Week 019 - I'm About to Get Real Right Now. Like Real Real.

Hey fellas! You guys all sound great!  Sorry I didn’t get to talk a lot last week. The only computers in all of Galves were all down, and when it came back up, the café manager wanted to close for ciesta! Lazies! So we gave them a few bucks to let us in for a bit.

Congratulations to Emma; you are such a winner. Dad sent me a picture of you and your super cool award paper.

These past two weeks have been awesome. I’ve been going all over the place. To Santa Fe 4 times, and Rosario 1 time for visa stuff.  So... all my money is with the bus driver that screams "2 peso" every time someone gives him a 100 peso note, when it cost 72 pesos. Jeez, you would think that people would know this bus driver doesn’t carry around that much change. So I always have two pesos. It’s very satisfying to have that two peso ready, and then he says "excellente" (man I wish I was talking to you in person, so I could impersonate him). Anyways, we're tight.  But I have learned we should never take the 12:30 bus back to Galves, because for some reason everyone wants on that bus. And it doesn’t matter if there are enough seats, they just pack the bus.  It’s kind of a gamble when you pay the guy and get to the back of the bus and find there are no seats left.  And people have already packed the aisle behind you.  So you are left standing for two hours to Galves. For some reason we didn’t learn our lesson the first time. So it happened twice. No worries though, my legs have been building up strength from all this walking. I swear I’m going to get back, and will never be tired walking around all day at Disneyland.

So I guess every three months I have to go to Santa Fe and then Rosario to resolve visa stuff; to get a new 3 month visa. That’s how the visas work here. You don’t get a visa for a year, but you get a new one every three months.

Rosario is super cool. It’s a really nice city with beaches and cool stores. So lame of me that I didn’t bring my camera because I would have shown you possibly the greatest sandwich I have ever eaten. I don’t even know what’s on it. We went to this place called Milton’s (totally down to go back), and they sell hot dogs, hamburgers, and these larger sandwiches with like a slab of thin steak. That’s what I got of course, and it had an egg on it, and I don’t really know what else, because they have all these condiments and I was just like "give me some of that, and that, and that". I think some of it was cow tongue, but don’t be mistaken by the cow tongue, it doesn’t taste like normal tongue. Anyways that was cool.

Oh, check this… on the week leading up to the 25th, for some reason all the carnecerias collect all the spam quality meats (from their cows), and other meats, and they sell it on the 25th. And everyone goes out and buys what is called "locran." But to shorten things up, it’s a pile of guts, eyes, and all the good stuff.  And you make a stew out of it. I am so going to the carneceria and buying myself piles of this "locran”.

I'm starting to learn that so much stuff sold here is totally drucho (fake). A lot of stores sell iPods, which are actually like a thumb drive with an aux insert and a sideways sticker that says iPod. They can’t trick me though; I’m from the states son, and that’s not an iPod. But you can find cool trading cards; like futbol and DragonBallz. Pretty much that’s it, but a lot of stores, the majority, sell fake ones, and they are almost like paper. But if you search hard enough you can find the one store that sells real ones. That will be the day.

Ok, I’m about to get real right now, like real real. So remember the "chain guy"?  Yeah it’s not a guy, it’s a lady, and she cries like a baby.  So my companion and I are walking through some of the back streets of Galves when we heard what sounded like a baby crying. I was like "what is that?" And we are looking around and behind us (Kind of far off) and we see this lady. All I could really see was her figure in the shadows. But I realize it’s her making a baby crying sound. I told my companion, "it's dip" and we made a turn towards this other street, and I look, and she decides to start running at us screaming.  I was like NOPE!  And we booked it towards the apartment.  We never saw her again, but the next day we were talking to one of our investigators and somehow we mentioned this crazy lady that was crying like a baby,and our investigator’s family said, "oh yeah, you saw La Llorona". I was like “what?” And she said, "yeah, La Llorona, she goes around crying like a baby in hopes that you will help her find her baby, and if you don’t help her, she'll start beating you with a chain." But if you do help her, you have to look for her baby for the whole night until sunrise. So pretty much we are going to run every time we see a lady crying like a baby. Got to love Galves!! Apparently it’s sort of a Mexican folklore;  but there is a crazy lady around Galves, and it's kind of a thing.

Ok, coolest thing ever… on the way to Rosario we were listening to some of the muzica of the office Elders, and they have Tarzan (Phil Collins), but he’s singing in Spanish. Coolest thing I’ve ever heard, but you guys should check it out.

Also, here’s a cool story… I was on division in Santa Fe, and I was with my companion and another Elder I had never met before. We were walking down the street when we saw this blind guy on the side of a building. The other missionary sees him, and stops and says, “Wait. I can heal this guy.” I was like, “what?” And he said, “Yeah, we have the priesthood don’t we.”  So he goes up to the guy and says "Sir, do you believe I can heal you?" And of course the guy says, "si, si, si". So he puts his hand over his eyes and says pretty much what you expect him to say, and says in the name of Jesus Christ. He then lifts his hands off this poor guys face and asks "Can you see me?" And the guy just lifts his face with a smile looking all around and says "No.” Then check this, he says, “Oh I’m sorry.” And we walk off, and then he says, "Dang, it didn’t work again." … Well, probably not dude, when you’re just throwing around the priesthood all over the place. I couldn’t believe it. But it happened. He probably needs a little lesson on faith.

Oh my gosh. I just remembered… One of the greatest things of Galves.  We found the HAMBERGUESSA PIZZA.  This thing is a pizza, layered with hamburger beef, layered with pizza. This place opens only at night, and so we got hooked up waiting for our bus one time. The lady who owns the place is totally whack, and when we came in and she saw three Americans, this little lady started pounding her chest yelling "MISH, MISH, MISH". Don’t know why, but she did.  And she gave us some free Coca-Cola. Probably because she was drunk.  So I hope we didn’t take advantage of that.

I totally got your package, which was awesome. Super funny letters, and the coolest gum around.  I can’t seem to find gum around here.  It is so funny when you go to the mission home and see all the packages that have Virgin Mary pictures all over them. Genius!

I love you guys! And thank you for being too cool!

We stayed over at Elder Cosos and Elder Hafen's apartment, and for some reason they keep making fires in their cooking pot. So they did it again when we came over, I don’t know what happened in the second picture, some kind of spirit took over.