Sooo...I was sooo sad when my battery
died on the plane!! We ended up waiting for an hour to take off!! We
could have had sooo much more time. Oh well. So, as you know, my last
few days at the MTC were awesome. My district sang in church, we packed
lots, talked with each other lots, studied...(not as much as we should
have but still lots), we took lots of pictures, said goodbye, cried a
bit, and then got on the plane!! All those goodbyes were apparently for
nothing because when we got to Argentina all the missionaries from our
district but 2 were in that big meeting we had in the area office.
So...we had a round two of goodbyes. Awesome. We didn't fly to Comodoro
until 7:30PM on Thursday
night. President and Sister Rogers were on our flight. They were coming
back from a mission president conference. As I mentioned in the letter,
Hermana Kuhn and I stayed at the mission home on Thursday and Friday nights...which is like a 5 star hotel (just a small version) ...so it wasn't until Saturday night that I got a little taste of what the next 18 months is going to look like.
We were assigned companions and areas on Saturday afternoon and then Saturday
night we took a five hour bus ride to....TRELEW!! My first area is
Trelew South, specifically Rawson, and my companion is Hermana Cortes
from Colombia. She's amazing!! She doesn't speak English, which is
equally frustrating when I don't know the word in Spanish as it is
helpful for learning. But we're going to get along really well and work
really hard. I'm excited. Anyway, my pension is tinyyy! Probably 5 of
them could fit in our house in Orem. Don´t even get me started on the
toilet or shower. Let's just say I´m reallyyy grateful for the flip
flops I have:) It´s really not terrible, just very different from home.
It works though and it´s not like we spend tons of time chillin´ in our
apartment anyway:) Sooo...we got in around midnight and went straight to bed. We met our zone leaders and the mission leader and his wife from our ward. They´re amazing!!
Sunday morning church is at 9:30AM.
The members here are incredible. So friendly and so strong in the
church. We start with Relief Society, then Gospel Doctrine, then
Sacrament Meeting. I could feel the Spirit so strongly as I tried to
catch everything that was being taught. I´ve never felt the Spirit so
strongly in church. These people truly know what it means to have the
gospel in their lives. It was so cool. And, Sacrament Meeting? Primary
Program. Everyone knows that this meeting is my FAVORITE of the entire
year. OH. MY. HECK. Just a heads up, I might never come home. The kids
were soo cute and they sang so well! It´s such a different culture...but
I love it!! Everyone was so welcoming and so kind about speaking a
little slower than normal for me:) I can understand about 85% of
everything people say if I´m really paying attention, and when someone´s
talking directly to me about 95%.
So, the first night in the mission
home, I was talking to President Rogers while Hermana Kuhn was in the
shower and he told me that he takes really good care of the Hermanas and
so do the Elders in the mission. He was right. There are 6 missionaries
in my district here in Trelew, 4 Elders and my companion and me. They
came over yesterday morning and brought us breakfast since we hadn´t had
time to shop for food...still haven´t now that I think about it...and they
walked to Church with us so we wouldn´t get lost. They call us every
night to see if we need anything. They brought us to the cybert (internet
cafe) this morning to talk to you. They´re great. Only downside...they
are all also natives...so in case you don´t understand what that
means...I´m the ONLY one in my district who speaks English!! Wohoooo.
But really it´s the best. I have learned soo much. It looks like I´ll be
in Trelew until after Christmas (12 weeks for training, and then most
likely I´ll be a trainer. FREAKY. I´m hoping for at least one more
transfer before I have to train...fingers crossed.) Anyway, dad, I´m
still working on my address. I have no idea where we are most of the
time, but I´ll try to have my address by next week.
Sooo...Sunday
after church Hermana Cortes and I ate at the home of the Family Nievas.
They are an extended family living together and are a part-member
family. It was so cool. We ate lots and lots of MEAT. We shared a
message about service and the Savior and then we visited the Mayor
family. They´re an awesome member family who is very involved with the
missionaries. It´s a custom in Argentina (and South America) that
whenever someone comes to your home you have to serve them some sort of
food. I never want to take people´s food, but it´s rude not to. Anyway,
in Argentina like I told you before, dinner doesn´t exist. Lunch is at
1:30ish and then no one eats again until breakfast. Weird, right? I
guess they do eat whenever someone comes to their house, but not much,
only a few crackers and juice or something. I don´t understand. Anyway,
after we visited with the Mayor family, Belen, their 19 year old daughter,
came out with us and we knocked on some doors of some menos actives. We
spent time with the Family Reyes. The mom is the only one that is
active. The father hasn´t been to church in 10 years. He says he knows
what he needs to do, but he´s not humble and that it´s hard to always
live the gospel and do everything he´s supposed to. He doesn´t always
have the desire. The kids are all grown and making their own decisions
and followed the path their dad chose. We talked about the Atonement and
how it can help us change and overcome the natural man and invited him
to church and he said he would see. Hopefully he shows up next Sunday
with his wife but I wouldn´t be super surprised if he doesn´t. Fingers
crossed.
After visiting them we went to choir practice and then we
visited Hermano Cortez with the four Elders from our district. He´s not
active and has a problem with the way the church is run in some parts of
South America. It´s really sad. He seems to think that because the
gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect, that the church is perfect. Obviously
we still make mistakes, but he doesn´t seem to be able to accept that.
We´ll keep trying:) The Elders walked us home and then we got ready for
bed. First experience with the shower. Here we go. So, the shower is a
little square (about 3ft x 3ft) but there can only be about 2 inches of
water at the bottom before it flows out of the shower....the drain is
EXTREMELY slow. So to shower and wash your hair, you have to turn the
shower on for a few minutes and get wet, then turn it off while you
shampoo. Turn it back on and rinse it out and then turn it off again.
Then repeat the process with conditioner....get the picture? You always
have to be watching to make sure you don´t flood the apartment. Fun
times. Yay!!
Well, I hope you're all doing well! I love you all
so much and I loved talking to you last week!! I'm doing well despite
the culture shock. Everything is still very new. Milk comes in bags.
What the?! Dogs are EVERYWHERE. Oh...I do have to tell you, that the
music here is great. I know, I know, we're not supposed to listen, but
when it's playing on the bus or the streets there's not much you can do.
Anyway, they listen to a lot of the American music but only the good
stuff. The very first song I heard in Argentina was John Lennon "Stand By
Me" then a few songs later was Michael Jackson "Bad" then a few songs
later was Queen. We even had some Rolling Stones...haha.. Matthew you'd
like the music down here:) only the classics:)
Well, I gotta go! Love
you all and talk to you next week! Hopefully I'll have some good stories
and I just realized that this whole letter I've been using the accent
mark on the keyboard for all of the apostrophes. I hope they come
through on your computer. :)
Love you all forever and always!!
Hermana Heath
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