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.