Kissing and the Pintufo

Buen dìa! I hope that everything is going well in the States! Elder Ryan and I just realized that we missed April Fool`s Day! Dah! We`ve got to stay on top of those Holidays.

Pintufo (peen-too-foe): smurf

The police here dress in all royal blue. They look like big smurfs so their "street name" is pintufo. Hopefully I don`t have to write about them more in the future. 

Kissing

The way people greet each other here is with a little kiss on the cheek. They don´t actually kiss each other, they just make a little smooch sound. My companion informed me that missionaries aren´t allowed to do it.

A week ago, we were in a lesson with Pablo, a twenty year old baker. We teach him in his cute family bakery. Just as we were leaving, his mom (who is of a grandmotherly age) came in. Apparently I was in striking distance when I shook her hand because she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I didn´t know what to do so I made the little smooch sound back. Op. There goes my first kiss.

Doors

The doors here are a little different. Half of them have door knobs and the other half don´t. To exit those that don´t have knobs you need the key. This is fine unless you don´t have the key.

Last Tuesday, Elder Ryan and I had an adventure with our door. We walked out of our pension door, closed it, and then realized that neither of us had the keys. We ended up taping four broom handles together that we borrowed from a neighbor and reaching the keys from our sliding glass door (the sliding glass door can open but it has another door made of bars that prevent you from entering). I`ll attach a picture of our broom-stick-key-retriever.

Elder Ryan

Elder Ryan is fantastic. I left home worried about getting along with my companions and have thus far been blessed with who I believe to be the kindest, most genuine companions in my mission (Elder Pratt from the CCM and Elder Ryan). I love Elder Ryan because he tells me exactly what he is thinking. He is always focused on the people we are teaching and is extremely patient with my newness. And he bakes cookies.

That is a good companion.

The Hermana that sends you pictures is named Flaviana Maza. She is about 40 years old and has been a member for 1 year. Hermana Maza is the missionary mom. She feeds us once a week and always invites us over. Right now, we are working with her and her family to invite their friends to church. Hna Maza is the best!

Elder Ryan and I get along really well! He has been in the mission field for 9 months and is already a trainer. We like to sing together in the pension. He doesn´t have much technical music experience but he is really interested in it. E. Ryan is focused on the goals. We have 4 different goals that we set for our week and he is always thinking about what the goals are and what we need to get done today to achieve our goals.

We communicate very well. Fortunately, Elder Ryan is patient and can handle my bluntness and desire to improve. Whenever there is a problem, we talk about it right then. I´m am grateful that he listens to me. I have so little experience in the field that he could easily tell me that I don´t know what I´m talking about. However, he always listens. 

We have some in common. Elder Ryan played basketball in high school and is really into sports. Also, he is planning on attending BYU. I have been giving him the run down of BYU and how great it is. 

Other Things

• I weighed in yesterday at 83 kilograms. I won´t convert that to pounds for you but I will tell you that I have set a goal to eat only one treat a day this week. 
• The nickname for blond people in the ghetto is soup (sopa)
• God loves you and has a plan for you. 

I love you guys! Have an awesome week!
Elder Smith

Pictures

1. Elder Ryan and I after successfully getting the keys
2. Lunch
3. Soccer with our district on PDay

Perks of the mission: keys to the basketball court

Satans biggest lies

Felices Pascua! I hope you had a great Easter! JL Suarez had a wonderful Holy Week and is ready to get back to a normal schedule.

Trucho (t-d-oo-ch-oh): trick

Lies

I will use this word while describing Satan´s biggest lie: Les Mis with Hugh Jackman and Russell Crow. This may be a shock to you but this is not actually Les Mis. The movie is called Les Mis, it has words from Les Mis, it even has the character names from Les Mis, but alas, it is not Les Mis, it´s a fake.

The real Les Mis is beautiful and is among the most incredible musical arrangements that you will ever hear. It brings inspiration and joy into my life. The Les Mis with Russell Crow is a trucho. Satan uses this trucho Les Mis to keep people from the true source of joy which is the Broadway Les Mis with Terrance Mann. If you have fallen for this trick, don´t worry, you can repent. Even righteous missionaries like my companion Elder Ryan have fallen for this trick. There are many that are "kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it." (D&C 123:12)

You now know where to find the true Les Mis--Original Broadway Cast with Terrance Mann--go and fill your soul.

The second lie that I want to talk about is surprisingly similar and a tad bit more serious. This is that God has already revealed all that He will reveal. Satan uses an array of things to keep people from the truth. Among his strategies is the belief that one already has all of the truth and doesn´t need any more. I talk with many people that believe they have all of the words of God. The idea that the Bible isn´t all there is seems silly to them. I would like to testify that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that the Book of Mormon comes from God and that God has more to reveal to us. There is always more to learn.

Ice Cream

I´m not sure if I mentioned this before but Argentina has really good ice cream. This last Thursday we had an ice cream party on the top of our apartment building. It was incredible! At night, you can see the city expand in every direction. I could not see an end of skyscrapers and apartment buildings in any direction! It is amazing.

Pascua/Easter

In Buenos Aires, they celebrate the Holy Week. Each day of the past week was celebrated in a different way depending on what Christ did in the corresponding day of the last week of His mortal life. I can´t remember all of the days. I remember on Friday there was a huge parade of people walking down the streets with a giant cross. They knocked on all the doors that they passed and invited everyone to join them in the parade.

On Saturday, everybody slept. All day. Usually people take a nap (siesta) from 1ish to 3ish but apparently sleeping all day is a good way to remember that Christ´s body was in the tomb.

Sunday was an all day party. There was music and a lot of chocolate. This is the day of the Holy week that Christ rose from the dead! I loved the spirit of church this day! We sang a lot of hymns and heard very simple, powerful testimonies that Christ lives.

Otras Cosas

• President Russell M. Nelson (an apostle in the church) came and spoke to my mission! He taught us to remember who we are and to teach others who they are. 
• Elder Ryan and I ate chocolate eggs to celebrate Easter!
• Laura, on of the ladies we´ve been teaching was baptized yesterday!
• Pro Spanish Tip: the letter "d" makes that "th" sound not the "d" sound.
• Don´t lock your keys into your apartment

I love you!

Elder Smith

Picture 1: Laura´s Baptism
Picture 2: Elders 

¿Còmo anda? How do you walk?

Hola from Buenos Aires!

I have had a crazy week. Zone conference, moving pensions, sick Elders, exchanges, delivery ice cream, my first rain storm, pum, and a baptism.

 But first, what I have learned.

¿Còmo anda? (coh-moh ah-n-tha)

This is the most common greeting that I get. It is used like the English phrase "What`s up" or "How are you?"  However, it literally translates into "How do you walk?" I love this question. I could extract some deep doctrinal thought from this phrase but instead I just invite you to think about how you walk. Are you kind? Are you happy? Are you loving? Think about it.

Pum (p-oo-m)

I have used this word already so I thought it would be good to explain what it is. As far as I know, it means nothing. It´s just an onomatopoeia. Missionaries here use it when talking about a miracle or something crazy happening.In Brazil this is the onomatopoeia for a fart. Be careful how you use slang.

Trains

We ride trains every day. This Wednesday, we had a zone conference with 30 other missionaries in downtown Buenos Aires. We took a train to get there. In the conference, President Smith asked us "How many people did you talk with on the train ride here?" Every missionary in the conference answered with some embarrassment, "zero". (insert a lecture on being a representative of Christ in all places here) We were encouraged to improve our efforts to talk to everyone. So, while waiting at the train station to head home, we talked with everyone. To the disappointment of lots of future train passengers, the train was late, so they all got the chance to chat with us. Between the 6 Elders that were at the station, we talked with over 150 people. Ha! Only one person out of the 150 we talked to was interested but it felt so good to work and share the gospel with everyone we could.

When the train finally came, it was already packed! Everyone got on anyways. The only time I have ever felt so squished was when we fit the whole drumline into Tori Roberts´ Ford Ranger. It was a tight ride home. On the bright side, I didn´t have to hold onto anything to stay standing while the train accelerated. 

Blessings

God does his own work. After the zone conference, E. Ryan and I decided to pick up our contacting efforts. We contacted in the bus, in the train, in the street, with the moving company, with the secretary who was doing our paperwork, with the garbage man, everyone. We have been borderline obnoxious in how much we contact people. But, God helped us. None of the people we contacted by our own efforts this week were interested in the gospel. However, we ended the week with 9 new people to teach. We found these people in ways such as receiving a text from an old investigator who said their neighbor had just died and their wife wanted to meet with us. Or, an investigator wasn´t home when we had scheduled a visit but their uncle was home and was interested in the gospel. Many miracles like this showed me that God prepares the people to receive the gospel and leads us to them when we are willing to give all that we have.

Ivan is an example of God preparing the hearts of His children. We met Ivan two weeks ago at church. He came up to us after sacrament and said, "hey, I want you guys to teach me." Wuah, what? Ivan is the son of a member and in the past has been apathetic towards the gospel. He was what we call a chorro (kind of like a gangster). But something changed in the last few months. Through the miraculous power and mercy of God, Ivan experienced an Alma-like change of heart. He is now the most humble and diligent person I know. I would write more of his story but I don´t want this email to get too long and I don´t really know his story because he shares everything in Castellano. Eh, I´m still learning. I can gather that he is repentant and he wants to become better! Ivan´s baptism was this last Sunday!

Bad News

• we moved pensions and no longer have a spiral staircase
• abrasion increases when it rains
• Some old man on the bus thinks I teach about false prophets and yelled at me a lot in Spanish.

Good News!

• our new pension has a bidet and is 6 stories tall! The rooftop deck now has a much better view.
• I got to use my umbrella! Thank you, Lindsey. It works very well.
• Everyone on that bus now knows the name of Joseph Smith and is one step closer to receiving the restored gospel of Jesus Christ
• Delivery ice cream
• letters! The mission office gave me all the letters from my family and my FHE family!

Have a wonderful week!
Elder Smith

Pictures

1. E. Ryan, E. Taptia, yo, E. Scarber. This is our view from the top of the pension. We live in the city about 40 minutes from our area.

2. E. Ryan, Ivan, me

3. E. Ryan, Ivan, yo

 with the family of Ivan

4. moving into the new pension

5. Contacting at a train station

Not worth it

Hehe, gotcha!

Every time I write an email, siempre me falta a title, or in email lingo, a "subject." I have no clue what to call my email. Especially during my mission. Every email I write is going to be about the same thing. So, despite the wise instruction of my writing professor to always have a catchy title, I am going to stop using the subject line. It´s not worth it to spend the time thinking of a clever title that will most likely end up sounding cheesy or generic. Instead, I will type cool Spanish words that you can learn and use to impress other gringos. We will have fun together! If you want, you can email me and tell me how you used your newly acquired knowledge.

Palabra del Día: villa (vee-shah) = ghetto

I believe that this word means a nice or rich area of town in other Spanish-speaking countries but in Buenos Aires (and maybe all of Argentina?) it means the ghetto. The ghetto, the hood, the slums. Yep. That´s what it means.

Cars

The streets in Buenos Aires are loco. There are rarely lane lines and when there are they are not followed. Drivers swerve, peel out, and yes, crash all of the time. The police here are constantly cleaning up roads after crashes. They also burn cars here. In the streets. I´m not confident why but I´ve been told by other missionaries that some people do it for fun. We will we walking down a street to a appointment and see a huge cloud of smoke rising from the next block. As soon as we see it, we know that some sedan will be on fire around the next corner.

We never use or ride in cars. Whenever we need to travel more than 3 miles or so we take the bus. Buses are as crazy if not more crazy than the cars when they drive. On the way to the chapel this morning, Elder Ryan and I took a bus. It was essentially empty so we sat in the back (the best seats). When the bus flew over bumps or pot-holes in the road, the back seats would throw us into the air. My record for the week is about 8 inches off of the seat! Me gusta colectivos.

How is the van doing? Is tithing still keeping it alive? Also, how is the truck running? I hope Andrew puts it to good use. Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!!!! You will be 16 in one day. Wow. Que loco. You are a stud.

How to Clean

We always see people cleaning while we walk the streets. They wash their cars, floors, and driveways using the same method. Here are the steps:

1. Acquire an absurdly large squeegy (no clue how to spell that, it´s called a secador in castellano).
2.Ensure access to a large amount of water. A garden hose is usually sufficient.
3. Select something to clean (we used this method to clean our kitchen floor today so I´ll use this as an example application of this method)
4. Using your water source (we used our detachable shower head) create a small lake on the kitchen floor
5. Push the lake around with your squeegy so that all of the floor gets wet
6. Finally, use the squeegy to push all of the water out your front door into the street. Your floor is now clean.

This is how everything is cleaned here. We cleaned our kitchen and bathroom this morning and then turned our stairs into a waterfall. Did I tell you that we live in a pention on top of another house? I love it. We have a spiral staircase that leads up to our front door. We also have a rooftop patio. I´m not sure why but it makes me so happy. We also have cool house keys. They look like pirate keys to a treasure chest.

La Obra (the work)

We experience daily miracles in José León Suarez. On Friday, Elder Ryan and I were finishing up a long day with limited success. We had spent a lot of time in one of our villas trying to track down old investigators and contact people on the street. A group of three evanjelios seemed like promising contacts but then started bible-bashing us. It´s impossible to have the Spirit with us when we´re bible bashing so we politely ended the conversation and kept trying to talking to other people on the street. We eventually got to the door of who we thought was an old investigator (we had looked up their address morning and were planning on asking them for references). We clapped at their gate and were surprised when a young girl came out. We asked for Olga but quickly learned that we had come to the wrong address. However, Estefani, the young girl we were talking to, expressed interest as we shared a short message about the BoM. We set up an appointment to come teach her when her dad was home and invited her to General Conference at the stake center. Estefani accepted our invitation to Conference and actually came with us yesterday! (it is uncommon for people to keep their commitments). She also accepted an invitation to read the BoM. When we arrived at her house on Sunday morning with two other ward members, she handed us a small list of questions about the chapter she had read. Wow. We meet with her again tomorrow.

I am glad that the Lord Jesus Christ is at the head of this work. He is able to lead us to the people that are prepared to receive the gospel. Despite our errors (like going to the wrong address) Christ can do His work. For us, finding Estefani was a miracle.

I hope you all enjoyed General Conference. It was a blessing for me to hear the voice of the prophet and apostles. I received multiple answers as I pondered their words. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God.

I love you guys!

Elder Smith

Watching the English session of General Conference in the Buenos Aires Norte stake

What I did while E. Ryan was working the squeegy

Elder Ryan working the squeegy