Semana 37 - Yuto

Hola Todos,

Lots of stuff to mention in this week's letter! The circus came to town on Tuesday! Pictures of that and more at picasaweb.google.com/cpu3140

We had divisions on Wednesday to help us get some missionary work as well as branch presidency work done for this week. It was super helpful and we finished off the week with fantastic numbers! We hope to have a few baptisms this upcoming Sunday!

 

Tomorrow is a very important day for Argentina. May 25, 2010 marks 200 years since the first governor of Argentina--the whole town put on a big celebration on Friday because all the school kids had presentations, costumes, and such for the festival. It was really cool to see all the decorations and to share this special holiday with everyone here. I will admit, it was a little awkward when they sang the enormously-long Argentine national anthem...I just kinda stood there, lips shut, listening to their rather quiet voices singing the song--the people of northern Argentina don't really like to sing at any moment it seems. Lots of photos of everything at that website too.

 

We had district conference (equivalent to stake conference) on Sunday, which means we had to organize a whole 'nother 2-hour trip just like General Conference to head out there. The only difference was that we left at 8:00 am...super early for these late-risers! We brought 53 to the conference, which was still a good number, especially because 8 weren't members either! When we walked in, I caught President Northcutt and his wife on the stand, but Elder Diaz of the 70 definitely wasn't there. Turns out his daughter-in-law had an epileptic attack and passed away the day before, so he couldn't make it out here! The conference was still nice though and we heard some nice talks. Our choir was assigned the closing hymn slot. As we walked up there, I noticed that every single person in the choir got stage fright...quick! I didn't realize I had made a mistake in having them memorize the song so that they could follow the director (wasn't me, I was playing the piano). We sang 'Joseph Smith's First Prayer', but I wrote a quick arrangement where it sings normally the first two verses, but then I take a moment in the middle to transition to the music of 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing'. We then finish off the last 2 verses there. The switch was a little rough because I was switching from a 4/4 to a 3/4, from the key of A to the key of C--for musicians, that's a little rough because the switch sounds a little minorish--but I got it to work in the end. The singers all did well even with their stage fright, but as we picked up to sing the 3rd verse, they all skipped the 3rd verse on accident and sang the 4th verse! Luckily they all made the same mistake and just went with it, so I cued the director to just cut off the song there, and no one caught the mistake! We got lots of great comments from everyone, which was definitely relieving. Now I just hope I haven't scarred the choir members for life :P I think they'll be alright.

 

Things are starting to pick up for World Cup season--it starts in a few more weeks! Elder Sangroni has asked a few people this week if they watch World Cup. We were discussing the question though and we realized that the question here actually implies something totally different than expected: he's not asking whether or not they watch World Cup, his implied question is whether they watch every match possible, or just the ones where Argentina is playing! It's super interesting to see how these humble residents of Yuto still have this concept of World Cup embedded in their heads that is distinct from how we view sports in the US. It's kinda close to how lots go crazy about the NCAA tournament in the US, predicting the charts and everything. We've got the charts for World Cup all over down here too. Speaking of different concepts of soccer, another weird question is this one: just like 'What's your name?', 'How old are you?', and "Where are you from?' are basic get-to-know-you questions, another valid and normal question is "¿De qué equipo sos?" (more or less 'What team are you from')! It's as if you're born into a team because you can ask the kids too and they'll name off their team!!! Here in northern Argentina, you normally get one of 2 teams: Boca or River. It's a country-wide rivalry. It's hard to comprehend the rivalry if you're not here, but trust me, it's big.

 

Well that's about all I have to ramble about for now. Have a good week!

-Elder Powell- 

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