Alright! So I arrived in the field last week! Haha, I´m really loving it. My new compañero/entrenedor (en mission language, mi ´papi´) is Elder Bills, a guy from Idaho with a great sense of humor and a ton of patience. Haha, yeah I´m really lucky to have him as my trainer. He has 10 months in the mission, and I´m his first ´hijo´ jaja. Anyways.
First of all, our pensión is really nice. There are two other elders there with us, Elders Baipas de Uruguay and Elder Smith (from the fábrica they call it here, haha, it means Utah). They sure are great. The other day, at new years, we ate the VACA!!! Which is just a really big milanesa. Seems pretty much all we eat out here are milanesas ;) haha, meat thinly sliced and fried in bread. Yeah, my penchmates are awesome. I definitely could tell that it was a place where men were living if you know what I mean, but I think it´s improving.
They have a really cool nuevo año tradition down here- they build these giant muñecas and then burn em with fireworks. It´s crazy how much work they go through to build these giant wood and paper mache sculptures just to explode them, but I guess it´s pretty cool- jaja, these kids asked us to bless their muñeca as we were passing by. It was a 9 ft tall Snorlax. We just said a prayer with them instead haha.
It´s been really hot- so hot I woke up one night with heat exhaustion or something it was super uncomfortable. I´ve been sleeping on the ground because it´s cooler. Now that I´m used to it it´s actually more comfortable than the bunk.
The other night I prayed for protección contra el calor, and the next day when we left our pench it was cloudy and cool... It was really a personal blessing, told me that Dios listens to our prayers. That day was Sunday, and when we arrived at church they called me up to give an impromptu discurso and that was what I talked about. Someone complimented me on my spanish but they could have just been being nice. :)
I was the only missionary of my group to arrive here- I was supposed to arrive with the rest of them in 2 weeks but because I learned so fast they cut my time- the other Elders are impressed how easily I´m speaking spanish, so that´s nice.
The other day, a member family brought us some food, and I felt so grateful I just about cried. The work that these members do for us- It´s really wonderful, because even though I can´t really do a whole lot to repay them I know that God blesses them, and so I´m double happy when people serve us.
The work is going really awesome. Miracles every day... crazy to see how the Lord prepares people and then we get to be there for them, it´s quite a beautiful experience. We just testify of a few simple things, and it changes peoples lives. It´s kinda crazy.
One of our investigadores with a fecha bautismal but just needs to get to church keeps not coming because his mom won´t let him... Kinda an interesting situation seeing as he´s 29 living with his mom. A cool guy but we´re gonna wait to see if he´s willing to act on his faith.
The other day this lady stopped us and told us all of this stuff about her spiritual name or something... It was really interesting. And we were teaching this one lady and she just accepted everything we were saying- I began to realize she wasn´t all there and tried to signal to my compañero haha. It was a sweet experience anyway. A very faithful and loving woman, but when her husband came with the medication and other things I realized she´s not all there anymore. But she still had such a sweet spirit. I´m always amazed by how much I have to learn from our elders.
We keep finding people in the street and teaching them a ton and it´s super amazing, but then they live in another area haha- so it´s really awesome and they totally accept the book of mormon and the restauracion and everything and then we hand them off to the other missionaries- that area must be pretty happy with Elder Bills and I, haha.
They drink this drink here called Yerba Mate, I don´t know how it´s not against the word of wisdom but it´s pretty great. I got hooked on it a few days back. It´s pretty much chopped plants and hot water. Haha I wish I brought my camera so I could send you guys the pictures but I didn´t know we were doing the cyber this way.
Sorry, there´s so much to talk about. I´m feeling pretty great. My dreams are pretty weird because now I´´m never alone in them- I always have to have mi compañero haha and I always have my placa. The other night my friend Dayson came up to me (in the dream) and I was like, ¿Donde está su placa? haha.
The coolest thing to me is that Heavenly Father uses the weak and simple (i.e., me and the other missionaries) to do mighty things. I see miracles every day, but the biggest one is a change of heart. It´s amazing to see the change that our message brings into peoples lives.
Well, I´m pretty exhausted. Love you all! Thanks for all the support.
