Letter #2

¡Hola mi familia!

I´ve been here two weeks, and at times I feel live I´ve learned so much, and then other times I get reality checks that make me feel as though I´ve learned nothing.

I have to say i feel blessed to have been sent to the Argentina MTC. I have to learn quicker, because all our teachers speak mostly spanish to us.

So this past week has been pretty exciting for a few reasons.

First off, last Saturday, we had our first proselitismo. It´s where we go out into Buenos Aires and share the gospel with what little spanish se have. It´s tracting is what it is, but we´re totally handicapped! I was so scared! We (me and my compañera) had a handful of phrases to use, a few pamphlets (they´re called falletos), and a sack lunch each. So usually your first few times, you only go out for two hours. Yeah, so right before we were going to head out, they told us that our district was going out for the full 7 hours, like everyone else. At first we thought it was a mistake, and then we thought it was a joke. Nope! We were going to be out talking with people for 7 hours! I think I started hyperventilating!! I had psyched myself up for 2 hours, but 7 hours just seemed far beyond what i could handle! Anyways, thanks to my wonderful companion, Hermana Kubly, I kept from falling apart.

We were put in an area in the middle of a city! What a culture shock! So many things are different here! Like they don´t have trash cans here. They just have baskets they put their trash in. They don´t really have a trash pick up system, so they just burn their trash on the streets! We were walking around, and there were just piles of burning trash! No one was watching them or anything! And there are so many dogs here! Everyone pretty much has a dog, and then there´s all these strays that go around in packs. It´s scary sometimes! Well no one picks up after their dogs, so there´s dog poo everywhere! I mean everywhere. So gross! The houses are pretty nice. my companion says their kind of like the houses in San Francisco. Tiny, but nice. The people drive so crazy here! think of California drivers times 100! so scary, but interesting to watch!

The people here are different too. My companion and I were so scared to try and talk to these people. Children speak better spanish than we do! So we decided to say hello, how are you to every one we passed. Most people wouldn´t even look at us! it was so frustrating! Finally this man who was smoking outside of a building smiled at us and said hello back, so we talked to him. He was patient while we slaughtered the language, and listened to our message. He took a falleto, and then he started talking to us in really fast spanish. I´m pretty sure he told us to pray about the trinity! Looking back on it it was pretty funny! The day was progressively better as we got used to saying hello. I don´t know, it was pretty frustrating though. At the end of the day we ended up with 6 contacts, and we gave out a Book Of Mormon to this homeless guy along with one of our sack lunches! he was so forlorn! anyways, that´s a long story. So i did´t die, which is good, so i hope proselitismo is better this week.

So this week i probably ate two of the grossest things ever in existence. First was cow tongue, and the other was cow stomach!!!!!! I almost threw up both times. Don´t get me wrong, they tasted fine, it was just the texture that had me! Eating both was like chewing on silly-putty with sand that was mixed in. Apparently they are both delicacies in Argentina and Uruguay. I might die! just to let you know!

Well i have to go, but know that i love you, and i love all the prayers in my behalf. Please keep all missionaries in your prayers! I love you all!!!!!

Hermana Grow