semana 26-Yuto

¡Hola Todos!
Haha, I thought about Captain Moroni taking the lead of all the armies of the Nephites when he was just 25 when Dad mentioned the difference between him being first counselor at 43 and me at 19! :P Doesn't mean the job isn't tough though. We have to try and find a good balance between doing our normal missionary work and visiting our members constantly. We have some 130 members in the directory with an average of 40ish attending church regularly. Only 26 came to church yesterday though, so we have plenty of less-active work to do here. With all these people that have been in the church for just a few months to a few years, and taking into account the type of people that are living here, we really can't trust anyone to be active enough that we don't need to worry too much about them. They haven't quite built up the resistance of "...but I need to get to church" yet, if you know what I mean. More on the area in a sec, I wanna take care of responding to the email first.
Dad's neurology board reminded me of exams at BYU...not quite as bad, but I too kinda lose focus at about the 2-hour mark. Nick: Your letters still come to me in English. I can download something from Google though and make it translate if I want to though. Hope you had fun with skiing and I hope you have fun with the new DVR. Don't watch too much tv! Take advantage of the USA and drink water from the sink (because it's clean), roll around in the front/backyard (because there's grass there (oh wait, I forgot it's winter right now :P )), and do your laundry (because technology there is a wonderful thing)! Speaking of, there was a question about laundry: it's pretty much the same. I fill this automatic-washing tub with water, dump some soap in, toss clothes in, and just turn it on. The dryer is just a metal cylinder with holes in the sides. I'll toss a few clothes in and turn it on, after which it just spins rediculously fast until I decide the clothes are as dry as they will get, and then I hang-dry them the rest of the way. As for living conditions...we have beds, a fan, a sink (that gives bad drinking water), a fridge/freezer combo, a toilet (with an interesting flush system, but it works), a bathroom sink, and...the shower......which doesn't have hot water. Remember carpet doesn't exist here--everything's concrete, brick, wood, or beaten-up tile. To get a warm shower, we have to boil up a pot of water, (stand on a chair to be able to) pour it into a little tub up above in the bathroom, and then fill up the rest with the cold water. Unfortunately Elder Sangroni got a nifty little burn on his stomach a few days ago, so we've gotta work on being really careful! Oh yeah, lots of little critters too--mostly spiders and cockroaches. I've heard rumors of a few scorpions too. Good news though: we're moving to a small house soon. We're on good terms with a nearby shop-owner and he was renting out this little house. The missionaries before talked with him and he agreed to rent it out to us! Apparently there's air conditioning in there, so I have a better hope for a safer warm shower!
As for being in the branch presidency, we're having a branch council meeting tonight for the first time in awhile. There aren't too many callings to discuss as we don't really have priesthood-holders in the branch--a good group of young men though. I've already helped set people apart at BYU, so that's not terribly new. Elder Sangroni, from Buenos Aires, just has 6 months left in the mission, so he's been out for awhile. We've been doing really well together, especially because he lived in the pension with me during my first transfer out, so we already knew each other.
Speaking of church, I'm in charge of helping out in the primary. Turns out the presidency didn't show up so I got to wing a lesson for the 6 kids that were there. I actually skipped this week's lesson and taught next week's because it was on an Old Testament story that I had no clue what it was about! I need to read the Bible really bad if I'm going to teach it...especially in Spanish! Unfortunately I definitely don't have time for that out here...I'm also teaching piano every Tuesday and running the ward choir Sunday nights! It's pretty crazy!
Yuto is super small. It's very likely that a random person will know another random person. I've seen plenty of animals: dogs, cats, goats, chickens, roosters, horses, pigs, ducks, frogs (there are these frogs that make these bomb-dropping sound effects; it's so weird!), and all sorts of critters--including a praying mantis! Asphault really doesn't exist here. I often see 14-year-olds riding the family motorcycle around town (motorcycle is the vehicle of choice in northern Argentina apparently). I've used a toilet that was a wooden box over a hole in the ground. Addresses don't exist: often in the church directory, there are addresses such as "such-and-such barrio (it's like neighborhood), 2nd street, 2nd-to-last house on the right" and we can find the house pretty well. When something happens in Yuto, you'll hear about it within a day or so, or see it. And that darn siesta still hasn't disappeared either. The stars are super-pretty at night though!
Quick funniness: apparently Elder Sangroni's dad's and uncle's birthdays are the same as my birthday...go figure! A quick heads us (full caps because it's important) DON'T SEND PACKAGES THROUGH FEDEX OR DHL: apparently a package costed us roughly $350 to pick up...and the missionary has to pay it.
That's about all I have for this week. I'll let you all in on the fun details of Yuto in the coming months that I'm here!
Love,
Elder Powell