Week 084 - Giving All The Workers Free Pastries

Well first off, happy anniversary to the greatest parents, I’m glad you guys all had a great weekend.

Wow, would you look at that, a dog. That’s great, it’s probably one of those dogs that the "puppy barn" uses until the dog´s cuteness runs out and then they throw it to the shelter. Some might say that’s unethical, but it’s just business. I had actually thought that the Greene dog dream was dragging on for too long. It’s great to see dreams become reality. It’s good though that you haven’t completely decided upon the name Timmy because... I definitely thought its name was going to be Jimmy, Mikey, Buddy, or maybe Marty....Doogie Howser. I don’t know, most people out here name their dogs after Spanish condiments, you can name him Barb, short for barbeque. For reals though, I think Frank, Kurt, Elton, Rambis, Cher, Abdul-Jabbar, Dirk, Clyde, Julius are pretty great names.

So I had no idea about an eclipse, sounds like I’m really missing out. We are celebrating one of the billion holidays here in Argentina, it’s "kid’s day". One of the funniest things about kid’s day is that everyone mixes up when kid’s day actually is and everyone celebrates it whatever weekend of the month depending on their schedule. So for us as missionaries who pass by everyone home, we celebrate kid’s day every weekend. So no one is actually in their house. Just out in the park drinking some verdes. That’s some Argentine lingo for ya. If you want to get along with the people, just offer to go drink some "greenes" (verdes) or "bitters" (amargos). Too bad my mission president doesn’t allow us to drink mate.

Cool stuff happened this past week. My companion had some visa problems so we headed off to Santa Fe and then off to Rosario for a couple of days. It was a great trip, minus all the paperwork that has to be done, that was not even my paperwork. The secretary of the mission is Elder Pinkston, who came with me from the MTC. He is basically like a ken doll with large muscles. He’s great though because he bought us breakfast and lunch. But he also taught me some sweet DMV skipping the line tricks. So right before arriving to the office where we renew our visas, this guy buys like 50 different pastries from a bakery next door. Passes through the door, and waits until he sees the worker that he is looking for. I’m serious there were maybe already over 80 people already waiting in this building just mind blown watching this Yankee kid walk in front of everyone like he owns the place giving all the workers free pastries, and sweet talking to get what he wants done.

With all the time we saved, we were able to hit up the famous Rosario flag monument. It actually was a great monument, but it was under construction due to some restorations they were doing. Either way it was cool.

But while on this trip I was reminded of the many ridiculous things that Argentina does. For example, I’ve realized that in order to create more jobs you just have to make the work more difficult. For example lawn mowers do not exist here, only weed-wackers. So in order to cut the grass along the highway from Santa Fe to Rosario, you need 50 plus men with weed-wackers to get the job done. I also learned that if you need to find a parking space to get out and see the flag monument and there are no space along the sidewalk... that is not true. You can pay a couple of fellas a few bucks to push the cars closer together, to then create more space for your truck. The other cars might not be able to get out because the front and back of their cars are literally touching other vehicles. But you paid for that space and they didn’t. I also had another great "BASTA" experience while we were trying to pass one of the highway checkpoints. There was a backup of traffic at this one specific checkpoint, and for some reason, someone could not handle the wait. So what did they do? Start honking like crazy and what does everyone else do? Start honking as well. It was a classic BASTA honking riot. And after 5 minutes of mayhem, everyone was let past this checkpoint for free. Thus ending the traffic problem. There are many lessons to be learned.

We have been teaching a new family lately, Marcelino and his wife Graciela. They have two kids that have some kind of mental problems, but they are a really humble and patient family. And Marcelino is actually putting in some time investigating the Book of Mormon and Joseph smith. After our first lesson we gave them a scripture to read. And not only did he read the scripture we gave him, be he read everything from the intro to the 5th chapter of the Book of Mormon. He believes it’s all true and so we told him the god can give him a confirmation of that belief if he prays about it. Which he hasn’t done. So he said he'll do so. It’s really nice to teach someone who listens, and at least tries to investigate, because a lesson completely changes spiritually if the teacher and the learner are working together to better understand what the spirit is trying to say. And when we teach people who don’t work to listen, it’s like taking to a brick wall. And when you feel listened too, it’s really nice.

I love you guys. Hopefully the eclipse goes all well.

Elder Greene

Yeah I should be getting my BYU ecclesiastical endorsement next week, from my president. The problem is that I don’t have the papers in Spanish, I’m guessing he knows what to do when it comes up. But once that happens I should be ready to register for classes. For housing in winter, I have no real preferences, on anything, I’ll probably room with whoever, and most of my friends aren’t coming home for winter. I heard Liberty Square is cool, I don’t know if you want to look into that. For right know I’m getting my endorsement. I’ll keep you updated.

I saw this commercial and thought it portrayed Santa Fe life pretty well.

Week 083 - Hey Kids, Gim Me One Of Y'All's Yankee Prayers

I’m glad everyone has made it home safely!

So first off, today we switched up locations to write emails because we stayed the night in the apartment of other Elders, and we decided to go to "Diego´s house" to use their computers. Clever name to give your cyber when it’s actually just this guy house and his name is Diego. It was just a house in the middle of the neighborhood with an "open" sign and an Internet sign. So I went into this guy’s front living room and now I’m using one of his personal computers for internet at a decently cheap price. Diego's wife is totally nuts though, and it sound like she's giving her kid a real beating. Now Diego is asking me how long I’m staying in his business, because he has to go to the grocery store. Oh well.

Last week was really great, I mentioned before that family Guerra recently moved to the other branch in Rafaela, they were recently reactivated and we were preparing the daughter to be baptized. On Saturday Erica was baptized by her father who also prepared himself to be worthy to do the ordinance. The father is named Elias and he is the nicest guy, the whole family is fantastic and treat us very well. so we were able to make it over to the baptism on Saturday to support them, Elias is normally a very happy guy, but he was very happy this day not only for his daughter, but to be clean and ready to baptize her.

I also had one of the best knocking door moments of my mission last week. I it’s always a surprise to see who comes out of the homes we knock, but who knew I would come across the Santefesino Chamame king, Miguel Figueroa. Miguel plays the accordion for a Chamame group born and raised in Santa Fe. Chamame is like a folk Argentine music, with an accordion. But when he came to the door I knew exactly who he was, mostly because the majority of my mission I served in random farming towns in the middle of nowhere; and people dig it in the country. He didn’t accept the gospel so quickly, but I feel blessed to have seen him in person. Look up Miguel.

I also came across a very spiritual biker the other day, so spiritual that he wears a hat around that has the word "faith" written on it. Anyway this guy always wants to stop us so we can give him a "Yankee Prayer". He's always booking it on is bike yelling "Hey kids, give me one of y'all's Yankee prayers." So we say a prayer in English, and man he is grateful. So grateful that he gives us one of his catholic newspapers that he’s always selling. He says he’s an evangelist but the Virgin Maria is cool too if it pays the bills at home.

Well that’s pretty much my week. I’m glad you guys made it home. I love you!

Elder Greene

Week 082 - We Got Hooligans Slurping Noodles In The Park Again

Hi,

I’m glad your trip turned out great, I’ve started to miss the mountains a lot, and Santa Fe is really known for its fields. But I hear on the other side of the mission, in Entre Rios, it's full of small hills. So I hope to one day visit all the small hills.

One of the great things about living in the cow farming capital of the world, is that you have the opportunity to visit the FFA (Future farmers of Argentina) Expo. It’s actually call the Rural Expo. Either way it was beyond cool. So apparently they put on this farming expo every year in different parts of Argentina, and it just so happened they decided to put it on in Rafaela for the weekend. We actually didn’t know what it was, someone just mentioned to us that they had food trucks that sold pizza cones so, and we decided to go for lunch. And to my surprise it was much greater than a pizza cone, if you can believe that. dad just imagine it like one of those car expos you go to for work, but instead of cars it’s a bunch of giant tractors and farming machines, so there are ladies all over the place trying to get me to check out their tractors. Come on honey, I’m looking for the pizza cones. Anyway I found my way to the pizza cones, but in the path I saw the largest cows on the planet. so I got my research down, and I learned that there were many types of cow contests going on. You had your vaquillona cows, ternera cows, novillo cows; so they had contests for each one of them. and I guess the loser cows were killed off and eaten, because the amount of asado that was going on was unimaginable. not only that, Las Palmeras, the best Santafesino Cumbia band for the past 40 years came to give everyone a show so as we left, because we weren’t there for that long, as we left all the cumbia fanatics came busting in to get a good spot for the show. Luckily they kept the tunes loud enough to hear the street.

There was this Mexican food truck though, and it was the fakest of Mexican food though. Most people have no idea what Mexican food looks like here but they have heard of the famous burrito or a taco. But I guess if you say you’re a Mexican food truck, you can make up whatever you want and call it a burrito and people with love it, because I thought, oh how delightful there’s burritos here. And so I asked how big the burritos are, and he showed me, and to my astonishment he showed me his homemade corn dogs. He saw my face and obviously knew that I knew that it was not a burrito, so he whispered, "Let me tell you something....it’s just a hotdog inside." Yeah, I figured dude.

So check this, recently a fellow missionary decided to borrow my hair clippers and plug them directly into the Argentina outlet thus frying my clippers to smithereens. Ya fue mi vida. So now I had to go find someone to clip my hair. But people get weird clipping our northern hair. They start to feel your hair and look at the color, and ask us a bunch of question like, "What is wrong with your hair?" Anyways, so I guess if you don’t know what to do you just take the volume scissors and just go at it to see what happens. by the way I’ve never even heard of volume scissors, so this guys just takes out a ton of volume in my hair making me look like I’m going bald. He said all of the best of soccer players are getting cuts like these. Lesson learned, don't get a haircut from a dude named Sanchez.

The other night we had an appointment set up to visit a women that has been inactive from the church for quite some time. The appointment was for 6:30 and when she arrived she said she had to leave, be she had prepared some dinner for us. Super nice woman, and she gave us a to-go box with a ton of spaghetti. But what do we do now with all this spaghetti if we live like 45 min away. Neither did we have a fork to eat with. We weren’t going to go look for people to teach with some hot spaghetti in our hands. So we bought some forks and went to the park to eat it really fast. Super weird though because it’s night time and two dudes in ties are slurping down some noodles in the park totally empty. The best part though is the cop that passes by us on a moto staring us down, probably thinking, "Oh, we got hooligans slurping noodles in the park again, I better give them the business." And so this guy slows down and stops his motorcycle and walks over to us staring over our noodles....... Buenos officer, I said with a smile on my face....... he continued to investigate as he stared into my noodles and then he said, "Can I have the rest of your noodles?".....Well, I can’t deny an officer his noodles, so we gave him the rest plus the bonus forks we just bought and went on our way.

We actually were able to have a few great lessons this last week, through the members. We've focused a lot with the member on the work of salvation. Because I think a lot of the members before had a mentality that the job of the missionaries is to go out and knock on doors every day and bring more people to the club of Jesus. When in reality the majority of converts that stay active are found through the members, especially the youth who bring other youth to church and eventually become great leaders in the church. So we've helped the branch create their own mission plans as well as individual mission plans for each member. because each member here goes to church by themselves, so they got to have at least one friend or family member that they want to bring with them unto salvation, right? But most people don’t really know How to do that. So once someone has chosen a person, we are helping them create a plan, on how to help this one person. And the members find more confidence in sharing the gospel, when they have more of a specific plan. I think missionaries scare the members when they ask them for references all the time and tell them what they should do, as in bringing people unto Christ. But in reality they don’t know How to do it. We hope to help strengthen the members as well as the branch in this way.

I love you guys, thanks for your emails.

Elder Greene

Week 081 - Fixing Cars Is My Specialty

So I totally forgot to mention in my last letter how thankful I was to receive your letters. Written letters are totally way better than emails. But I did really appreciate what you guys had to say. Thanks for the photos of your trip. All the family looks really great. Demasiado facha.

So one of the great things about my life now is that I ask almost everyone if they need help with whatever they are doing. And usually everyone says no. so I’m not too scared about offering, even if I have no idea what it is that I’m offering to do. And so I got into this weird situation where I passed some fella in the street working on his car, or looking at it, I don’t know. but so I say hey dude you need some help with that thing you’re doing, and he responds with a classic "Si dios quiere" (if god wants).  Riiiiiiiight. I’ll help. And so I’m like, "What are we looking at here?" And he says, "Well you’re the expert....fix it!" Riiiiiight..... You know what dude, can we forget that I asked to help you and let’s just talk to you about god? How does that sound? He said alright, and we just got into the Book of Mormon, and planned an appointment for another day. Fixing cars is my specialty.

So I found myself later in the week in my favorite neighborhood, 17 de Octubre. One of the great things about 17 de Octubre is that people do whatever they want. For example, Toni. Toni is the gringo of the barrio and all he likes doing is screwing around with his sling shot. But Toni likes us because he's blonde and we are as well, of course we are Yankees though. But this kid is a total punk, for example this last week we were walking and out of the corner comes Toni slingshotting every light post down the line. It was super impressive how smooth he would shoot out the lights each with one shot, and it was at night so it kind of was like the beginning scene from Harry Potter where Dumbledore sucks all the lights. I was kind of memorized by it, and as he passed I said "DUDE, you’re making a mess!" And he passes with no expression saying, "They were in my way." Alright, I guess you’re right. Good night.

On Monday nights we have dinner with one of our members. She’s from Paraguay and makes some great food. But she has this grandchild that lives with her that is super smart and funny and loves the church. He’s 7 years old and recently got a PlayStation so it’s been his main focus lately, and every time we come over he’s playing and it, and it’s beyond hilarious his reaction to playing. We are eating one day and all of a sudden I hear screaming and yelling from her grandchild, screaming "LORD LORD LORD, THANK YOU LORD, I WON’T LET YOU DOWN LORD." I look over to the grandmother and asked what’s going on and, she’s says, "Oh he’s just playing his games." Yeah, those high stress moments of playing video games really get to you.

For the past couple of weeks, Osvaldo has not come to church and we didn’t know why because he doesn’t have a phone and every time we went to go look for him, his daughter would say that he was out and she didn’t know where he was. But we found his brother one day who is also a baptized member and turns out Osvaldo fell off his bike a couple of weeks ago due to something that happed to his heart, so he has been in the hospital for a few weeks. So we go to the hospital to visit him and when we showed up we didn’t know where to go, and I think we obviously looked lost because the owner of the hospital asked what we needed, and I said that we were there to visit someone. And she responded with a classic "Look chicos...we are Catholics." Uhhhhh, we didn't come to teach you......yet. We came to visit a friend who is sick. And she just didn’t understand. She kept thinking that we were there to teach her. Anyway, we finally found Osvaldo and we were kicked out by someone who we thought was a doctor. But Osvaldo did see us before we left, we just weren’t able to talk to him. So we came back another day. And then we enter the room and totally get kicked out by his sister. So it was kind of lame because they wouldn’t tell us how he was doing. At least he knew that we wanted to visit him. His family is kind of jerks about the church, but we kind of knew that before.

We had a cool opportunity to go to San Cristobal to participate in an open chapel over there and me and Elder Hopkins were chosen to explain baptism and invite people to be baptized and it was a really cool experience because there were actually 4 people who agreed to being baptized next month, and so they invited the missionaries to come over to their homes and set up appointments to teach. It was really cool and we chowed down a ton of choripan!

I love you guys. Have a great week!

Elder Greene

This guy was nailing golf balls into 17 de Octubre, we stopped to watch the games