Week 8

HOLA MIS AMIGOS!! guys time flies out here! it´s crazy! I hit 2 months on sunday!

ARGENTINA

There are things I learn here everyday that I would never learn in the US.

 1.  It doesn´t matter if you listening to music in another language and can´t understand it. It´s got a good beat and that´s all that counts! right? My neighbors LOVE  21 Pilots.  I asked them if they understand the music and they said no! haha love that! And surprisingly people down here love those ¨big hair bands¨ from the 80´s! I´m constantly hearing Bon Jovi, Journey, Van Halen, Aero Smith daily! haha Livin on a prayer, Eye of the Tiger. The best was half way through a tough day when no one had been listening to us and we were really discouraged, a car drove by playing ¨Highway to Hell” and I just started laughing! how perfect!

Okay ever since I got my call to Argentina I´ve just wanted to play soccer with the natives, and last pday that dream came true!! This little 9yr old kid was totally schooling me but i loved every minute of it! I feel like a true gringa now :) haha 

There were some problems with our new apartment so long story short right now were living out of our suitcase with mattress on the floor for a week. It’s an adventure. Oh and for 3 days all of Justo Daract didn´t have running water. I love my mission :)

It literally rains here every other day. I would be mad about it but I have rain boots and they make everything fun!  We were knocking doors and a little boy asked me what my shoes were, and I explained that they were so my feet wouldn’t get cold and wet in the rain. I let him try them on and he was running around in the puddles. Oh my gosh I just about died of cuteness!! 

Okay the animals here are almost as disgusting as the men! The dogs. Their not really dogs. Their like massive rats. I can´t even begin to explain haha and they´re EVERYWHERE! sooo they poop everywhere!  Also there are horses that just walk around the streets. I don´t know why, and you never know who they belong to, they´re just there. It´s great. One day I´m gonna ride one down the streets throwing pamphlets to all the people. Ya picture that. Put that on lds.org haha

INVESTIGATORS

Right now we have 4 people with baptismal dates!!! Wahoooooo but with statistics that means only one will really get baptized. I take that as a challange. One of our investigators with a date, his name is Juan, is having a really hard time. He knows it’s all true but he´s getting a lot of push back from his family. I can´t even imagine the pressure! 

No one here keeps appointments and it is so frustrating! Even if we call the night before and then just a couple hours before to confirm, they won´t be there. Ya know what, it´s fine. It´s just their salvation at stake. Alma 26:27-30

We had an experience this week where we didn´t know where to knock doors so I said a prayer and then picked a road on the map. We talked to lady on that road that didn´t even believe in God. We gave her a book of mormon and bore our testimonies. She didn´t invite us back but I really do think that we were meant to talk to her. It breaks my heart every time we talk to someone that doesn´t even have a little spark of light in their lives. 

PEOPLE

My companion is great. Still those differences and the language barrier but it doesn´t stop us from preaching the gospel and helping others come unto Christ! Both of us just do the little things to show our love! :) good stuff. The 15 members here are literally AWESOME!! Always helping us with lessons and making us food! I couldn’t ask for a better area! The men here are so stinkin’ gross! Everyone in Justo Daract knows me. Whenever we are walking past a group of men they say ¨Hermana Gringa¨ and then some random stuff in Spanish that I´m really glad I don´t understand. Sometimes I wanna turn around and slap them with the Hand of God (the Book of Mormon). haha but that´s not Christ like. 

LANGUAGE

Well I think I´ve improved at least a little bit! But when I get the courage to actually talk to people and then they have this really confused look and then ask my companion what I said. It kinda shoots my confidence right down the drain. haha There´s more work to be done in that department.

FUNNY STORIES AND THOUGHTS

1 So a couple weeks ago we were talking to people on the street and we set a time to visit a young man and his family. His name is Gustavo. We found out it´s just him living with his father and so we have to have a member women come with us to the lessons. We have yet to teach him a lesson but we see him all the time in the streets and we´re always friendly and say hola! A couple days ago he rode past us on a bike and we said hola and kept walking. I looked back at him and he blew me a kiss. I was litterally on the ground laughing!!! We are never teaching Gustavo hahahahaha  We will leave that to the members.

2 We walked out of our apartment to go to a lesson and there were 2 men talking to our neighbors. While listening a little bit to their conversation as we walked by, we understood that they were missionaries from the Jahovahs Witnesses. We want them to get ¨Apostasy¨ tattooed on their foreheads. 

3  Knocking doors as usual and we came accross a women that was VERY catholic. We invited her to read a pamphlet on the Restoration and to pray if our church was true. She then gave us a pamphlet about the Catholic church and asked us to pray if the catholic church was true. I couldn´t believe what was happening. My mouth was on the ground and i just walked away! haha are you kidding me?????

SCRIPTURE

I have two this week :) 

Alma 26:15

3 Nephi 21:26-29 ¨let the work begin¨!!

Conference was amazing a couple weeks ago and I wrote down so many good quotes! So I´m going to share 1 every week 

¨If your faith isn´t effecting your daily decisions, you´re living in vain¨ -President Uchtdorf

Oh and I´m doing a little experiment. If you have time please send me you´re 2-3 favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon :) gracias!

les quiero mucho!!!

hermana smoot

The first picture of me and my Peruvian companion! 

this is one of the dogs that I'm pretty sure carries every disease possible

One of the random horses that wanders the street!