Week 8~First Week in Argentina~Feliciano

Well a week has gone by already and although it has been super fast.
The days have probably been the longest and hardest days of my life
haha. But no worries, it is getting better each day and I am doing
great! The first three days once I got to Feliciano were super tough
and very humbling. Spanish here is soooo different. And I am pretty
sure that every single person has a different accent. At this point I
can understand like everything that some people say and then other
people (the ones from the campo.. or away from the town in the farms.)
I can literally not understand a single word they say. Its ridiculous.
But the people are awesome! I love them. After teaching one lesson or
eating one meal with them we are best friends. They are so friendly
and welcoming and want to give you everything they have. We get
lunches from the members every day basically and they hardly have
anything, but they will fill your plate and make you eat more than you
want and you cant tell them otherwise.. Everyone says hi to us on the
street and everyone is willing to talk to you so really we have maybe
been rejected like twice since I have been here.. other than that we
have talked to everyone that we have tried. In our branch there are around 30 or
so active members, but I swear like half of Feliciano has been
baptized before and is now inactive. I am pretty sure there are like 2
or 3 hundred inactive members. So our focus is not just getting
baptisms. Especially since Elder Saez is the Branch President.. We
spend a ton of our times teaching members because about 20 of the 30
are recent converts. Because so
many people go inactive, our focus is on strengthening the members and
the branch and then having strong conversion baptisms.. not just
baptisms. My mind has been consumed by how I can strengthen the branch
and contribute to it so I am constantly striving to think of ways to
make the branch better. I have been trying to think of good activities
for the youth that we could have to help strengthen them. If you have
any good ideas for mutual activities or cool american activities that
I could teach them that would be super helpful! Please ask the fam.
The branch is very close to being super strong and growing really fast
if we do the right things but I feel like it could also fall apart
really easily if we dont work super hard to keep building it.
The language is coming along really well though, I am getting better
each day! And Elder Saez is such a stud! He has taught me a ton and I
feel super lucky to have him as my comp. Hes awesome.
More about feliciano: its a super calm friendly town, so we dont have
to worry about getting robbed here which is nice. It is not like other
areas. But it is a very spread out and large town so we do a ton of
walking and it is SO HOT. THe other day it was 104 and the humidity is
definitely worse than Georgia. And the thing about here is that you
never escape the heat because no one has air conditioning so we just
sweat all the time! We have one little fan thats from like world war 1
in our apartment haha but yeah We go to bed and wake up just drenched
in sweat. But I like to sweat so its good! We have a washing machine
and we are like the only area that does so that is sweet and we also
have a really nice apartment.. relatively speaking so i am grateful
for that. We also have hot water which turns out to not matter because
we take cold showers to escape the heat.
We drink so much water all the time so no worries about dehydration.
There are bugs everywhere because doors dont really go all the way to
the ground and windows dont really close here so pretty much
everywhere is free game for bugs. There are dogs everywhere. They are
all nice and not aggresive so its no big deal. The only ones that do
anything are the ones behind fences. They like to talk a big game, but
they are more scared of us.
No one really knows how to sing here so they all think I am a really
good singer haha so last night we were celebrating new years eve with
one of the members, her name is Abuela. Shes our go to member. And
they wanted me to sing an english song and the 11 year old (Javier)
knew some american music and he asked me to ing Hey there Delilah by
plain white ts so I sang that hahaha it was ridiculous. But It was a
fun night. We ate a ton of food and I was actually able to converse
and make jokes with everyone last night so it was fun.

One challenge for me has been the food. Because all anyone ever told
me was that the food is amazing so I just expected to be eating
delicious steaks all the time, but thats not really it at all. Its not
bad by any means but it is jut way different and there is some weird
stuff. The big problem is that they eat mayonase like its air.. And I
despise mayo. But I am getting over it and starting to enjoy the food
more and more. I hardly ate anything for the first three days cause I
had no appetite and the food was weird so I lost a bunch of weight
which was much needed after the mtc. My butt isnt quite as huge
anymore!
Sunday I bore my testimony in church and taught sunday school haha.
That was interesting.. Fortunately it was only five people and I was
already friends with four of them so they helped me out a bit.
Yesterday I gave my first blessing in spanish which was super tough
but it was awesome. It was for a little 1 year old girl in our ward
whos sick.

OKay I am running out of time. Sorry if it sounds like I am
complaining in this whole email or if it sounds like I am miserable
because I really am not. I love it here and am loving the work! It has
been very tough and different and humbling, but I love it! I have
already learned so much. I know that I cant do this on my own so I am
learning to rely on the Lord more and more. I have a lot to learn, but
I have the desire to do everything I need to do so I know it will work
out. When I got here I realized that I really had to figure out why I
was here because if I didn't have a good reason, it would be a huge
joke to be here and be going through all of this hard stuff for
nothing. So I made a list of the reasons why I was here for example I
am here because I know that the principles of the gospel have blessed
me and my family and I know they can bless everyone. I also know that
through Christ is the only way that we can receive all that our Father
in Heaven has in store for us. I have to share this message with
people or else I am depriving them of those blessings. I
really hope it doesnt seem like I am talking bad about anything or
complaining because I really do love it here and I love the people and
I love this opportunity I have. I know that my Heavenly Father loves
me and is aware of me and watching over me. I know that through the
principles and ordinances of this gospel, we receive eternal life and
all the blessings that our Heavenly Father wants to give us. I know
that Scripture reading, praying, and going to church are simple
things, but are the most important things we can do each day and each
week. Those three things keep us on the path. I love this message that
I get to share and I love being a missionary. I hope that you are all enjoying
this holiday season. Lots of love!
I will try to send some pictures real quick if I can.