¡Hola Todos!
Responses to your emails:The piano in the chapel is very basic—I can’t really record anything on it, let alone the fact that the ward members probably wouldn’t be able to figure out how to use it! We did enjoy the toy cars. We didn’t experience battery trouble, but then again, we didn’t try to use them for more than a minute so yeah :P It charges pretty fast though so it’s alright. I did get Grandpa Reeder’s letter and wrote him a response today because yes, I got your letter with the stamps on Wednesday. I laughed because his translator translated Drew’s name to ‘dibujó’ which means ‘(he/she/it) drew’ and the store Sears to the verb meaning to sear/singe! I couldn’t relieve it snowed in Dallas either! Glad to hear the family is keeping busy and alive.
Every 6 weeks is transfers, so the next transfer happens the 25th of January, and then 6 Mondays after that, and then 6 Mondays after that, etc. I noticed the General Conference podcasts and if their are any good talks I want I’ll grab them. It’s just that there are soooo many, I’d have to be searching for one—I can’t just window shop on this one. I’ll keep looking, but the hymns and other music cost money so I can’t really get those either.
Dad, I hope things go well for you with Rockwood and moving over. I often find your gut instinct is usually right, even if you have to feel a little sting after the decision. I’m not sure how buying out another company works, but I feel that the admins need to realize that there are always consequences to big decisions like this. If they really wanted to keep you, they ought to have researched into your situation a little bit more before making their move. You’ve done your research and with what you’ve been given/offered, you have discovered the better choice. Heavenly Father will guide things along for your benefit because you have done all you can. I know the Rockwood admins won’t be happy, but I’m not sure if I understand if there’s a threat or not. Again, I hope all goes well.
I can’t wait to hear Jason on the cello! I laughed at what Nick said about how “Jason…placed Joy to the World. And Drew…I don’t know what he played.” :)So guess what I totally just remembered family?!?! About 10 years ago, we made a 10-year time capsule and it’s sitting in the basement storage closet. I think it’s about time to open it up and I demand pictures of what everyone wrote/put in there!
Christmas time was quite interesting down here. The night of Christmas Eve was spent as the 8 elders in our district eating dinner and enjoying some of Heavenly Father’s fireworks and a huge rainstorm to go with it. At midnight, and for the following 40 minutes, everyone in the country just let every firework possible go off, ranging from firecrackers all the way up to professional-grade globos! I hear that because of the rain, it wasn’t as spectacular as it’s been and that the New Year will be even better! We woke up the next morning and opened gifts (thank you for those that them to me). We then walked around singing carols for a few families in our area, followed by a big lunch that our district put together. I got to call home after that, which for those that don’t know, is one of the 2 opportunities every year that I get to call home, the other being Mother’s Day. Elder Young and I then made some banana bread from mom’s recipe and gave some to a member family. It turns out we discovered an interesting difference in American and Argentine taste buds: the more flavor a food has, the more likely an American will like it, but the more likely an Argentine will think it’s weird/too overpowering. This was pretty much the case with this banana bread: the mom thought it was ok but insisted her budín de pan was much better tasting (of course, it was pretty bland :P). Our whole pension loved it enough though that we made a full second batch and just feasted on it ourselves! I think if someone wants to give me some weird Argentine food, I might give them some of my banana bread in return ;)
We had an interesting experience in church on Sunday. We walked to an investigator’s house to walk her and her 2 sons to church. Her dog decided to follow us all the way to the church. I thought it was great having the guard dog, until he insisted on entering the building too. He did everything possible to get in and even tricked me and got inside through a back door to the church that was left open (for security, of course!)—he promptly headed into the chapel and bugged our investigator! After getting him back outside and getting all the doors closed, I just decided to stand guard at the door and assist the latecomers because this dog would not give in! It was pretty crazy, but we still had a spiritual time.We were walking around yesterday and I saw the coolest thing ever! Many of the houses have little signs on their doors saying “Este hogar es catolico” followed by a little message ranging from blessing those that enter to “we don’t accept other religions, please respect this” (or something close to that; we knock anyways just because we aren’t forcing our religion on them, we’re just wanting to present our message to them ;) ) Well, on this one particular door, it read “Este hogar es cristiano” followed by a nice big logo of our church and the 13th Article of Faith (email me if you don’t know what it is) and ending with “In order to learn more, knock the door”!!! I thought it was fantastic!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
Love,Elder Powell
December 30, 2009
December 28, 2009
Semana 16-Salta
A quick note from mom: Jeff says he CAN receive email from anyone, he just can't email you back. So here is his email address if you care to write-- lamaspowell84@myldsmail.net
¡Hola Todos!
So what’s up with all the hype about 2012??? I can’t tell you how many people have asked about “dos mil doce…”The fireworks are getting a little crazy around here. It’s mostly just the really small but loud firecrackers and other little explosives, but I laugh because it’s only the little kids that are lighting them off!I have more puerta excuses for you: (I ask) “Are you alone?” “Sí.” “Oh, ok well…who’s that in the window?” (yeah, I get that happening a few times); “When is she going to come back?” “Más tarde.” (well duh!); (I ask a kid to get his parents, response after coming back:) “No hay nadie. Están durmiendo.” (so…which is it?)Everyone that asks how old I am goes crazy after I tell them 19. Apparently I look 25 to them! I definitely don’t feel that old!We were walking down the street a few days ago and a random lady walked up behind us and gave us 2 pesos in coins, saying it was for us. We asked her why and she just kinda mumbled and walked off! I wonder if it was fulfilling of Doctrine & Covenants 84:88-89…
One of our new investigators, who has a brother and his family that are members, came up with the idea to read the Book of Mormon with myself, my comp, and her 11-year-old son in English to help them practice speaking it (it’s interesting how much they struggle to pronounce the words; reminds me of a couple months ago!) and get some reading out of the way too! It’s been going pretty well and I hope she progresses well. She attended church this Sunday and she had a great time it seemed! It’s also really interesting how difficult it is to get some of these people in Salta to go to church, let alone just to ours! For goodness sakes, it’s one of the 10 Commandments that they claim to believe and follow! Slowly but surely we’ll make some progress on it out here.
Mom, if you want to get me any songs/talks for the ipod, just put whatever money is necessary on my cpu3140@yahoo.com account on itunes and tell me what you want me to get. I’ll install itunes down here on a comp (I loaded the installer onto the ipod itself so I just plug it in like a usb drive and install it ;) takes like 2 minutes) and get whatever you were going to get.Drew, he estado escribiendo una carta a ti cada semana. Pienso que sabés como está Salta ;) . Si tenés una pregunta especifica, pregúntame. (Notice voseo form ;) pretty sure I did it right)That’s about all I have this week.
Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad!!!
Love,
Elder Powell
¡Hola Todos!
So what’s up with all the hype about 2012??? I can’t tell you how many people have asked about “dos mil doce…”The fireworks are getting a little crazy around here. It’s mostly just the really small but loud firecrackers and other little explosives, but I laugh because it’s only the little kids that are lighting them off!I have more puerta excuses for you: (I ask) “Are you alone?” “Sí.” “Oh, ok well…who’s that in the window?” (yeah, I get that happening a few times); “When is she going to come back?” “Más tarde.” (well duh!); (I ask a kid to get his parents, response after coming back:) “No hay nadie. Están durmiendo.” (so…which is it?)Everyone that asks how old I am goes crazy after I tell them 19. Apparently I look 25 to them! I definitely don’t feel that old!We were walking down the street a few days ago and a random lady walked up behind us and gave us 2 pesos in coins, saying it was for us. We asked her why and she just kinda mumbled and walked off! I wonder if it was fulfilling of Doctrine & Covenants 84:88-89…
One of our new investigators, who has a brother and his family that are members, came up with the idea to read the Book of Mormon with myself, my comp, and her 11-year-old son in English to help them practice speaking it (it’s interesting how much they struggle to pronounce the words; reminds me of a couple months ago!) and get some reading out of the way too! It’s been going pretty well and I hope she progresses well. She attended church this Sunday and she had a great time it seemed! It’s also really interesting how difficult it is to get some of these people in Salta to go to church, let alone just to ours! For goodness sakes, it’s one of the 10 Commandments that they claim to believe and follow! Slowly but surely we’ll make some progress on it out here.
Mom, if you want to get me any songs/talks for the ipod, just put whatever money is necessary on my cpu3140@yahoo.com account on itunes and tell me what you want me to get. I’ll install itunes down here on a comp (I loaded the installer onto the ipod itself so I just plug it in like a usb drive and install it ;) takes like 2 minutes) and get whatever you were going to get.Drew, he estado escribiendo una carta a ti cada semana. Pienso que sabés como está Salta ;) . Si tenés una pregunta especifica, pregúntame. (Notice voseo form ;) pretty sure I did it right)That’s about all I have this week.
Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad!!!
Love,
Elder Powell
Semana 15-Salta
¡Hola Todos!
Respuestas para toda de la familia:Yes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the music, thank you. Nice work with the Big Mac Jason. I remember my first one was given to me by Sis. Briggs during my 7th grade year. I was a little nervous, but I eventually ate it all. You made me laugh when you mentioned learning how to multiply with fractions because of two reasons: I love math :) but also I recently taught a lesson in the house of a math teacher here and she had a white board with all sorts of multiplication rules, including multiply with fractions! My Spanish understanding and speaking abilities are getting better and better everyday—the key is slowly but surely. I’ve been teaching entire lessons to people so I can at least get the message across ok. I’m just working on learning a lifetime of vocab in a few months plus a few phrases here and there that are unique to Spanish. The hardest part really is trying to understand the people speak the language because they speak very fast for what I can understand. But it will come!
You mentioned the Christmas tree—I’d like to mention what Christmas trees are like here. Since everest-type trees don’t exist down here, every Christmas tree is plastic and ranges from 3-5 feet here—just a wee bit different, but it still works! Congratulations Dad on your poster! Glad things turned out well with it. Congrats on having fun with swing dancing too! I’m ok at it, but if you want to see someone that’s good at it, go watch Matt Birch—he’s amazing. I remember Cameron Latimer very well. He’s a good bass singer. That’s great to hear that he’s getting involved in the programs and school. I never was a stage manager actually so he’s taking my spot as well as Jenny & Whitney. The only thing he’s missing is the piano ability ;) Congrats on losing the herbst appliance Jason! Have fun with that because the braces bring a whole new kind of pain ;) I can access your blog...I’m probably not allowed to though, so don’t expect me to go and look. Send Brandon my congratulations with PSU!!! (And a verbal smacking porque él me prometió escribir para que pueda practicar su español…y ¡no he recibido NADA!) Pity points to you, Drew: I remember getting burned out from all the college apps I did…it’s worth it. As for me calling home, every companionship down here has a cellphone, so I’ll be using a calling card (not sure if I can use yours, mom, but they’re cheap down here so I’ll buy a couple and then try yours first) and using our companionship cellphone to call you. I will actually be calling you Monday, the 21st of December around 10:00ish-10:45 my time (I’ll let you determine what time that makes it at home) so that we can set up a time on Friday, the 25th (not sure why, but everyone else does it here, so yeah!) We’ll roughly be calling mid-afternoon here on the 25th so keep the morning sorta free (not too hard, I’m sure ;) )
Alright, on to my past week! Here’s the quote I told you about last week: “At this Christmas season we ought to remember that no gift we have ever received or could ever receive will surpass the wondrous gift of the Atonement. Our joy can be exquisite and sweet, and we have a promise of being in the presence of God. What greater gift in all the world could we hope for? In return, we ought to determine to give all we can to the Savior of all mankind—our total heart and soul, even our very being.” –Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone.I walked into a lunch appointment this week and all of a sudden the father asked me to offer the prayer in English. I was a little shocked, and kinda sad too, because since day 3 in the MTC, I haven’t offered a prayer in English at all! So I broke my pattern this week. It felt a little funky praying in English, I’ll admit, but it shouldn’t be a problem in 21 months when I get back. I’ve started a list of funny excuses that I, and other missionaries, get at doors because they can’t/don’t want to talk to us: “I don’t believe in Jesus Christ” (I noticed she had a nice CHRISTmas tree behind her); “My mom says she’s sleeping” (So what is she doing now...?); (I say..) “We’re looking for [this person]” “She left and I don’t know when she’s coming back!” “Oh, well [this guy] sent us here.” “Oh, that’s my uncle!...(a little later in the discussion) yeah, she’s at work until late tonight.”; “¡No hay nadie!” (and you are....?).I found out my MTC comp is going to be companions with Elder Young’s MTC comp—go figure!More on Argentine culture: you remember how Dad can’t go anywhere without seeing one of his patients? Multiply his problem by like 20 and you have my problem with dogs here—especially the stray street-rat kind! They’re everywhere!!! Luckily it’s mostly the ones that are inside the house fences that bark at us, hopefully it stays like that. The kids all got out of school (as in like school terminated this week, not Christmas break). Another funny thing about this part of Argentina: all of the lawns/grass patches here are small enough that they just use weed whackers as their lawn mowers!I had a little Peruvian moment yesterday (and this story also relates into a fun little challenge for you if you get bored). We were carrying these two 10-kilo bags of flour (not sure what that is in pounds, it felt like 15-20 pounds) to these 2 people for the bishop’s wife (we walked a distance pretty close to our house to Ferris going down regal, and then walking to the Finn’s after that (We only touched about 1/3 to 1/2 of our area too)). My arms were getting sweating from carrying it low and my shoulders were hurting a little too, so I tried it on my head. By far it was so much easier! Of course, my head was completely soaked afterwards from sweat!I tried my first blood sausage yesterday...yeah it wasn’t too bad if I just mashed it all in with my rice :P
We had this random boy stop us in the street last night as we were walking home. He was 15 and was asking all sorts of questions about who we were, what we were doing, and about the church as well. It turns out his family is all staunch-Catholics, but he doesn’t like nor agree with the religion at all. He even brought up possibly wanting to be baptized in some other religion—we were happy to get his phone number so that we could meet with him this week in the chapel (with a member present of course ;) )!!!Well, that’s all I jotted down to write home this week! Hope all is well at home and that things are winding down for the big day!
Love,
Elder Powell
Respuestas para toda de la familia:Yes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the music, thank you. Nice work with the Big Mac Jason. I remember my first one was given to me by Sis. Briggs during my 7th grade year. I was a little nervous, but I eventually ate it all. You made me laugh when you mentioned learning how to multiply with fractions because of two reasons: I love math :) but also I recently taught a lesson in the house of a math teacher here and she had a white board with all sorts of multiplication rules, including multiply with fractions! My Spanish understanding and speaking abilities are getting better and better everyday—the key is slowly but surely. I’ve been teaching entire lessons to people so I can at least get the message across ok. I’m just working on learning a lifetime of vocab in a few months plus a few phrases here and there that are unique to Spanish. The hardest part really is trying to understand the people speak the language because they speak very fast for what I can understand. But it will come!
You mentioned the Christmas tree—I’d like to mention what Christmas trees are like here. Since everest-type trees don’t exist down here, every Christmas tree is plastic and ranges from 3-5 feet here—just a wee bit different, but it still works! Congratulations Dad on your poster! Glad things turned out well with it. Congrats on having fun with swing dancing too! I’m ok at it, but if you want to see someone that’s good at it, go watch Matt Birch—he’s amazing. I remember Cameron Latimer very well. He’s a good bass singer. That’s great to hear that he’s getting involved in the programs and school. I never was a stage manager actually so he’s taking my spot as well as Jenny & Whitney. The only thing he’s missing is the piano ability ;) Congrats on losing the herbst appliance Jason! Have fun with that because the braces bring a whole new kind of pain ;) I can access your blog...I’m probably not allowed to though, so don’t expect me to go and look. Send Brandon my congratulations with PSU!!! (And a verbal smacking porque él me prometió escribir para que pueda practicar su español…y ¡no he recibido NADA!) Pity points to you, Drew: I remember getting burned out from all the college apps I did…it’s worth it. As for me calling home, every companionship down here has a cellphone, so I’ll be using a calling card (not sure if I can use yours, mom, but they’re cheap down here so I’ll buy a couple and then try yours first) and using our companionship cellphone to call you. I will actually be calling you Monday, the 21st of December around 10:00ish-10:45 my time (I’ll let you determine what time that makes it at home) so that we can set up a time on Friday, the 25th (not sure why, but everyone else does it here, so yeah!) We’ll roughly be calling mid-afternoon here on the 25th so keep the morning sorta free (not too hard, I’m sure ;) )
Alright, on to my past week! Here’s the quote I told you about last week: “At this Christmas season we ought to remember that no gift we have ever received or could ever receive will surpass the wondrous gift of the Atonement. Our joy can be exquisite and sweet, and we have a promise of being in the presence of God. What greater gift in all the world could we hope for? In return, we ought to determine to give all we can to the Savior of all mankind—our total heart and soul, even our very being.” –Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone.I walked into a lunch appointment this week and all of a sudden the father asked me to offer the prayer in English. I was a little shocked, and kinda sad too, because since day 3 in the MTC, I haven’t offered a prayer in English at all! So I broke my pattern this week. It felt a little funky praying in English, I’ll admit, but it shouldn’t be a problem in 21 months when I get back. I’ve started a list of funny excuses that I, and other missionaries, get at doors because they can’t/don’t want to talk to us: “I don’t believe in Jesus Christ” (I noticed she had a nice CHRISTmas tree behind her); “My mom says she’s sleeping” (So what is she doing now...?); (I say..) “We’re looking for [this person]” “She left and I don’t know when she’s coming back!” “Oh, well [this guy] sent us here.” “Oh, that’s my uncle!...(a little later in the discussion) yeah, she’s at work until late tonight.”; “¡No hay nadie!” (and you are....?).I found out my MTC comp is going to be companions with Elder Young’s MTC comp—go figure!More on Argentine culture: you remember how Dad can’t go anywhere without seeing one of his patients? Multiply his problem by like 20 and you have my problem with dogs here—especially the stray street-rat kind! They’re everywhere!!! Luckily it’s mostly the ones that are inside the house fences that bark at us, hopefully it stays like that. The kids all got out of school (as in like school terminated this week, not Christmas break). Another funny thing about this part of Argentina: all of the lawns/grass patches here are small enough that they just use weed whackers as their lawn mowers!I had a little Peruvian moment yesterday (and this story also relates into a fun little challenge for you if you get bored). We were carrying these two 10-kilo bags of flour (not sure what that is in pounds, it felt like 15-20 pounds) to these 2 people for the bishop’s wife (we walked a distance pretty close to our house to Ferris going down regal, and then walking to the Finn’s after that (We only touched about 1/3 to 1/2 of our area too)). My arms were getting sweating from carrying it low and my shoulders were hurting a little too, so I tried it on my head. By far it was so much easier! Of course, my head was completely soaked afterwards from sweat!I tried my first blood sausage yesterday...yeah it wasn’t too bad if I just mashed it all in with my rice :P
We had this random boy stop us in the street last night as we were walking home. He was 15 and was asking all sorts of questions about who we were, what we were doing, and about the church as well. It turns out his family is all staunch-Catholics, but he doesn’t like nor agree with the religion at all. He even brought up possibly wanting to be baptized in some other religion—we were happy to get his phone number so that we could meet with him this week in the chapel (with a member present of course ;) )!!!Well, that’s all I jotted down to write home this week! Hope all is well at home and that things are winding down for the big day!
Love,
Elder Powell
December 11, 2009
Semana 14-Salta
¡Hola de Argentina!
Bowling was fine. They didn't care what shoes we wore and the whole thing was using a different piece of technology--the pins were attached to long, thin chains and the display screens were a little old-looking, but it worked so I'll take it.We're able to sing the hymns just fine. English and Spanish hymns don't literally translate between each other. Spanish kinda rewords and uses slightly different phrasing to give the same feeling to the text as you would feel if you sang it in English. The new missionaries are the only ones that really have the LDS bible right now. It's not the cheapest and easiest book to come around after all. It's nice, but the real meat is the Spanish Book of Mormon because the topical guide and bible dictionary in the English bible are taken out of the Spanish bible and combined into one 'Guia para Estudiar las Escrituras' in the back of the Spanish Book of Mormon.Things are going great with the trainer. He does most of the 'getting to know you' talking, and then hands me the teaching torch. I'm getting more and more involved as the days go by though. The toughest is just understanding the people--I can talk just fine. I either lack vocab or the people really don't speak well at all--one of the two causes me problems, but I'm working on it.
Mom's Email:Ouch, Drew drove to Tacoma?! At least I only have to walk 30 minutes to play my instrument!I loved the pictures! No snow though? That's too bad. Speaking of weather, you know how I said that it was blazing hot here? Yeah...the past week has taken a turn and mimicked common Seattle weather--cloudy, chilly (by Argentine standards of course ;) ), drizzly, and occasionally raining. It's kinda funky, but I'll go with it. The mini wheats pic was crazy! I think that was actually 9 on there, not 6. I took a picture of a mini-wheat chain of 4 before--it's hidden somewhere in my misc. pictures on the laptop. I liked the Creche pic too--good job with that! Good luck getting people there.That was a good idea to donate for Christmas! I was given a little quote this past week related to giving a gift to Jesus--I'll remember to bring it next week. The boxes were actually waiting for me when I got here. Nobody told me to pay anything though...so they were free for me at least.....it didn't look like anyone opened them up though.I'll definitely keep the piano going (I HATE playing the Christmas hymns...they had to be the most difficult out of all the hymns to play...) I don't think a choir would be quite feasible--95% of the members can't really sing :P
Well as for my past week, the big highlight was my first 2 baptismal dates! I hope our plans for the 2nd of January and the 16th of January follow through! We had zone conference this past week so I got to see President Northcutt and Hna. Northcutt again. I could only understand about 50% of the various talks given, but it was still nice. We had a wonderful lunch, a scripture chase competition between my zone and the other that was there with us, and we even acted out the nativity scene! Of course, I was on piano duty, playing EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Christmas songs......I think I may need to go write my own arrangements of the Christmas hymns so that I can stop trying to sight read all of them. This past Sunday, during the first few testimonies (which I had a tough time understanding anyways), I worked on writing out the chords to Angels We Have Heard on High in the hymn book so that I could somewhat-fake the closing hymn! We'll see...P-day was great today! We made peach pancakes for breakfast and then our zone went hiking with the other Salta zone and we got lots of great pictures. It was drizzling/raining the whole time, but we loved it!1 transfer down this next week, 14-or-so to go!Mucho Amor,-Elder Powell-
Bowling was fine. They didn't care what shoes we wore and the whole thing was using a different piece of technology--the pins were attached to long, thin chains and the display screens were a little old-looking, but it worked so I'll take it.We're able to sing the hymns just fine. English and Spanish hymns don't literally translate between each other. Spanish kinda rewords and uses slightly different phrasing to give the same feeling to the text as you would feel if you sang it in English. The new missionaries are the only ones that really have the LDS bible right now. It's not the cheapest and easiest book to come around after all. It's nice, but the real meat is the Spanish Book of Mormon because the topical guide and bible dictionary in the English bible are taken out of the Spanish bible and combined into one 'Guia para Estudiar las Escrituras' in the back of the Spanish Book of Mormon.Things are going great with the trainer. He does most of the 'getting to know you' talking, and then hands me the teaching torch. I'm getting more and more involved as the days go by though. The toughest is just understanding the people--I can talk just fine. I either lack vocab or the people really don't speak well at all--one of the two causes me problems, but I'm working on it.
Mom's Email:Ouch, Drew drove to Tacoma?! At least I only have to walk 30 minutes to play my instrument!I loved the pictures! No snow though? That's too bad. Speaking of weather, you know how I said that it was blazing hot here? Yeah...the past week has taken a turn and mimicked common Seattle weather--cloudy, chilly (by Argentine standards of course ;) ), drizzly, and occasionally raining. It's kinda funky, but I'll go with it. The mini wheats pic was crazy! I think that was actually 9 on there, not 6. I took a picture of a mini-wheat chain of 4 before--it's hidden somewhere in my misc. pictures on the laptop. I liked the Creche pic too--good job with that! Good luck getting people there.That was a good idea to donate for Christmas! I was given a little quote this past week related to giving a gift to Jesus--I'll remember to bring it next week. The boxes were actually waiting for me when I got here. Nobody told me to pay anything though...so they were free for me at least.....it didn't look like anyone opened them up though.I'll definitely keep the piano going (I HATE playing the Christmas hymns...they had to be the most difficult out of all the hymns to play...) I don't think a choir would be quite feasible--95% of the members can't really sing :P
Well as for my past week, the big highlight was my first 2 baptismal dates! I hope our plans for the 2nd of January and the 16th of January follow through! We had zone conference this past week so I got to see President Northcutt and Hna. Northcutt again. I could only understand about 50% of the various talks given, but it was still nice. We had a wonderful lunch, a scripture chase competition between my zone and the other that was there with us, and we even acted out the nativity scene! Of course, I was on piano duty, playing EVERY SINGLE ONE of the Christmas songs......I think I may need to go write my own arrangements of the Christmas hymns so that I can stop trying to sight read all of them. This past Sunday, during the first few testimonies (which I had a tough time understanding anyways), I worked on writing out the chords to Angels We Have Heard on High in the hymn book so that I could somewhat-fake the closing hymn! We'll see...P-day was great today! We made peach pancakes for breakfast and then our zone went hiking with the other Salta zone and we got lots of great pictures. It was drizzling/raining the whole time, but we loved it!1 transfer down this next week, 14-or-so to go!Mucho Amor,-Elder Powell-
December 1, 2009
semana 13
¡Hola Todos!
Some quick clarifiers: that washer and dryer are both electric ;) The washer is just a little slower but works and the dryer just rotates ridiculously fast so the water is squished out the sides of the barrel; yes, drunk people talk slower, but they also talk quieter and they slur their words, so it's counter-helpful at the same time; with the 3 packages you sent, only 1 said "for x-mas eve", does this mean I get to open the other 2?! :)
Alright, on to this past week! I had another funny contact. We were walking along and a man started walking beside us, so we started talking with him. He pretty quickly sat at a little empanada station and offered us some. I hesitated, but sat down, pulled out a pamphlet, and started teaching him while we ate the empanadas! He "had to leave" halfway through and "lived on the street" (so we couldn't really "come back"), but I got free empanadas off of it!
All 8 of the elders in our district actually did celebrate Thanksgiving! We bought some cooked chickens, bread, gaseosas (soda), and made mashed potatoes and jello and ate it all for lunch, which is actually the biggest meal of the day--breakfast doesn't really exist and dinner is nothing too big either...so we have lunch appointments instead of dinner appointments. Anyways, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for (in Spanish of course) and it was pretty great!I saw my first aloe vera plant the other day. Totally looked weird with the lime-green juice coming out of the leaf!
My first day of regular church was interesting but good. We spent the first hour (priesthood/relief society) greeting everyone and waiting for investigators, the second hour (sunday school) going on splits to find investigator's we had invited that weren't at church (all of them), and then I walked into sacrament meeting with 1 investigator during the opening song...no piano player and everyone was sorta half mumbling-singing Onward Christian Soldiers. The bishop quickly motioned for me to play the remaining songs of the meeting. They actually have an electric roland piano that feels and plays somewhat close to ours at home, but less sophisticated (no screen). No other pianos in the entire building! I'll get some pictures sometime.
Today was a fun p-day! We went out of the slightly poorer areas that we've been working in and headed to El Centro to do some shopping around. I got my first authentic Argentina jersey! We then headed to a big all-in-one shopping store called Libertad where we bowled, ate lunch, and did some last-minute grocery shopping. It was about as Americanized as I can get around here, except for this place called Chango Más, which apparently is like an Argentine Walmart.No baptisms yet, but we have a few that we're going to set baptismal dates for soon, so in a few weeks probably! I'm always excited to talk to these people!Well, that's about it for this week.
Love you all tons!!!
-Elder Powell-
Some quick clarifiers: that washer and dryer are both electric ;) The washer is just a little slower but works and the dryer just rotates ridiculously fast so the water is squished out the sides of the barrel; yes, drunk people talk slower, but they also talk quieter and they slur their words, so it's counter-helpful at the same time; with the 3 packages you sent, only 1 said "for x-mas eve", does this mean I get to open the other 2?! :)
Alright, on to this past week! I had another funny contact. We were walking along and a man started walking beside us, so we started talking with him. He pretty quickly sat at a little empanada station and offered us some. I hesitated, but sat down, pulled out a pamphlet, and started teaching him while we ate the empanadas! He "had to leave" halfway through and "lived on the street" (so we couldn't really "come back"), but I got free empanadas off of it!
All 8 of the elders in our district actually did celebrate Thanksgiving! We bought some cooked chickens, bread, gaseosas (soda), and made mashed potatoes and jello and ate it all for lunch, which is actually the biggest meal of the day--breakfast doesn't really exist and dinner is nothing too big either...so we have lunch appointments instead of dinner appointments. Anyways, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for (in Spanish of course) and it was pretty great!I saw my first aloe vera plant the other day. Totally looked weird with the lime-green juice coming out of the leaf!
My first day of regular church was interesting but good. We spent the first hour (priesthood/relief society) greeting everyone and waiting for investigators, the second hour (sunday school) going on splits to find investigator's we had invited that weren't at church (all of them), and then I walked into sacrament meeting with 1 investigator during the opening song...no piano player and everyone was sorta half mumbling-singing Onward Christian Soldiers. The bishop quickly motioned for me to play the remaining songs of the meeting. They actually have an electric roland piano that feels and plays somewhat close to ours at home, but less sophisticated (no screen). No other pianos in the entire building! I'll get some pictures sometime.
Today was a fun p-day! We went out of the slightly poorer areas that we've been working in and headed to El Centro to do some shopping around. I got my first authentic Argentina jersey! We then headed to a big all-in-one shopping store called Libertad where we bowled, ate lunch, and did some last-minute grocery shopping. It was about as Americanized as I can get around here, except for this place called Chango Más, which apparently is like an Argentine Walmart.No baptisms yet, but we have a few that we're going to set baptismal dates for soon, so in a few weeks probably! I'm always excited to talk to these people!Well, that's about it for this week.
Love you all tons!!!
-Elder Powell-
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