Saturday, August 26, 2017

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.


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