Week 025 - I'm Pretty Sure I'm Not A Nazi

Hey you cool guys! Looks like another awesome trip at Tahoe! I totally remember the graffiti tunnels, Real COPADO! I love the pictures you guys are super great. 

THE ARNETT CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE… those are some cool looking shirts... for reals.

It’s great to know dad has joined all the Argentinian fanatics, for the COPA. Too bad they were a losing team… I’m pretty sure… because things went pretty silent last night. An investigator invited us over for Asado! And then to watch the first 10 minutes of the game.  He was a little disappointed that we couldn’t stay longer, but “que va hacer”, we are missionaries. Manuel is a funny guy. He and his "mujer" Nina; they like to show us all the good food around Galvez. I might have told you this story last week, but I don’t remember. Last week we were over at his house and he has a tattoo machine and he was like "ever seen one of these before?" and I was like, “no.” And he calls for Nina, and takes her hand and starts giving her a heart tattoo on her hand. She was like, "alright!". So now I know all about tattoos.  They are a very nice family, and are the first ones to come through with the asado, and it was way good. We met his neighbor too, and he invited us over to teach him, which was cool. But when we went over to his house, I figured he was either nutz, or has been on so many drugs that his brain is fried. I didn’t think he was on anything, but he kept talking about the guy next to him (there was no guy)… "yeah, I don’t have any guilt, or does this guy jajajaja." He’s one of the few atheists that we’ve been teaching. 

We have another lady named Zully who is atheist, and she is so funny. She’s read like every religious book… torah, bible etc. But she had never heard of the Book of Mormon. So we explained it too her and she’s so amazed that she’s never heard anything about the ancient inhabitants of America.  So she’s going to read it. And as she reads it, I’m hoping it changes a bit of her heart. In fact, if she actually reads it, I know it will because, c’mon it’s the Book of Mormon, true evidence that Jesus is the Christ. So she’s cool, and she can’t believe I’m on a mission. She just can’t wrap her mind around the fact that 19-year-olds go on missions. 

Holy cow! I’m sitting next to like this 50 year old man, and he’s playing some sort of gunner game, and he’s going nutz… screaming and yelling at the game.  I guess he’s playing with other people, but he’s like "awwwww what are you doing?" I don’t actually know what he’s saying but that’s somewhere close... geeze! 

I got yelled at and called a Nazi this week. We were walking down the street and there was a guy standing next to his house, so I said hi and shook his hand, and he wouldn’t let go. he looked at me in the eyes and I could see his eyes widen, and he starts yelling out, "Nazi Nazi Nazi." I was like, "No no no no Nazi." And I ripped my way around and booked it, because I’m pretty sure I’m not a Nazi. 

We ate at Donato’s house again this week. He literally gives us food every time we go to his house now. Pretty cool. He asked me, "You want any more?"  And I said I was fine. Then he said, "Good, because I’m poor and don’t have any more, but what I have is for you." Sick! 

So I learned a lot of people like the Chicago Bulls around here. It turns out one of the players is from Galvez. I don’t remember his name, but that would be something cool to look up. 

Oh my gosh, I don’t know if it’s an Argentina thing because I’ve never had it before, but there’s this sauce that people put on meats and stuff called Chimichurri, and I put it on everything now. It’s the bomba! 

I was looking at the map of our area and it turns out the Galvez branch is like a quarter of the mission, mostly because there’s a lot of campo (fields/farming). But there are so many neighborhoods around us that have never had the gospel… FIELD TRIP!

The ward is doing great, we had a meeting with the branch president, and he’s going to start giving out callings and stuff to the ward. Real cool. 

Totally cool you guys are going to get to see Jared. Mexico can change you I hear. Dan tells me all about the crazy times he’s having in Mexico.

I love you guys, I really do. And I brag all about you to all the Argentinians. 

A man heard me talking about Jesus Christ the other day and he pointed his finger up to the sky and yelled, "JESUS CHRIST IS MY SAVIOR" (JESUCRISTO ES MI SALVADOR). For reals guys, Jesus Christ is my Savior, and he’s doing a fine work here in Argentina! 

Bye.

Week 024 - I Know All The Rules Of Street Dog

Hey Fam,

I’m sending you an email a little later tonight because everything was closed today, even the cyber cafe. Because it was a holiday. Wanna know what holiday? It’s another locro day. It’s been like the third one. I think someone high up in the government  just decides if he doesn’t want to go to work that day, so he announces LOCRO, and everyone hits the supermercados, loads up on the meats, and heads home to eat.  What’s good though, is that GRIDO is open, GRIDO is the helado store. Really good ice cream for real, and it controls Argentina. And guess what? They deliver! What!! So they are on speed dial on our phone. if we have a bad day, GRIDO always comes in clutch. So we went to GRIDO today because it was open. The guys loves us because we are the only people that go to the store in winter.  

Tahoe looks dang blue as usual. You guys are awesome. 

It sounds like Emma had a good first weekend at college. I remember The Extravaganza, I killed it. 

Me and Dan were talking through email about how we are past 5 months now, nutz. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that "Hace frio, Vamos dormir," is a real thing. We had one member at church this week, come on Galvez "GET LOOSE".  Everyone says they have the "gripe", which I thought was the flu. No it’s not the flu, it’s a cold. So when everyone says they can’t talk because they have the gripe, it’s because they have a cold. It’s all good, I’m about to cut the carne on these members. 

We played basketball today. There are tons of basketball courts here, and no one plays basketball, but a couple people invited us to play, so we went. Man, I was showing all these young bloods what is up, and they were playing with hot-wheel shoes. For reals though, they have Argentinean hands, and basketball turns into hot potato. People like basketball, but they can’t play. It’s just not a feet sport. It was totally fun though. 

Oh check this, I’m totally street dog now.  I know all the rules of street dog. There are house dogs and street dogs here in Argentina, and there are rules. To put it simply Galvez is split into territories and each territory has a gang with a leader, and when another dog enters the territory the boss will run and sniff the dog, and the dog must sit down, or the boss will totally destroy the dog. Now, while sniffing, the boss will decide whether or not to fight the dog. If they fight, whoever wins is the next boss. Interesting. Now this only happens if the dog is younger than the boss. If the dog is older and entering new territory, the fight has already started. It’s nutz. I’ve seen the sitting and sniffing. It happens. And when the new dog enters the territory, it happens fast. Now if you have a dog that doesn’t know the rules, he´ll be wrecked that day. So the house dogs have their own territory, and they stay in that territory. The gang is kind of a protection thing for smaller dogs, the smaller dogs are always followers, and will never be a boss. Lame for them, but whatever. But there are also lone wolfs, who are like huge dogs that walk the streets, and no one messes with them. They just stroll and do what they want. Anyway, I Know the rules,and if I was a dog my gang would be too big.

I met a man name Manue the other day, and he has a tattoo machine, and he asked me, "have you seen any of these things before?" I was like, "no.” So he calls for his "mujer", and she comes in and he gives her a heart tattoo on her hand, right in front of me, no question. I say “Pretty cool… wanna learn a little about Jesus?” And then he shows me his huge Virgin Mary tattoo on his back. He says, "I’m not very religious at all, but I thought I should get it.".. of course. Na he’s cool. He says he is going to invite us over for asado, which means he’s joined the endless list… "hey when are we gonna have asado?" 

I walk by this 18 year old mechanic every day, and he says that same thing (about having asado), and I’m like, "When are you gonna invite us?” .. and he never responds. 

Galvez is great. The work is great! It’s a joy to serve the lord! Love you guys.

If you guys still want a couple of my favorite stories about Grandma and Grandpa Arnett for the reuniun, I got some...

1. When you went to Spain, and they came to visit us for the week, and Grandpa took me to the fathers and sons campout because you guys were gone.

2 When I went over to their house for a birthday dinner while I was at BYU, and Grandma gave me a card at dinner and she says, "Now you can go buy Taco Bell.” And I was like, "Grandma I haven’t opened it yet, you just totally ruined the surprise." And she says, " Well what are you doing? Open it"

3. Going over to their house for Pepsi and microwave nachos. I’ve joined team Pepsi. You can let her know that.

Pictures:

Eating fries and giant chicken nuggets with Donato, and these two random kids showed up, and they are total gypsies, asking me and Donato and my companero to give them stuff. "puede regalar esto," over and and over and over.  They eventually just dug into the fries and started eating. Donato says, "terrible terrible chicos hehehe"

I also made a taco, I called elder Robles who is from Mexico and asked him "Hey, how does your Grandma make tortillas?" And he told me. How clutch!

Week 023 - I Found My First Nazi

Hey Fellas! 

Once again … another fantastic week here in Galvezzz! The weather is getting colder than it ever has apparently  (that’s what all the old people are saying; they’ve got the most experience). But it’s all good because someone decided to pack some gloves and a scarf for me before I left for the mish. Way to come in clutch padres!! 

By the way, this is a pretty exciting week also for dad. Father’s day right! I’m gonna get a little head start and say Happy Father Day dad, you’re awesome, and I totally love you, and mom too. If you haven’t found it yet, there is a Papas root beer from last year in the pantry and that is for you, from me. 

I’m jealous of all your sweet vacation plans guys. 2 years without Tahoe is a bit crazy. Its all good cause Galvez is a close second. Super excited that Emma is heading over to the BYU. Sick times! 

This week was great. We decided to go through the thousands of papers of old investigators and old members… a lot of the papers are hilarious… the reasons the past elders have for not going back. Usually they say " Pasamos" aka "we passed by". Jeez. So we went to go find all these cool catz who have been ditching out on salvation, and most of them were home and we booked citas for the past three days. For reals though it was sick because every space was filled in our agendas with meetings for specific hours and such. It was cool until literally every person fell through. We thought maybe 1 would come in but na. Hace frio... vamos dormir. The members always come in clutch though. They are always waiting for us. Even though the people fell through we still get good stories. 

First … on Thursday, for some reason this dog decided to follow us like the whole day, a new dog. But the thing is… he would attack every other dog he would see, so when we would see another dog down the street we would be like, "No.”… and then he’d go down a different street so he could attack the other dog. And it wasn’t just a play around kind of fight, he would bullet towards the dog and bite the other enough for the dog to scream. Dang. Anyways, we make it to the house that we had an appointment, and the guy comes outside. He sees us and then walks back in the house (did we not just talk to you yesterday about coming back). Anyways, he comes back out. So I open his gate (everyone has a gate in front of their house), and the dog comes in with me, and then I ran out and lock the crazy fighting dog in his patio. His problem now. The dog went nutz … kind of funny though. We´ll come back. 

Second story… we find our guy sitting in front of his house drinking his mate. Of course we walk up to him and say hi. He then tells us to wait, that he needs to get something. He walks into his house and 5 min later sends his kid out. And you know what he says? "He’s not home." Oh really? Maybe we´ll find him tomorrow. 

Next story... I found my first Nazi. Every missionary says you have to find a nazi at least once on your mission in Argentina. So I did. We get to our cita, and he opens the door. He says, "look guys”... and he turns to the side and points at a giant shrine that he had obviously prepared for us... “That is my savior." It was a Hitler shrine, with the biggest picture of Hitler. We said, “alright, good luck with that.” 

It’s crazy how many people say to come back, thinking we are not going to come back. 

Our investigator Matias always makes his citas though. I don’t remember if I’ve talked about Matias before, but this kid is a champ. for reals. He’s 18, and lives alone at his house. He has never had a religion, and actually has knew almost nothing about Jesus. Anyway, we’ve been teaching him, and he actually gets into it and wants to understand. And wants to be baptized. So we are preparing him for that, and teaching him all the commandments. We taught him the Word of Wisdom. And he told us, "you know what guys I’m not gonna lie, I drink and smoke and such, and all my friends do, and my family, and all of Argentina. And if I stop, it’s going to be super hard, and I don’t know what I’m going to say to everyone... But I’ll do it." And he balled as he said it. I thought, man, this kid is first class, that he would be willing to do whatever to follow Christ. That is first class. For real. Anyways, I think he’s going to progress, with that kind of desire. It is a little hard to find him because he is usually out with his best friend. 

I love you guys. I’m learning all about the giants in Genesis. 

Happy Fathers Day dad, you are awesome. See ya!

Week 022 - Toma Te La Avion Shankey

Hey Family!

I’m totally jealous that summer is hitting you guys, I feel like I’ve been in winter forever...because I have, it’s getting totally cold here. Who knew? And I can’t figure out Celsius. People are going nutz because it’s supposed to be 0 degrees, as in Celsius. Still cold though.  

Galvez has been pretty chill this week. Everyone is inside because it’s cold. And when it’s cold,  it also means no one comes to church.  We had one member this past Sunday.  We went to go visit all the others after, and they all said the same thing "do you realize how cold it is outside?" Yah, I know, I’m walking in it every day. The dogs are still out... with clothes on. Everyone’s putting ropa on the dogs because  "Dogs are people too"... “perros con ropa.” I laugh every time. “If dogs were people too,” according to Mr. Gaucho man, “los chinitos are eating people every day.” I actually don’t know the Gaucho´s name, and we are afraid to ask at this point in our relationship, but he’s talking about “los chinitos" (little Asian people) all the time. He’s actually pretty smart.  Hopefully he’s smart with his asado too.

We recently ate some steak and pasta with Donato, and after we ate it he said, "Hopefully you guys don’t get sick because I’ve never made this before… I don’t know what I would tell the president if you guys were dead.” Donato is pretty funny. I’ve started making a journal of quotes from other Elders and members, and Donato has a lot. Here’s a few of my favorites:  One time when he was talking about how girlfriends are the worst because all they want you to do is buy them stuff and take them to the club, and then he said after, "toma te la avion chica!" (take the plane girl).

“Toma te la" is my favorite Argentinian phrase. The closest thing to English is probably "get outta here", "take a hike", "I don’t care"

A few more Donato quotes:  1. "Sometimes the animals are smarter than the Catholics."  2. "That’s crazier than a bag of cats."

One things that is totally popular here right now are the Minions, from Despicable Me.  And they are everywhere…  in stores, cars, motorcycles. I was asking my companion, “hey what’s up with all the Minions?” And he was like, "What do you mean?" And I was like, "They are everywhere." And he said, "Because the minions are cool.".... Exactly. Why didn’t I think of that? The Minions are totally cool.

Another thing I’ve been noticing that has become pretty popular is San Muerte… This is nutz…, San Muerte is another Saint… but he is a Saint in disguise. He’s the Saint of Death.  And the reason he is so popular, is because when you pray to him things actually happen and people hear things. People are literally praying to Satan in disguise.  We are teaching this guy, and when we started teaching him he was all in it, all in on everything. He told us San Muerte told him to join any church, and a week later he receives another answer that he is to join any church other than our church.  But he’s all confused about it because he likes the lessons and the church. After he received another answer that San Muerte said, “Alright join the church, and then leave it after you are baptized." It’s really weird… the whole thing. We haven’t seen him for a while, and his family said he left town. So whoa... watch out for those crazy San Muerte lovers.

Recently I’ve been getting really fancy with the foods. Totally made me some pancakes and French Toast. The only problem is that maple syrup extract doesn’t exist here. I’ve been to so many places, and once I bring up maple syrup,  they have no idea what I’m talking about. "Toma te la avion, shankey." Whatever… I use honey instead.

I got a lady that hooks me up recently for like 3 dollars… I bought the biggest bag of cheese puffs. Living the life.

Anyways overall the work is awesome, the people are awesome. The work has gone a little slow the past couple weeks,  but it’s The Church of Jesus Christ.  No worries!

Love you all, good luck and have a fun summer!!!

There are ghost watching me.