17 Nov.2014

Hola Familia :),

How are you?  We're here at a capilla in  Cordoba waiting for our choro (choir) to show up.  So far there are 6 people here, but not all of them are singing.  I had totally mixed feelings about coming - it's basically a whole p-day in Cordoba again.  However, I feel bad hiding talent under a bushel (still) Hma Tuttle said to me, "Por que do you have talent, che?"  She's a little bit tone deaf so she doesn't want to sing in the choir but we're here, so I'll sing. :)  We stopped for a factura (doughnut-Argentine style)  One thing I totally love  about Argentina is that there is a Panaderia on practically every other corner.  The bread is so GOOD!:D
(After Choir now) We're waiting at the terminal for collection to Ocativio (double decker bus).  I sang Alto in the choir (1st time in my entire life!) We'll see how that goes. :) It was really fun though.  I saw Hermana Perry because she and her companion wanted to come.  That was great. After we sang for a couple of hours we walked down to a shopping mall... and pretty much walked right back into the United States but in pesos.  It was hilarious.  It felt so weird! There were tons of clothes shops and candy stores... I almost got sucked into buying nutella for the bread until I did the math and it was very expensive.  And by expensive I mean $10 for a little jar.  Yeah, that' s imported food for you.  There was also a food court with all kinds of foods.  I ended up getting a Ceasar salad,because 1, I missed green veggies/salads 2. They actually had salad dressing, which is rare down here which I also miss.  Haha , yeah life's a little different, but I love it.  This week my ears are finally accustomed to listening to the Argentine Spanish, definitely more than last week.  Hma Tuttle & I have a terrible brand of Spanglish going on-sometimes I'm not really sure which language I am speaking and usually it's a mixture of both. So that's a good sign! Hopefully I won't be a bad influence on Hma Tuttle.  I really should make an extra effort to truly speak in spanish but I'll get there eventually. Anyway we reran into the Elders who were there for choir and we ate with them.  This week's going to be crazy.

Another interesting thing about Oncativo is that people still have SIESTA.  Everyone eats lunch at   1 pm ish and then everything in the entire town except Grido helado (The ice cream shop) is closed and no one really is outside.  We move a few of our hours of study to this time to be more productive.  Also, we only offically eat lunch (as in we have 1 hour to make and eat lunch) but not dinner because Argentines don't eat dinner until 10 p.m. ish  That's what time we have a snack of cheese/bread/leftovers mini unofficial dinner.  It's becoming more normal.:)  We walk a lot and this last week we've had some perro (dog) friends join us on our walks.  My personal favorite named  "Nacho Chacho" looks exactly like Lucy without too many curls.  Same brown eyes and he's smallish and brown.  He almost got eaten by a pack of dogs because he didn't keep up with us and we had to save him.  He came back the next day, but when we left on the collectino for Lagoona reaarga he got left in Oncativo and we haven't seen the cute little dog since.  We picked up a really big , Hermanas in Oncativo but I just meet him this week. I haven't named him yet, but we have seen him a few times.  We have totally been messing around with the recorder that Hma. Tuttle got today in her package and it's so much fun! :)   We're going to have record some of the people here talking because it's awesome. :)

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everyone, if it's actually Thanksgiving this week...Enjoy the turkey and mashed potatoes for me!  Love you all and I'll write more next week.:)

Hermana Swan