Monday, May 23, 2016

Week 020 - The Old Snag Kiss Right On The Lips

The Whoa! You guys are getting busy. It’s been pretty busy here as well.
Elder de la Rosa and I have somehow been trapped in the same routine. For the past two weeks we´ve found 6 new investigators who have all agreed to baptism during the first lesson.  But afterward, we can’t seem to ever find any of them. We have their phone numbers, but they don’t answer. We go to their house, and they are not there. And when they are home, they are sleeping. Because Ciesta has somehow become 6 hours during the day. Whatever… We'll find them. But I have also come to the realization that people´s neighbors and friends are always being sent by Satan. We’ll be in the middle of telling Joseph Smith´s testimony of the first vision, and our investigators will see their friends in the window, and they´ll say, "Oh Hola Muchacho; wait a moment fellas, got to talk with my amigos."  With five out of the six people that we programed for baptism, we had this exact thing happen when we were asking them to be baptized. No joke. At time five, I was just waiting for it to happen. It’s kind of funny.
So check this, we had an awesome baptism on Saturday, and gained 2 new members in the Galves branch. Brenda and Dianna, who are the daughters of Gregoria, and sisters of Augustine, were baptized. Their mom will be baptized in two weeks. It was awesome. Dianna was baptized 4 times, because it was messed up twice, and when Brenda was about to be baptized we realized that during Dianna’s baptism, the missionary that baptized her had put up his left hand. It was really cool though.
We had 21 people at church yesterday. 3 were visitors that used to be a part of the church in Galves 30 years before, and had moved to the United States. Actually one of them has a funny story… So Galves isn’t that big of a town, so word gets around. And when we tell people we are the mormon missionaries, they always want to tell us about the American missionary that came back and married a fifteen year old and brought her back to the U.S. Which isn’t true, because I just talked to that girl yesterday. But it is true that this missionary came and found this woman when she was 18, and they got married and went back to the U.S. But it was funny because I was sitting with Ebelia at church (who by the way is totally active again! Vamos!), and she was all like, "yeah that’s the girl who left with that missionary at 15" And I was like "No Way! She´s like famous around here."
Anyway, Donato is doing awesome. He finally bought some glasses, and is booking though the Book of Mormon, and actually knows what’s going on in classes. In the words of Donato, "Si si si muy bueno cosas, muy bueno, Jesus es muy bueno." He got to bless the sacrament for the first time. He was pretty nervous, but killed it, because he’s been practicing the prayer for weeks. In the past he was passing the sacrament, and it was always so funny because the room is not that big, and he would talk to people as he would pass… like, "Como esta Hermana, muy bueno muy Bueno." Then he would give all the Hermanas and children hello kisses on the cheek. That’s what everyone does here, because Argentina is like half Italian. So everyone gives kisses on the cheek. With the old people, the missionaries don’t care, because it will only offend them if you give the old handshake. But you have to watch out for the young ladies, because the girls in Argentina, in the words of my companion, are "snakes". It’s likely you’ll get the old snag kiss right on the lips. Snakes! This is why … when we meet younger people I give a quick handshake with my elbows firm. No. It is crazy though. Because there are a lot of really attractive people in Argentina.
We met this funny guy on the street sitting in front of his house with his matte, and we were talking to him. And all he wanted to talk about was the girls in Argentina. Literally, every time a girl passed, which was a lot, he was like "mire mire mire, all the girls are beautiful, beautiful!" And it didn’t matter how old they were. If it was a girl, he would say" mire mire mire all the girls"! My companion decided to show him a scripture about lusting over women, and the guy was like," yeah yeah yeah whatever, but look at all the girls"!! It was awesome.
That reminds me of this other guy Pablo, who we always see in the street. Pablo is loco because he always wants me to give him money for cigarettes. But he is always saying this Argentinian Spanish phrase that sounds like “my body” when he says it. So when we see him, he’s always like "my body, my body, my body, my body" really fast. And he’s always laughing as he says it. He’s totally drunk and crazy.
So we pretty much own this dog now. His name is Poncho and he follows us everywhere… at least once he sees us. But he’s a capo. And he’ll follow us all day, and wait for us in front of the apartment. He’s actually in the Cyber cafe with us right now.  I’ll take a picture, but yeah, it’s kind of sad when he wants to come into the apartment at night and we don’t let him. I don’t know why he likes us so much, because we don’t even feed him anything. But lately we’ve been trying to get him a girlfriend, but every other dog we show him doesn’t take. They do a little twirl around each other, and he’s like "Na", and he comes back to us. I guess he’s got high standards.
Anyways, Galves is doing awesome. I love it here. The people are awesome. And I love you guys.
P.S.  Locran is getting real (reference week 019 email).This Wednesday, we and the Hermanas of Galves (aka team Locran), are getting the day of Locran going. See attached picture.
Brenda, Dianna, and Gregoria are across from me. This is after the baptism. Los Capos are in the back. 









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