seriously, sometimes I think I can pick out a few words; but na. Some people are way cool and see that I don’t really know the language, so they’ll speak slower.

On Wednesday we actually got a new apartment. So now we don’t live with 4 missionaries in a tiny apartment. And the other guys got totally screwed, because this new one is way nice. They never have had 4 missionaries here, so they brought in all sorts of new stuff like desks, and a refrigerator, and beds. Way cool. I’ll send you a few pics.

So Saturdays here in Galves are so crazy. It’s pretty much party central. So from like 8PM to 5 in the morning on Sunday you hear Katy Perry, and people are just losing their minds. We get up at 7 on Sunday and there were still a few people hyped up. I feel that I need to remind these people that it is the Sabbath day. Whatever. 

Oh wait, I need to tell you guys my daily schedule. We don’t have to get up at 6:30 anymore, it’s 7AM, and we don’t go to bed until 11PM. For some reason I just get wrecked at 6:30AM, so this is good. And here is the greatest thing I’ve been waiting to tell you guys but totally forgot in the commotion last week... Siesta. Why do we not have Siesta in America? It’s daily nap time. So we are allowed to take a nap from 2:30 to 3:00. But if you finish lunch early you can Siesta from 2 to 3. Santa Fe mission is king. Like I think I would pass out on the street if I didn’t have Siesta. Genius. There is total truth in… “You’re sent to where you’re supposed to be.”

The driving here is totally crazy. So in this area, there are not really signs. You have stop lights, but the rule is pretty much every man for themselves. Don’t hit somebody. I think it’s way better, because now everyone’s on their toes when they’re driving because one guy could just be flying down a neighborhood intersection. And there are so many motorcycles here. Everyone has one, and you see old ladies cruising from the grocery store on their motorcycles. Or bikes.  A lot of people cruise on their bikes in the street. There’s this one guy that has a bike with a little trailer behind it with two huge sound systems. Blasting this radio station which I guess lets everyone know where the parties are going to be at. But it is so loud and you can hear it all through the city. I’ll have to snap a pic of him sometime. I’m totally doing that back in the States.

There is this one funny guy we talk to a lot in the streets because he tries to speak English to me. But all day he stands next to a stop light and when it turns red he stands in front of these cars and juggles. Another possible future career.

So it’s the beginning of the month now, so we actually have money. Elder Hill and I didn’t have money until this month so we were supposed to use the money Elder Ricra and Elder Hafen had. But for some reason they barely had any money so we were really scrapping down on food, and my MTC Hot Cheetohs that came in clutch. Since we don’t have a lot of members we make a lot of food at home, and it’s usually rice and potatoes. But mornings are exciting because we have cereal. The milk here is all in cartons. I don’t know what kind of milk they have, but I think it’s cool that you don’t have to refrigerate the milk.

Anyways, I’m doing great. I was telling Katie this… the mission is only hard when I start missing the past. And sometimes I get these sweet dreams where I’m doing cool things with my friends and then I wake up and realize I am in Argentina. Kind of stinks for a moment, but I occupy myself with cool scriptures in Revelations, or “Apocalypse” as it is in the Spanish scriptures.

Love you guys and love your emails and good times. Ciao. (That’s like hello and goodbye here)