There is so much to tell you about! I´m in Argentina, and it´s beautiful here. The pictures are my letter to all of you because I knew I wouldn´t be able to tell you all of it at once. I´m in Oncativo, a small pueblecito 1.5 horas outside of Córdoba. They all practice siesta about this time, so we try to do our emailing while everyone´s asleep. We´re four hours ahead of you :)
The food here is good. Way different but good :) We get food everyday at the little kioska by our pension. It´s owned by a familia in our ward and it´s fun to see all of the different things they have here. I brought a store of American candy from right after halloween, and Hermana Tuttle (my cute companion:) about cried when I gave her an Almond Joy. She´s from Orem? one of those little towns down there, and she´s been in the mission 9 months. We´re both working on our Spanish together :) I have a hard time understanding the accent sometimes, because they speak really fast, they sometimes slur their words a little bit, they have the sh instead of y sound and some of them do have the singing Córdoban accent. I´m going to have to take a video of some of them sometime and show you when I get home. It´s a pretty accent, it´s just very different than the kind of Spanish I´m used to speaking. The people here are always friendly and they do all greet each other with a kiss on the cheek, which is just so cool because it means your really good friends pretty much instantly.
The weather here is pretty humid and it´s been pretty hot. We´ve had lots of storms in the afternoons lately, and when it rains, it pours. Yesterday when we were on the collectivo (bus), it started raining and before we made it out of Córdoba 20 mins later there were huge rushing streams of water in the roads. Plus, it hailed, so we were glad to be on the bus and not walking somewhere :) There are tons of motorcycles here as well as scooters and we do lots of walking, but it´s good to get to talk to a lot of people. It´s friendlier than Mendon here because everyone says Hola when walking past...Let´s just say that I don´t have trouble understanding that word. There are also cars that drive around that have speakers on the top and they drive around town blasting music and commercials. It´s way capo (missionary slang for cool down here) Hermana Tuttle calls them the ´Spirit Breakers´ because they always drive past when you´re in the middle of a great lesson with someone.
Well, after I got to talk to my family for 74 seconds, I got on a plane and didn´t really sleep for 9.5 hours. We then got to Buenos Aires and we got on a bus type transport and went to a different airport and then flew another 1.5 hours to Córdoba. We got picked up by President Alliaud and his lovely wife there and traveled another 30 minutes to the mission home, which has the temple pretty much in the back yard. Actually yeah, it´s in the backyard. Both are beautiful, and it was fun to get to know all of the other missionaries that were coming in with me. We had interviews and sang hymns with Hermana Alliaud for like 3 hours until we eventually ate dinner of empanadas and Pritty limón (a córdoban drink that is THE BEST!). Then we went to a hotel and it was the nicest bed we´ll ever see in the next 16 months...or so they tell us, but I believe it. We had to drive around town to get legalized, and since there were tons of us and no way to get us downtown, they gave me some plata and threw the three of us Hermanas in a taxi. I got to give him the address and ask for a receipt at the end. It was rey capo. I loved it, even though Hermanas Westman and Perry thought we were going to die ^.^ . Eventually we got our new companions and that was exciting, and then we set off for our pensions. We had to haul all of my stuff to the collectivo by taxi and then go to Oncativo. I´m going to be honest, I have no sense of direction aquí, there just aren´t any mountains to go by.
We don´t have very many investigators, but we´ve recently gotten some potentials, so that´s encouraging :) There is a cute little lady that reminds me of Kookie named Coca and she´s like our little grandma :) the ward branch is small, and most of them are related. we´re going to start doing a lot of cool stuff to try to change it up here and find more people to teach. The other day we got to play jumprope with some cute little kids named Juanette, Maximillian and dapne. They loved that I have blue eyes :) We also ran past a mansion the other day...like so big the owners arrive by helicopter big. That´s pretty cool :) Oncativo is a little bit cheta/rich, which is good and bad in terms of work here. They have this awesome saying: Baja la caña. drop the cane. Hehe I love it. It´s definitely different here, but I already love it because it´s quite the adventure and the people are so nice. It´s really weird to because they have a totally different lifestyle here as missionaries. There were way more rules in Ventura and so now that I´m here the lack of rules gives me a tiny bit of anxiety. I´m adjusting though, and I´m excited to watch disney movies on P-day! :D
Yes there is culture shock, and yes, did have to deal with it. Yes, it takes time to adjust, but it´s easier to just let it happen and move on. Everyone here is pretty impressed with my Spanish for only having 3 months as a missionary, so shoutout to HERMANA EASTMAN :D right before I left, we got to have In-n-out with Alison our investigator and Maria, our other investigator, made us tacos. I miss them tons, and also the ward there in Ventura. I´m going to try to send a bunch of pictures :)
Thanks everyone for all of your support and I love you! I got a letter from Pam upon arrival, and it made me happy, so thanks! I don´t know how the mail works here, but I think you can just send it to the mission home and I´ll probably get it at Christmas.
Hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Swan
Sweet! UC
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