Week 034 - Train Town Has Officially Been Shut Down

I’m glad you guys liked my letters. For reals though, there is one heading for Emma too. 

The first week of school is always great, especially because you know you’ve got straight A´s. it’s such a relief that first week! 

That’s an awesome project the church puts together, and it’s super cool that dad and others from the ward were able to go and help those effected by the flooding in Louisiana.

[Editors Note: I've underlined what I believe are SpongeBob references from Holden.  See if you can find more.]

Alright... A one, a two, a sciddly-diddly-doo!

Hey all you people, Hey all you people.

Won’t you listen to me?

I just had a sandwich, no ordinary sandwich,

Filled with jelly fish jelly.

Hey you man, you’ve got to try this sandwich.

It’s no ordinary sandwich,

It’s the best sandwich in all the sea.

 

Elder Mckell and I were walking to a new part of Galvez when we found our newest sandwich shop. We get the best sandwiches at a place called "Sandwich"... Bueno.  Also every time we called the pizza place, asking for "pizza palace", they would just reply with, "No this is Patrick."

So train town has officially been shut down. The new paint job couldn’t keep train town going. Sad in fact… the train station owner showed up and everyone went hiding under the rocks. Too bad their eyes were showing, so the inspector dropped everything he had, yelling "WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!"

I totally found a pigeon and it was the first time one didn’t fly away when I grabbed for it. I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s a giraffe pigeon, and I got a picture. I think I’ll name it Mystery... or Debbie.

We are still killing it with the door-to-door strategy. But you can tell everyone has been contacted before, when you show up at their house and they already have a Book of Mormon sitting on top of their mantel. We were out in the middle of nowhere, because we were following the map, and we were supposed to go east, but we thought it meant west.  So we got lost. When all of a sudden, we found a wanderer… He asked what we’ve been doing out here? We told him about our magic Book of Mormon.  He replied saying "YOU MEAN LIKE THIS!" pulling out his magic Book of Mormon.

We still get the usually slammed door in the face. For example, we went to find an old investigator, Catalina. She was blasting music when we rang the doorbell. She has one of those windows that you can’t see through, but can still see the figure of the person. So we saw her look through the peep hole, wave her hand up like "toma te la," and walk away to turn off the music. I guess she thought if she did that we wouldn’t think anyone was home. So we waited in front of the house, thinking of what we were going to do next. After about 5 minutes, I guess she thought we had left and she opened the door screeching, "Oh whoa uh... what do you want?" Apparently she had people over and we should come back in a couple months. She closes the door, and we laughed over what happened. Then she opens the door again 1 minute later, once again thinking we were gone, and says… "Oh uh my gosh... which one of you is Dirty Dan?"

So we’ve been trying to figure out what we can do better while contacting, and Elder Mckell suggested we Wombo. And I didn’t know what that was, and he was a little surprised like, "Wombology? The study of Wombo?... This is first grade Elder Greene!" We concluded that it was Elder Mckell’s appearance that was distracting, and we were fed up with that. So I grabbed Elder Mckell, showing him to everyone saying "LOOK AT IT... LOOK AT IT…LOOK AT IT!" Everyone then left running. We stopped, and I said, "Look Elder Mckell, you’ve got to get this thing off your chest." And so he took the squid off his chest.

After, Elder Mckell said he had the Meet the Mormons movie, and suggested having a family home evening. I told him "Elder Mckell your genius is showing!" A couple families came, and we had popcorn, and it was sick! Sure there was some disputes over one of the member’s "Big Meaty Claws.” And "someone leaving the lights on in the white sedan." But it was a great activity.

The way people live here is crazy, especially the kids. On the weekends we can’t find anyone, but I can see they are probably at Glove World or something. But during the day kids run everywhere, throughout the week. It’s like they don’t have school. Playing hooky every day. I finally had to say, “Look… if they catch you, they’ll turn you into mayonnaise.”

We went over to Ebelia´s house and Sonia, our newest member was there, they have become the best of friends, they say it’s because they are practically the same age. One is 80 and the other is 55, so yeah… practically. It was crazy scripture time with Ebelia and Sonia. Sonia kept going off about her husband who goes to work every day with a suitcase of doughnuts, while she’s at home taking care of the clan. But in reality, he’s not even going to work, but going to watch t.v.

We now have the newest and coolest investigator; Dario Boreto. I really feel he’s like Donato, except younger. We taught him three times this week and he came to our bible class and church. The bible class kind of became his class, because he would answer everything and anything event though he didn’t know the answer, he would say, "oh yeah, I don’t know the answer to that, yup no answer." But he’s a tan 50 year old, who is always killing it with the Canadian tuxedo. Man he’s cool. We are trying to live our days living like Dario. "Living like Dario"

Here’s a super happy birthday for Dad; who´s birthday is this week. You’re super awesome… for reals. It’s also Elder Mckell’s birthday, so we kind of celebrated Elder Mckell, Dad, and an early birthday for me. Cool! I’ll make sure to send you a Spot Master 6000...WITH A LASER! I love you Dad. And have a super great birthday, especially after that crazy work you and the others were doing in Louisiana! In reality Dad, the inner machinations of your mind are an enigma. I love you!

Finally, for the most sophisticated minded, and the real SpongeBob fans…

Anyways it’s time to "Rev up those fryers cause I sure am hungry!"

Closing Song

The winner takes all,

It's the thrill of one more kill,

The last one to fall,

Will never sacrifice their will,

Don't ever look back,

On the world closing in,

Be in attack,

With your wings in the wind,

Oh the games will begin,

And it's sweet, sweet, sweet victory yeah,

And it's ours for the taking,

It's ours for the fight,

And it's sweet, sweet, sweet victory yeah,

And the world is ours to follow,

Sweet sweet sweet victory. 

Once there was an ugly barnacle. He was so ugly that everyone died. The end.

Pictures: Grido, pizza, cake, Gaucho's house:

Week 033 - Paint It So The Police Don't Shut it Down

Woahoahoah! How goes it fam!

Super pumped you guys got my letter. I totally timed it wrong when I sent it. I didn’t think Emma would be there, so there should be one heading to Provo for Emma as well.

Man… school. I remember that… "Back to school, back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool, I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, Hope I don't get in a fight, Ohhhhhhh, back to school, back to school". You guys sure look too excited!

So check it… transfers just happened, and Elder Greene has another 6 weeks in the too cool Galvez.

Like always, it’s too cool here. Especially with the dogs, I think the dogs are too funny.  Living in Argentina is just like that time you looked up "funny dogs" on YouTube and watched a bunch of dogs for three hours, except I’m living in it. Some are so funny… like the greyhounds. I mean, no one really likes greyhounds, and you can tell even the dogs don’t like greyhounds. There will be two dogs playing, and then one greyhound wants to join in, and in the end... the playing stops, and no one is having fun. We had a greyhound following us yesterday, and it thought it was sooooo sneaky. Every time we turned around it would instantly walk off in the other direction, like, "whoa what is over there?" When in fact, I knew he were just following me two seconds ago. Anyways, I was petting a pit-bull the other day too. I get sucked into that too often. But it was getting a little excited as I did so and it ended up taking a jump and ramming my face. At least it wasn’t one of those Dogos; those things are nutz, and they are kept here as pets everywhere.

Somehow I’ve made this connection with Pablo, and he shows up to church at random times every Sunday. He´s totally fried his brain … he comes in sits down next to me and then starts going off about one of the members who is apparently his aunt, when she actually isn’t. Oh Pablo.

So check it… I don’t know if this is just something America hasn’t learned yet, or if the eggs here are different, but no one puts the eggs in the fridge here. People keep them in the cupboards for like weeks, and that’s what I know… and there are no issues. So I think someone has made up some kind of lie saying that we have to put eggs in the fridge. I go to this sort of secret storage unit to get my eggs and they are just chillin… piles and piles high of eggs in these garages. I don’t think they were ever refrigerated.

I have recently found the best churro place ever. I don’t know if this place has been my entire mission, but it’s by far the best churros I’ve had. They’ve got chocolate churros, they’ve got another kind of chocolate, and another kind. So you get the gist.

I don’t know if I’ve told you about the train town yet? But anyways… the police are trying to SHUT IT DOWN. In the middle of the city the train passes through, and by the train there is an abandoned train station, and a ton of people have just built Train City there. They get free housing, electricity, and water. And they steal it all, it’s awesome. If you look at the electrical lines, there’s just a random one going off to Train City. And I have no idea where the water comes from, because there’s just a foot of hose sticking out of the ground flowing with water forever. Who knows where that water comes from? So… a lot of our investigators are kind of freaking out because they are living in train town. They’ve invited us to come by and help them fix it up and paint it so the police don’t shut it down.

I’ve told you about the "When are we going to eat asado guy?" right? Maybe. But we are too tight right now. His name is Brian. And he gets pumped when he sees us. But it so funny because we see him almost 3 times a day, because he works at this mechanic shop that we have to pass by to get to our investigators. But around here you have to choose your favorite mechanic shop, because there’s like a thousand. It’s just a bunch of old guys that decide, oh hey, let’s make a mechanic shop in my garage, and they drink mate and wait for someone to come by. I love how jobs work here, like if you need work and don’t want to leave the house, you just make a store in your garage. It’s awesome, because if I get hungry I just look over and there’s a kiosk in someone’s garage.

Anyways you guys are great. I love you. I hope you like my letters!

Week 032 - A Branch Conference To Remember

Hey Cool Capos!

Presidente Ojera keeps telling me Capo is Spanglish, and that I get too much of it from Elder Ricra. Son… I know I pull the best Spanglish around. Argentina is totally Spanglish though. You can say bottle, and people know what bottles are.

Earlier this week we made our way to Santa Fe again for some passport shindig times. On the way, I had to stop by my favorite factura shop at the terminal. They’ve got churros with dulce de leche in them. I’ve decided when we go to Santa Fe it’s like going on vacation, and the number of facturas you get doesn’t really matter. Elder butler was there so we were catching up on all the good times.

The next day we went to Rosario.  Good times in Rosario… waiting around and getting more facturas (Rosario style). But of course we hit my favorite sandwich stop and... MILTONS! So lomitos on Elder Clayton! Vamos Rosario! Once again I totally forgot my camera. But the memories are still in my heart.

Sometimes it’s kind of lame having a English speaking companion because it’s too tempting to talk in English. And if you do, you forget sometimes you’re a missionary. Like when a whole car of ladies drives by screaming Hola, and you reply with a Hello. I totally did, and turned to my companion like, "uh yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that."  Que va hacer. Es la vida.

It’s so funny when you have moments like this Rosario trip, when you get to talk to other missionaries about their great insights from their personal study. You know everyone’s personal study consists of, "What time it is in Kolob?" And, "The signs of the coming of Christ". Vamos personal study!

Another great day on Thursday with the old DO-NA-TO! He made us the dankest meal. The man starts going off on things, totally correct, that I never taught him. The power of actually reading the Book of Mormon.

This week I had one of those moments when you realize you are totally guided by the spirit. We tend to now have a lot of citas in our plans, so we'll make a list of people to go see in the morning, and on Friday we put Sandra Frutos (Mirta’s daughter) on the bottom of the list. Everyone else on the list fell through, and we went to Sandra’s house at 11:30, with her being the last on the list. She wasn’t home, but her son was, and he said he was taking care of the house. And so we talked to him about the Book of Mormon until we had to leave to get back to our apartment for lunch. As we were leaving, Mirta arrived with Sandra, who was having some serious stomach issues. They came to get her into her bed, and since we were there, we gave her a priesthood blessing. I have come to the conclusion that if we hadn’t put Sandra on the last of that list, she would not have received that blessing. And I told her that. And I hope she takes that as something important. Mirta is so funny… she was like, “I wasn’t too surprised when I saw the missionaries at the door waiting for us. It usually happens." So that was neat!

This last Saturday we spent the whole day inviting people, with invitations, to the branch conference we had on Sunday. All the members came with us, and members from Santa Tome. It was a good time. So we had the branch conference yesterday, and I think it was a conference to remember for the 4 members that came… how awesome they are! But there was like 20 people in total, with all the members from Santa Fe and Santa Tome. Sonia was confirmed as a member of the church, and it was a little bit of a surprise for the other members… but whatever.  Great lessons and talks were given especially by President Carlota, the Stake President. He gave a brief history of Galvez and all the work that has been put into the town in the last 10 years since it was reopened. But I was too happy to hear that he announced three other Open Chapels in the Santa Fe mission (reference the Rincon Open Chapel experience from last week), including the little garage chapel in Galvez. There is an incredible amount of hope for the Rama de Galvez right now. So the missionaries will be in charge of this next month. They haven’t really told us what plans need to be done, but it will be happening. Too neat… for real.

So mom… I need to figure this out… I have eaten too many pancakes here on the mission without syrup. Now maple doesn’t exist here… so…  Is there a way to make buttermilk syrup? That’s the question. I’m literally going to be the guy at the father and sons outings who is always making the pancakes. Everyone knows the pancake guy. And I’m proud to say that will be me. I TAKE MY PLACE AS PANCAKE GUY!

Dad I would love to read that autobiography of Parley P Pratt, if you can send that.

I love you guys, Houston is life!

Week 031 - 12 Alfajors, 2 Liters of Chocolate Milk, and 2000 Pesos

FAMILY - WHAT IS UP!

Man I am too jealous… alone time with the Claire has got to be the greatest time! Also look at all those cool cats at the Kingwood 3^rd ward. I didn’t realize how many youth we had in that ward.

This week I learned "Galvez is something!" Usually if we are missing people at church, we grab Presidente Ohera to take us around to the member’s homes to go find people. And so I had a ride with Presidente Ohera to go find Electra (one of the oldest members in Galvez; 40 years in the church), and I’m talking to him about this woman Sonia, who will be baptized this Saturday, but she only wants the two missionaries and Presidente to be there. It will be kind of weird when she gets confirmed the next day, and the whole ward didn’t know she was baptized. But he turns to me and just starts laughing and says, "Galvez is something!" And then after we bring Electra to church, she starts sniffing rubbing alcohol right next me during the sacrament, and then 5 min later she dipps out. I had to go running after her in the street to see what’s going on, and she was just heading to the hospital and she doesn’t want help. Yep... Galvez is something!

It was a fantastic day at church. For reals, because it was testimony meeting and we had enough members who bore their testimonies, and the missionaries didn’t have to share theirs. Long testimonies, but really good ones. Even Sonia who will be baptized on Saturday shared her testimony. She’s a bit of a wild card too, but it was actually a fantastic testimony, and she shared that she had found the truth, when two Sundays before she was saying things like, "no one knows the truth.” That mindset has changed, and she even paid her tithing, even though she is not yet a member. She was actually kind of upset last week because we were talking about tithing in church and the missionaries hadn’t taught her that yet. She had no idea about tithing and was very upset that she hadn’t paid her tithing yet.

There was a fantastic activity in Rincon on Friday. All the missionaries of Santa Fe went to the chapel in Rincon for an "Open Chapel." It’s a really awesome program the church puts on, and opens the chapel up all afternoon for people to come and hear the testimonies of missionaries, and see the beliefs of the church. We first had to get up at 4 in the morning on Saturday to get there at like 9 AM. Long day. But that whole morning we were sent with a companion to a certain area in Rincon to invite people to the activity. I was put with old Mr. Elder Hopkins, my comp from the MTC... pretty neat. He totally rigged the system. But this other senior missionary from Buenos Aires, Elder Pina, who was in charge of the whole thing came with us too. It was awesome because he had a car.

We went looking for less active members, and we found a man, and here’s what happened… Elder Pina has some sort of magic talk. He goes up to the man after we have already invited him. Elder Pina – “So you going to come?” Man – “Maybe, I’m kind of busy.” Elder Pina – “Your wife going to come?” Man – “She’s really busy.” Elder Pina – “Where’s your wife from?” Man – “Paraguay.” Elder Pina - I’m from Paraguay, we need to talk.” Wife comes out. Elder Pina – “Are you coming?” Wife – “I can’t. I’m busy.” Elder Pina – “Here, let’s take a picture.” I take a picture. Elder Pina – “Wow! What a nice patio… Wow. Look at these bushes… These flowers… That wall. Wow! Let’s take a picture”… (He is putting all these on Facebook at the same time). “Look Facebook… Wow! Look at this house”… (takes a picture in the house). “Are you feeling okay Senora? Let’s have these missionaries give you a blessing”… (We gave her a blessing).

The man, the wife, the son, and his kids all came to the activity that night, all who are less active. How cool is that!

We got to listen to the Hermanas practice what they were going to say for the activity (because they were the ones that were going to talk). It was incredibly spiritual, and it was going to be incredibly spiritual for the people who would be coming that night.

So at 4 PM the activity started, and me and Elder Mckell were sent off to the plaza to invite people from the plaza to this activity for the next 4 hours. It was awesome! And we were able to walk 5 people over to the church, to go to the Open Chapel. 11 nonmembers who showed up accepted to be baptized with a date, including the women who lived across the street from the church. Including the entire family of a less active woman. Including the 20 year old that we were able to invite and walk with from the plaza. Super neat Open Chapel.

At the end of the night there were no more buses to get home and we needed to be at church the next day. We went to Presidente Perez (Not what his plan was, but it was so on point), and he pulls out 12 alfajors, 2 liters of chocolate milk, and 2000 pesos for the taxi home. It made the taxi guy’s day when we said, "Take us to Galvez, son!”

It was a great day.

I love you guys. I want to let you know I love the work. This is for real!

Week 030 - Now We Know Where Our Investigators Go On Sundays

Heeeeeeeey,

Que Copado. You guys are really good at Legos! Enserio! I love Katie’s superhero costume, but it might not beat the cowboy because really, cowboys are the real heroes!

Crazy that you are going to sell the BEAST, I get it though, there’s not any real need for it now. Whatever happened to the Bronco?

Dad, your experience with the missionaries sounds pretty familiar. It’s easy to sit down with one member of a family, but to get another family member to sit down and pay attention gets a little tricky. Sometimes you have to scream to the kitchen, for example, "Hey JOSE, you every heard of Jesus?" But also it’s hard to teach anything if the person doesn’t have a testimony in the Book of Mormon. It’s the clave of everything!

Mom says, dad is not too into dogs right now. I get it though. I’m getting a little sick of dogs.... until a storm of puppies starts coming at you in the street. It happens. And you just have to stop and go with it. They all keep shaking their butts around saying, "I JUST CAN’T STOP DANCING." Although who took that seriously... dogs can’t talk.

This week was great. Possibly one of the greatest moments of church I’ve had. So the church has started a mandatory auto-sufficiency class for all the members; because people here in Argentina kind of rely on the government too much. But it’s pretty funny, when the president is going off on some real life physical actions, such as getting a job… He starts off with the class by asking what it means to be auto sufficient? ... "ARREPENTIMIENTO"... “Sorry let’s get a little deeper. What can we do to be auto sufficient?”… "READ THE BOOK OF MORMON"... “Alright guys that’s a good thing too.”… “Elders, what can we do?”..."Get a job."… “Alright what else”...”FAITH... JOSEPH SMITH...THE LOVE OF GOD."... Donato-"WHAT VERSE?"... It was a fun class and we learned some good ways to physically and spiritually take care of ourselves and others. But man Pablo (Mr. my body my body my body) decided to come in to church three different times yelling "HEEEY MAS VALE MAS VALE MAS VALE!" Every time he was wearing a different set of clothes. Seriously. The church is the size of your bedroom, and it’s hard not to laugh when during the sacrament song you hear "HEEEY MAS VALE MAS VALE MAS VALE... ORACION POR MI SOBRINA?!!" After he just came in an hour earlier. Pablo is such a stud, and he always wants my ties, because his dad never gives him ties.

We did have an investigator at church. Mario. I think I talked about him a little bit last week. But we had a very good lesson with him, and he really recognizes the importance of the message of the restoration. Especially when two 19 year old young men are going around Argentina telling it to everyone. It’s very cool when someone recognizes and appreciates the importance of the message of the restoration, that a man can authoritatively testify of Christ and restore the church that Jesus Christ established, and his original doctrine. And not only that, but reveal more. That is a fantastic message. Mario plans on being baptized on the 27th. He’s a very cool guy, one of the more chiller Argentinians, who listen and doesn’t go talking off on crazy subjects.

I have too many Donato stories, but I’m going to give you guys another. We were eating at Donato’s for dinner and we were about to leave. When all of a sudden Donato was like, "wait."  And he runs back to his room. He comes back with one purple sock in each of his hands, walking over to Elder Mckell, and says, "A Gift." And elder Mckell says, "For me?" All excitedly. But then Donato stretches his arms out towards Elder Mckell and me, and says, "For the both of you." I was like, “Donato, thanks, what should we do with it?” And he just said “we can use it for anything. It’s getting pretty cold out these days.” Exactly!

Oh my gosh! I’ve been here for almost 6 months now and I never knew Galves had their own soccer team. Apparently they have games every Sunday night, and we went by it yesterday, and people were just going nutz over this Galvez team. Makes sense now… where all our investigators go on Sundays.

DR GALVEZ AND TED

The Islands south of Argentina are not actually owned by Argentina, but owned by England. Perhaps they can buy it back with money that has the islands on it!