I got robbed again this week! At least it was in person this time… We were teaching a lesson at someone’s door and a very drunk dude who was walking up the street stopped and stood by us. We were continuing with our lesson when the drunk guy grabbed my water bottle out of my bag and then stumbled off. It wasn’t worth getting into a fight with drunk guy over a cheap water bottle so we just went on teaching our lesson🤷 On the broad spectrum of encounters with drunk people, I would consider this experience a win. The traditional meal times are really interesting. It’s like the meal schedule that the hobbits follow […]
Lots of Adventures and Not a Lot of Work
So much happened this week, and so little of it was working in our area like we needed to. On Tuesday we helped the 30 missionaries in our zone get vaccinated against rabies and the flu. We had to leave that early to go help another missionary with Dengue Fever navigate the hospital system. On Wednesday we went back to the hospital with the same missionary, then we waited most of the day to have interviews with the Mission President. We visited with other missionaries and leaders throughout the day. Elder Eyre and I then had a 3-hour bus ride to the mission offices in Salta for a series of leadership meetings. Thursday we attended […]
Remembering Christ & Scenic Views
We’ve been working our tails off this week. Our area includes the main downtown, but almost all of our work is done on a lower shelf, closer to the banks of the river that runs through San Salvador. It makes a very abrupt distinction between the wealthier people and the poorer people. You can look up from the lower neighborhoods where we are working and see the nice buildings downtown. It’s a really weird mix. There are also a lot of awesome views of the mountains because San Salvador is situated in foothills of the Andes Mountains. Some of them even have snow caps right now! It was awesome to be able to share so […]
Crazy Week in Jujuy
This week was super crazy. I started off in Tartagal, finishing of my time with Elder Barney before getting on a bus to San Salvador, the capital of Jujuy province. I arrived and started learning how to be a zone leader with my companion Elder Eyre in Palpalá. Being zone leaders means that we are responsible for our teaching area and those of the 14 other companionships in the province. It feels like we basically just go to a couple of extra meetings during the week and make some slideshows. On Thursday we got a surprise phone call saying that we needed to switch apartments and teaching areas with some sister missionaries by that afternoon. […]
I’m Leaving
After just shy of 6 months in Tartagal, I’m leaving to go work in another area. I’m about to hop on a bus to Jujuy province where I’ll work in an area called Palpalá, which is a suburb of the main city, San Salvador. It is still hot in Tartagal and is going to be for another couple of months, so going to the cooler climate in Jujuy is like escaping the death sentence. Here are some photos of me with some of the members here:
On Weeding Onion Patches and Mate with Monster
After five and a half months of working in a relatively slow area of the mission, at least numbers wise, it has been pretty easy to get a little discouraged. When it’s 95 degrees outside with 90 percent humidity, it’s easy to think of all of the other areas in the mission that I could be in that have nicer climates and that baptize all the time. I was listening to a BYU devotional from President Eyring this week that helped me change and refocus my perspective. He tells the story of his dad helping with a ward assignment to weed a church onion field and having to drag himself along the ground due to […]
Not Too Much To Say
Nothing super noticeable happened this week, just more of trying not to die in the oppressive heat/humidity or dengue. I’ve come to the realization this week that I know Spanish now. I know that I’m very far from having a perfect knowledge of Spanish and my pronunciation still sucks, but I understand enough to just do stuff in Spanish. In the evenings I’ve been reading the book Saints in Spanish and have only had to look up some of the more obscure words. It’s a big moments when you live in a country that only speaks Spanish. I focused my personal study this week on the nature of the Godhead. I gained such a deeper […]
A Waterfall and Zion’s Camp
We went on an awesome little hike this morning to a small waterfall. It’s the only interesting thing to see in the entire area, but I wasn’t super motivated to go see it, which is why it took 5 months for it to happen. We walked through the jungle on an unmarked trail, scaring away tropical birds and trying not to get bitten by too many insects when the waterfall just appeared out of nowhere. We were the only people there so we got to take some decent pictures. Then we went back to our apartment and made French toast for breakfast. It was fun to change up our P-day schedule for the day. Our […]
Time in the Mission & Language
It was a long week, and it’s still incredible hot, but we are finally getting water delivered again. The work has been frustratingly slow and Carnaval has literally been leading people to choose devil worship over the Lord. Tomorrow I’ll have been on the mission for 6 months. My Spanish has improved so much. I’m very far from being fluent and my accent is a weird mix of gringo and Argentine, but I can pretty comfortably do the things that I need and want to. I think the best part about it is being able to understand who people are. I am living with my American companion, a Peruvian, and an Ecuadorian and the conversations […]
Barney, Like the Dinosaur & Carnaval
My new companion and I worked like crazy this week. His name, Elder Barney, is easy for people to pronounce because they all know the children’s TV show about the purple dinosaur. He’s from California and has been on his mission a month and a half longer than I have. We’re both pretty new, which is putting our Spanish knowledge to the test. It’s Carnaval, which is basically just a big festival to celebrate the things of the world and get as drunk as possible. It’s not had a huge impact on us, just that we’ve had to steer clear of the main road where all of the partying is happening. Thanks for your love […]