Week 063 - When The Circus Comes To Town, Things Get Pretty Crazy

Hey everyone.

Wow I’m really sorry you guys didn’t get my email last week, that’s really lame. I definitely sent one with cool pictures and stuff. I looked back and it says it was sent as a reply to your last week’s email. But I’ll send it again just in case

Well, I just had the dandiest week here in the ole Recreo, the weather is getting hotter again, but not too hot. That’s good. And what do you know... the circus came back into town... and bigger. And everyone is hyped. Like usual. I think what happens, there is not too many exciting things in this farm town, so when the circus comes to town, things get pretty crazy.

Well it was a wonderful end of the week. The ward went out of town and took a trip to Buenos Aires to visit the temple. Everyone came back late Saturday night, just in time to get a couple hours of sleep and come to the baptism of Aldana Ramirez that next morning. She was able to be baptized the morning before church, and then confirmed during sacrament meeting. We had actually went the night before to clean the font and test out the hot water, to see if it works. And for some reason, the church was left dirty, because no one had cleaned it, and it just would not be right to come to a baptism with a dirty church building. So we spent the next 3 and a half hours cleaning the entire church building. Really fun time, but super worth it, because it was nice for everyone to come the next day to a clean building, and then dirty it all up again. The family of Aldana was very happy, and almost all of them came.

We had some trouble with the baptismal clothing which didn’t fit. And there seemed to be no other options. So it was time to make it fit. And so 20 minutes later, she made it fit. Sweet.

We had invited her neighbor Kevin Nine who had recently turned 16 to baptize Aldana. Sadly, at the last minute, he could not make it, so my companion, the Brazileno, baptized her. Aldana is really awesome though, she comes with a lot of love to learn more about the gospel, and she agrees to all that God asks. And we are receiving great help from the ward on her road to conversion.

I came across a new fruit the other day, which I had no idea ever existed, called guayaba. A member has a bunch of trees in her yard full of the fruit. And their house is highly attracted by dogs. There is a relationship there. Dogs are fruit lovers. And as I plucked down all the guayaba I could, I was surrounded by dogs, begging and whining to get some of that guayaba. Hermana Zarate warned me not to feed them, but I fell into the temptation, and I became a king to these dogs. The first person to ever feed them a fruit probably.

We were heading back a few times this past week to meet up with our fellow Candiotti citizens. Mainly a member named Marina Spindola. And Marina just so happens to be a salesman of perfumes, and so every time we leave her house she always wants to give us a bunch of sample smells. Now I have thousands of smells sitting all over the apartment.

So our English classes have been somewhat of a success. A women came one day, who we did not know, and she seemed to love the class. And so we asked if we can pass by her house. Cool. A couple of days later, we were heading to the church for a meeting, when this same women starts screaming out for us inside the police station. Well she was robbed and was complaining about the robbery to the police man, and she wanted help. Well, we didn’t really know what was going on, we had just thought she was going to ask us something, and we were going to go on our way. But she was talking all kinds of crazy, and wouldn’t let us leave. So we got stuck inside this police station for some time, while she’s going off about how we are priest of her church and we are here because she called us to come over and help her. We were so confused. As were the police. So they thought we had got robbed too, for some reason. We finally just told them that she is not member of the church and we had met her the other day, but we were at the same time on our way to church. So we invited them all to come and check it out. They thought that was kind of funny and commented, "The last thing this lady needs, is to go to church." And so we went on our way.

It was also such a great week because just a few days ago, COLON had just beat UNION in the futbol classic game. And when Colon wins, people just go nuts for hours and hours in the street. And this is just a little town. And everyone in this little town was out in the streets on their motorcycles or in their cars, honking their brains out, waving flags and banners, and yelling, for no joke… like 3 hours. We got a nice shout out in the street as a women passed by saying "SENOR MORMON, VAMOS COLON!" Yeah Colon.

We have recently started buying all our food products of the local Chinese supermarket. Which is just a regular supermarket, but owned by Chinese people. And everyone calls it LOS CHINOS! People like going there because they have cheaper items. Because apparently if you’re from china you don’t have to pay some kinds of taxes. So they sell things cheaper. Vamos. But the owners of the place pretend like they don’t speak Spanish so they don’t have to deal with stupid people. Strategy.

Thank you guys for sending me emails every week. I sorry that you were not able to receive my last week’s email. But I love you guys so much and thank you for your support always.

Elder Greene

P.S. The shoes are doing great!

Week 062 - He’s Got Package! He’s Got Package!

Geeze ... I am a bit jealous at the moment of your guys’ sweet Disney trip. But it looks like you had the jazziest of times. Disney doesn’t seem to ever disappoint for the Greene family.

I agree with Claire. Russell has no place in a princess signature book. Sacrifices must be made.

I also like that you guys cashed in the Disney coin jar. I’m sure you guys had a good 5 churros with those coins. I actually cashed in all my coins in today as well. Since the beginning of my mission I’ve been collecting every coin I had. And it became such a hassle of weight that I decided to cash it in. And because we were running low on our monthly budget, because of all our Santa Fe trips. So yeah, it turns out I had like 600 pesos of coins, which is like 40 bucks. That’ll get you 4 churros.

So we are at a new transfer, and nothing has really changed. I am still in Recreo with the Brazileno, Elder Campos. It looks like I’ll be in Recreo until the end of my mission. There was another Elder here that came with me from the MTC and he had almost 13 month here. People don’t leave Recreo.

But it should be a great transfer, because we are starting off great with the baptism of Aldana Ramirez and Marisol Argota. Marisol is the sister of Sergio Argota, and Aldana is the neighbor of Marisol. Connections whoa! The ward has a temple trip this weekend so they are planning on getting baptized Sunday in the morning at 8 in the morning, right before church starts. Cool. Real cool. Maite Ramirez, the sister of Aldana, wants to take more time before making the decision to be baptized.

Teaching the Ramirez family is pretty nuts because we always teach in front of the house. Inside doesn’t have much room, so they want us to teach outside. So I've never even gone past their fence before. I met them in front of the fence, and ever since we have taught in front of the fence. But for some reason they have to keep a ton of dogs at their house. But the dogs that live at the house are friends with all the dogs from this street. And so during our lessons, we are joined with at least 15 other dogs. and every once in a while they get in these little fights over nothing. And the mama Ramirez gets so wild up about it, she goes into a rampage screaming "BASTA" and calling for her dogs. There are also two huge labs which are the dogs of the neighbors and they are the mean dogs and don’t like it when the 15 other dogs go onto their property. They only keep one of the dogs on a leash which is a rope around its neck, and it’s the smallest of the dogs. It’s a really weird dog though, because it’s always whining and wanting to be carried. But when it tries to run away it gets wrecked in a tug of war match with Mama Ramirez. And she whips that dog's back hard. Anyway it’s totally nuts, I can talk about the weird things dogs do for hours.

So I totally received your package, and wow, it came fast. It was pretty great to receive a package. Especially because we can’t really receive them outside the country. And so everyone looks at you like you just got the golden ticket, "Oh man, is that a package?" "You got a package." "Hey what’s in the package?" And then everyone is screaming, "He’s got package! He’s got package!" And by then you just have to run home to show grandpa. But thank you so much for the great gifts. The shoes are really great, and are definitely going to last me until the end of the mish. With these shoes ... now people look at me in the street thinking, "Wow, look at that jazz!” And having a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a pretty great moment this year. And the card was really funny, because I hear the word "freakin" plenty of times. There are tons of these funny Utah boys that just have the worst habit of saying “freakin.” And the worst is “fetchin.” But it’s so common that every South American missionary says it as well. For me it’s kind of a good thing because I've become so sick of it, that I don’t think saying "freakin" will be such a problem for me in the future.

I love you guys and hope you get back into the groove of work and school.

Week 061 - I Am Not Suited For The Bike Racing Dream

Hola Family. Hoorah to grandparents! I’m glad you guys were able to have a great time with grandma and grandpa, and that mom is still jammin to Boys II Men.

We had another really great week. With a lot of traveling. Mostly on the spot traveling. So not much work was done in Recreo. Monday we made a trip to Esperanza because the power went out in Recreo and there wasn’t any internet. But there was power in Esperanza. By the way, Esperanza is one of my favorite cities here in the mission. It’s very nice, with a beautiful plaza stacked with Catholic churches. So Esperanza stacks up with the Catholic tithing. And if you’re not Catholic, you are probably part of the "Universal Church", which is a church organization from Brazil, with a bunch of massage and psychology doctors... supposedly. The church owns a show about Moses and everyone watches this show here in Argentina, even the members. But the only true facts in the show are that Moses and Ramses are in it. Everyone likes to tell us how they know all about bible, but really all they know about the bible is the Moses version of the show. Pretty little liars.

But check this. While we were in Esperanza we made a trip to visit the zone leaders, who have bikes. The only two bikes in the mission, and it turns out there is a bicycle racing track in Esperanza. So we made our way over to the track, to attempt to ride the bikes all the way around the track. I soon came to the reality after 1 lap around the track, that I am not suited for the bike racing dream. Because I was very tired.

We actually had a zone conference this week, which I didn’t even realize was happening until the day before, when I got a call from our leaders saying, "We will be using the Recreo building for the conference tomorrow, is that alright?" Claro. And so we had a zone conference in Recreo, we heard the great words from our president and ate some dang good pollo.

Later in the week we had to make our way to Santa Fe two times. And while we were down there we came across, a tourist map. And it turns out there’s a bunch of museums and history all over Santa Fe. Who knew? So I’m getting on a history binge and learning all about the founders of Santa Fe, I’ll have to give you the load of history when I get back.

We have two investigators right now who are really getting into the church. They are two sisters, one named Aldana Ramirez that is 24 years old and her Sister Maitai Ramirez that is 17 years old. Aldana came to church last week and this week, and her sister came yesterday. They really like the church. This is the same family that said when we pass by they feel the spirit and don’t have the urges to fight within the family anymore. Aldana got ahold of the personal progress program, and wants to progress personally... and serve a mission. So Vamos.

One of the speakers failed to come to church on Sunday, so as the leader of the district of Recreo, they appointed me, Elder Greene, to be the backup. So in 5 minutes I prepared a 15 min talk, on the classic subject of member missionary work. But I did realize that the members get that talk a lot. I think by now they know that service, and bringing people unto Christ, is a commandment, and it is what God wants. And the only reason there isn’t a lot of member missionary work going on is because people see it as a commandment more than a privilege. And so I focused on the words of Thomas S Monson, who said that we should not be observers and watch as the great movement of the restoration walks by, but be participants. And what a privilege it is to have that knowledge that we have and be able to share that knowledge with others, which then is not only blessing their lives but our lives as well. And helps them really feel the love of God in their lives. I think people think they should be going out in the street and looking for people, inviting whoever, to come to church. But it’s not that way, its reactivating members, completing families who not all are baptized, and working with the youth.

The youth are the most important part of the gathering of Israel. Recently, I think it was Elder Nelson that had a meeting with the Seventy, and he asked all those that were baptized between the age of 9 and 25 to stand up. And the majority, stood up. Whoa whoa whoa.

Anyways it ended up being a good talk because many members of the ward came up to me saying that they have been lazy, and that they should be acting more like a member of the church. No joke people said that. So I was pretty happy to hear that.

I love you guys so much, I hope you have the greatest of weeks!

Elder Greene

Week 060 - A Top Secret Assignment To Go To Nowhere Land

I’m quite glad that you guys are getting a bit of the great weather we are also getting down here. Last week was a blast with the cool breezes we were getting. It was all dark clouds and no rain. Everyone kept thinking it was going to rain, except of course for the elderly people, and Jose the Curandero. I’ll catch you up later on the Curandero.

My companion and I were recently given a top secret assignment to go to nowhere land, and find a town called Candiotti. Because apparently there are members of the church that were kind of abandoned, and have yet to be seen in quite some time. So we had to make our way and look for the members. Which was actually quite easy, because it’s like a town with 400 people, and all you need to do is go to the first meat shop you see and ask where the Mormons are, and they’ll point you in the right direction. But in our search for the Mormons, I came across Jose the Curandero, AKA the Jesus Wizard. Curanderos are like evangelical wizards that think they are so spiritual that they have powers and such. I had not known of such a person until I met this guy. And when I shook his hand, he grasped it quite heavily, and shook my hand in the shape of a cross, while staring into my eyes, blessing me with a great future. He’s got a wife and kids, but his neighbors claim that he has hypnotized his wife, and she thinks she is in love with the Jesus wizard.

We actually had some trouble getting back and forth from Candiotti, because all the Indians that live between Recreo and Candiotti are furious that the government hasn’t put a crosswalk on the highway. I don’t think that actually works; and also they are not citizens of the country, so they don’t pay any taxes. Well anyway, the people are angry, and the Indians are blocking the highway with all their children playing soccer in the street, and drinking mate, with signs that say BASTA. So trucks are going off-roading, and the buses can’t pass. So the only solution is to hitch hike. And I’ll have to say, my first experience of hitch hiking was quite successful. We were able to get into the a red pickup truck owned by a 30 year old man, who obviously had not cut his hair or beard in over maybe 10 years. And we got a ride from him, along with two other old ladies trying to get to work. These two ladies were furious out of their minds about the "Indians." They kept asking, "You got any Indians in your country?" Don’t worry, we made it back just in time before the churro place closed.

Recreo was getting pretty hyped this past week, because I guess Brazil did their carnival party this last week, and so Recreo does their small version, for like one day. So the carnival came into town and stole all of our investigators. we came out on a beautiful Saturday , all hyped up on a morning facture, when we came to realize no one was home. They were all a little bit outside of town in the campo. We didn’t make our way over there but it sounded like a party all night.

We had a pretty great week though with our lessons. Actually, we had a lot of lessons where I felt pretty happy about how they went. We met a new family. Maria the mom and her two daughters Maiti, and Aldana. They are neighbors of Sergio and Rosia and they are always sitting in front of their house. So we went to talk to them and they really like the lessons. We taught them 4 times during the week, and they read the book of Mormon every day and prayed every day. The mom has Multiple Sclerosis, and so she can’t move much, but lately she has been in search of some peace and unity between her family. She says her family fights a lot, and she is not in a state to handle all of that drama. But before we came, she had prayed to God for help. After we came, she said she had felt more calm and more peace, and no one in her family has fought about anything. We have really focused in teaching them the blessings of the family. Her daughter Aldana came to church and really liked it. She said she wants to be baptized in April.

We are also teaching the sister of Sergio. Which means all of our lessons are super close by. She had come to all of the young womens activities, and so we are hoping she can get some motivation to go to church with Sergio and Rosia as she becomes friends with the young women.

We started an English and Portuguese class. We have 3 missionaries from the United States in our district so we can teach two classes per week and one Portuguese. I have to go to the Portuguese class so who knows I might come home with two new languages. But my companion wants everyone to come to the Portuguese class so there is this kind of battle between Elder Camps and Elder Jensen trying to get more people to come to their classes.

My companion is pretty smart and remembers names and streets and areas really fast. I have 6 months here and I don’t know the street names. So he´ll mention, "Hey, let’s go visit Jessica that lives in the Nobleza." And I’ll be thinking, "What in Satan’s fire is the Nobleza?"

I’m glad you guys are having a great week with grandma and grandpa! And my room is looking very nice. So I appreciate that, Katie.

Sorry I forgot to send you the address, but I can receive only packages through the office of the mission anyway; so you guys got the right address.

I love you all, and hope you have the greatest of weeks!

Elder Greene

Week 059 - A Tree Without A Fruit Is Just A Waste Of A Tree

All...Righty Fam! How are we doing?

So… mom reminded me that I had actually not mentioned the name of my new companion, lame of me; but what can you do? His name is Elder Campos, which means Elder Fields in English. So whenever someone asks what his name, and he says, "Campos,” Everyone gets all excited and says, "Oh wow, like the fields over there." Because there’s not a moment in my mission where I don’t see a field.

He’s a really great companion though. He loves to talk, and I’m now working on my great conversational skills in Spanish. And also… all the facts about mangos; apparently mangos are quite important, because when we go by someone’s house with fruit trees, he always asks the owner, "Now where are your mangos?" Normally there are none. How disappointing. Apparently mango trees are quite big. It’s funny though, because Elder De La Rosa used to get all fired up about the fruits, because in both of their countries you can find fruit trees just about anywhere. And to them, a tree without a fruit is just a waste of a tree. I approve.

As the chosen leader of this fine district in Recreo, I made an executive order that we would eat jelly sandwiches along the only river in Recreo. And I would have said peanut butter and jelly, but … ‘Surprising Byron’ … peanut butter does not exist here. So I got the finest bread, from the finest panaderia (which thank goodness reopened after their vacation), and the best jelly which sells for a dollar a jar. And we made our way for the river. The last time I went to the river it had a beach. But it turns out, at noon, high tide comes in. I don’t know if it was high tide or if it just rained buckets, and I didn’t know it… but there was no beach anymore. Just grass and a river that grew into a lake.

Thank you very much mom for my Mexican genes, because it seems that I have the toughest skin around. Everyone in our district got fried from the walk to the river, even the Brazilian. That was my bad though. As district leader I should have told everyone to bring sunscreen. On the way, We came across the Recreo famous pony farm. And so I made everyone stop and watch and learn how to feed the ponies. And it was a success. 5 successfully fed ponies. And if you are wondering what ponies are called in Spanish, they are called ponies. It’s a universal word.

This past weekend was quite exciting for us soccer fanatics. It just so happened that my favorite Santa Fe team COLON, and my favorite Buenos Aires team BOCA, were playing against each other in the COLON Stadium Saturday night. I don’t know what actually happened, but there was so much hype throughout the week. And all the hype died down just right before church started the next day, so few came to church the next day.

I did hear there was some hype going on for those BYU basketball fans, that for the first time they ever, they beat the numero 1 team. That’s quite the deal.

We had a very successful week finding new investigators this past week. Which I like to do. Looking for the next victim of missionary work. Because it’s kind of like a scavenger hunt. Especially here. Because people usually don’t want to listen, but they will definitely refer you to someone else. And so you have to follow a trail of referrals until you find the next person ready to hear the message. This past week it started with Midia, who is an inactive member, who then referred us to her inactive member ex-husband, who then referred us to his inactive daughter that has a non-member husband. But this non-member husband doesn’t have time to talk about God, but his neighbor supposedly does after 8 o’clock at night. So we wait until we can meet this neighbor and then he doesn’t have time for God, so he refers us to Emilio, who has actually talked with the missionaries two years ago, but they stopped coming one day. So now, two years later, he is our investigator. Scavenger hunt was a success...we will see.

I do have to make a comment of the Tahoe pictures dad had sent. The amount of snow in Tahoe is ridiculous but that picture of the lake from on top of the mountain looks pretty great. I don’t remember the last time I ever went out there during the winter.

I hope you guys have a great week! Thanks for all the updates!

Love

Elder Greene

p.s. If you do send a package there would be some essential items I would like to have; (1) Maple syrup extract, (2) Peanut butter, (3) I’m running on the end of my shoes, and shoes are really expensive here, so if you find some size 11s that can last till the end, that would be great.