First Week in Argentina

After a day and a half of traveling, I have finally made it to Comodoro Rivadavia! I will do my best to try to catch you all up on what has transpired the last week and a half!

So the last few days in the CCM were pretty ok, nothing really special happened. We had a pretty powerful devo video review thing on Sunday with Elder Holland, and he spoke about how as missionaries we need to make sure that we are converted way before we can think about trying to convert others. It was a very powerful reminder to me that the message we are carrying is not our message, or even President Nelson's. It truly is of the Lord.

So the next morning we woke up at 3 in the morning so we could leave on the bus to the airport at four. We arrived, checked our bags, and promptly waited for about four hours for our flight to leave at nine. (Also pro airport tip: Don't leave your yellow manila travel folder lying around, the police think that there are bad things in there.) From Mexico City we flew to Panama City, which took about four hours. After a two hour layover in Panama, we got on a seven and a half hour flight down to Buenos Aires. And hoooo boy, that is a loooooong flight. We did get fed, but it was airplane food so it wasn't great. 

Our plane landed in Buenos Aires around 1 in the morning, and we thought that they would put us up in a hotel or something so we didn't die of sleep deprivation (real thing, look it up). But nope, they shuttled us over to the BA domestic airport, and we had the opportunity to wait for NINE HOURS for our flight to leave to Comodoro. It didn't leave until 10:30. Which was great. I love that table right outside of McDonald's. Somehow fell asleep on it. Anywho, while waiting in the airport, we met some other missionaries that came from the Brazil MTC, and they were from all over Central and South America. It was kinda cool to talk with them a little bit, but my brain that had been awake for about 36 hours straight didn't know a lot of Spanish. Finally, we jumped on our final plane down to Comodoro, met President Camejo, and started our interviews at the mission office. We also got lunch and I took a lil nap in the middle of all this. Then we went and had dinner at the mission home and finally, finally, after two days of travel, we stopped at the Hotel Playa (pronounce plajha, for all you Spanish speakers ;) and we got to sleep.

Elder Peterson and Elder Barrus going to Kilometres Ocho

Outside the mission office

The next day we woke up and went back to the mission office to meet our trainers. My trainer's name is Elder Peterson, and he's from Boise, Idaho. He literally just finished his training, but he knows the language pretty well (which, for the record, is Castellano, not Spanish). He's been in the mission for three months. We rode from the mission office to our area in a taxi. The way they name the cities here is pretty interesting, sometimes they have names, but usually they just say how far the city is from Centro, which is the center of Comodoro. For example, the mission office is in Kilometers Tres (3), and our area is in Kilometers Ocho (eight), and it's called Standard, or Estandart. Apparently our pension (apartment, but it's called a pension for some reason...) is one of the best in the mission. So that's kind of exciting, because the shower comes out in a super wimpy stream that took a little bit to get used to. (Side note, I asked Elder Peterson if he wears sandals in the shower. He says he does because he's paranoid about the parasites because they live in standing water. So that's exciting...)

Our first day we went and visited a few of the people that Elder Peterson and his trainer had been teaching. There's an older couple whose names are Juan and Rosa, and they are the best! They're actually on date to be baptized on January 25, so we get to teach them all of lessons four and five this week. Rosa is amazing and so ready to be baptized, but Juan still needs to pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I think he'll get there soon enough.

Our other investigator that we've been teaching regularly is Maite. She's about ten years old, and her parents have been less active for about eight years. However, last week her mom came to Church for the first time in eight years, and yesterday her dad came for the first time in forever too! It was so neat to see him at Church, we're really hoping that he can baptize Maite once she's ready to be baptized.

Those are all of the non members we're visiting and teaching for now, but we're also visiting a lot of less active members too. It's kinda sad, here people will get offended by what another member said to them and decide to not go to Church anymore. We try to teach people that while the members aren't perfect and will make mistakes, the principles taught in Church are. Some people listen, but a lot of the time they don't really care, which is sad. But we have to keep trying and keep inviting. Through the power of the Holy Ghost we can bring the Spirit unto the hearts of the people, but they need to be the ones to receive it into their hearts. 

In other news, I prayed for the throat of some rapper named Rob Zombie because he was getting sick, and we're pretty sure an old man put a curse on us? So that was kind of exciting.

Mom Note: I put Jonathan's address into Google maps and found his pension.
This little patch of grass is right across the street and there are FOUR dogs on it!

There are soooooooo many dogs here. Like so many. It's kinda sad because a lot of them look beat up and abused, and some of them are mean and bark at us and try and bite us. A lot of them are nice, but you have to be careful and make sure that they don't have dog diseases.

I think that's it for me! Hope you enjoy the new year, and take time to study Come Follow Me this year because it is all about the Book of Mormon! Ciau! (Not Adios, because that's Mexican, and not Ciao, because that's Italian.)