semana 12

¡Hola Todos!
Well, I made it!
my P-day is Tuesday so I'll answer any mail I get on Tuesdays. I can only email family, so all other responses will be answered by snail mail. I can send an email to non-family only if I email family first and then have them forward it. Don't question the rule, it's just there. Do your best NOT to send packages. It's just complicated and annoying (they'll break open the boxes down here) and it costs money for me to pick them up. If you must, send it through USPS, NO other company, and try your best to use padded envelopes. I do have a request though: please send a camelback and some stamps por favor. Now that that's out of the way, let me give you the quick story of my journey down. 5 of us came from the MTC, all headed to Salta, Argentina. There were a few others that were leaving a little later on a different flight that were headed to other areas in Argentina. We landed in Georgia and a sister missionary came into our gate waiting area, also headed to Salta, Argentina! Apparently she came from a temporary reassignment in Tennessee and got her visa in as well. We flew down and found that pretty much everyone that was waiting on a visa all converged at the international Buenos Aires airport, including the two from my MTC district that went to Nashville, TN (for 2 weeks :P Elder Anderson got a baptism in already though)! So there were about 18-20 of us (coming from the MTC, Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, and I'm sure plenty of other places) that were bussed over to a domestic airport in Buenos Aires where we split up again--9 of us were headed to Salta. Quick reminder: I left the MTC around 6:30 AM...I arrived in Salta and got to the mission home around dinner time the next day!!! All of us were rather pooped. We went through a quick orientation (and a fun trip to some government building to make me legal here.) and then we were shipped off to our respective areas and companions.My first area is in Salta, about 15ish minutes from the mission home actually, and my first companion is Elder Young. He's from Kaysville, UT and is about to hit his 18-month mark. Picture Dallin Briggs and you have a close picture. He used to work in the offices as well so he's pretty knowledgable about everything here. He's been a great trainer so far, not really talking at all whenever I'm talking (it kills me because I have a hard time communicating with and understanding the people, but it's good practice). He's there if I need help though. My 1st two street contacts made him laugh though: the 1st didn't believe in religion because he thought it was out to take over the world, the 2nd turned out to be drunk. Good people to practice Spanish with I suppose. I'm told the language is actually called Castellano and not Español here. The difference is in the pronunciation of 'y', 'll', and 'rr' (all make the 'sh' sound; the 'rr' is more of a 'rsh') and the use of the voseo form instead of the tuteo form (vos vs. tu). Everything else is the same both ways though, so I just have to get used to using the accent, learn the vocab, and I'll be good to go.I figure everyone's curious about daily life in this area. The food's been good, but I haven't had anything extravegant or over-the-top delicious yet, but I have 21 months to do so! At any given time, about 30% of the people are walking around, 20% are in cars or taxis (lanes pretty much don't exist; just drive wherever you can fit yourself; most of the streets are 1-way anyways), 10% are on bikes, 8% are at work, and then the rest are at home just sitting around not doing too much. With good reason though--IT'S HOT!!! I'm sweating buckets down here! I tried putting sunscreen on my face one day, but I sweat so much that it fell into my eyes and I couldn't keep my eyes open because of the sting. So I've given in and just accept a little burn--it'll turn into a tan, right? :P We had a rare thunderstorm last night. It poured like no other (practically 2 rivers running on the sides of the streets), lightning within every 2 seconds, no one in sight--except for the taxis and myself and my companion...knocking doors! It's a good thing that these people are a lot more giving and considerate of random people, so we were let in. But yeah, except for last night, it's just been scorching--I'm told this isn't the hottest area either! Because of the hot weather, they actually have a siesta here: 1:00-4:30 is nap time...every day. My lunch runs from 1:00-3:00, but that still leaves an annoying 1.5 hours where we can't get too much done.You asked about my first Sunday here. It actually turned out to be stake conference...I didn't understand any of the talks...but I did run into one of the sister missionaries from my MTC district so we took 2 minutes to catch up on the happenings. We also had a regional broadcast fireside later that night as well with Elder Bednar! He was broadcasting from Buenos Aires to all of Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. It was a interesting fireside for 2 reasons: He had to speak phrase-by-phrase so that a translator could translate each phrase into a mike; and then he actually didn't have a prepared talk. Instead, he answered questions the entire time, either from the congregation he was at, or anyone else watching the fireside by telephone. He said that there will be many more firesides like it in the future, so heads up. I actually laughed because they did practically the same thing at the MTC: we were told to submit any question to our Branch President that we thought was important that we would ask 1 of the 12 Apostles if we could. I wonder what's up...I hope I've included everything!
Mucho amor,
-Elder Powell-