Letters Home: 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