December 15, 2009

Querida Familia Mía,

Wow, Christmas is right around the corner!!!!!! That is so crazy that I am already on my second and last Christmas in the mission. The kids are getting ready here in Argentina and buying a lot of fireworks. I am getting pretty excited too. I think we might go out on the roof and watch fire works on Christmas eve. I am pretty excited for Christmas day, one thing i get to talk with you all. Another is that I have a district of 8 missionaries right now. 4 sister missionaries, 2 elders, my companion and me. So we are going to do something for Christmas. Maybe I will make pancakes or something. Just so you know the Matta´s hot sauce did not brake. They are in perfect condition. I am going to make scrambled eggs in the morning with Matta´s hot sauce. I am pretty excited.

We had a really good pday last week playing soccer and Risk. It is so much better then the Argentine Risk that they have here. It is a really fun game. We are going to play it today in the Stake Center and play soccer again. There really isn´t that many things to do on pday here is San Rafael. The Elders from Malargüe came (about 3 hours away) and spent the night at our house for pday. So we were eight missionaries in the house. It was pretty crazy, I was just glad that I had a bed and didn´t need to sleep on the ground. I had my nice bed with the nice comforter and the nice pillow. They had an old nasty pillow and old nasty holocoust blankets. The only problem is that there is a new missionary in the house and well we wanted to get to know eachother so we were talking last night for a while. He is a good kid, his name is elder lucas from texas. So we talked for a little last night.

Well it sounds like everything is going great at home. The store is busy (i am not going to lie, i am glad i am here and not there ha ha). That is nice that people are buying there. People say that things are hard here with money and i know it is. But they just aren´t good with their money. I know i am not perfect either but they just buy things that they don´t need. So grandpa is still going 200 mph. I remember juicing a lot of oranges last year too. I loved having orange juice. The orange juice is just not the same here. We have some pretty good orange juice there is arizona.

On about the 5 of January we have transfers again. I am pretty sure i am leaving because president told elder quebbeman that he was staying with a latin companion. I just hope i get a latin companion because my spanish has been killed being with elder quebbeman. It is really hard being with someone that doesnt speak well. It is hard to speak in spanish all the time. One thing i have to say it 4 times so he can understand and when he responds it takes him about 1 minute to say one sentence. I know i was in his shoes at once but man is it hard. His spanish has improved a lot though. But i have felt pretty good. We were talking with people in the bus terminal and a couple of people asked where we were and they thought i was from mexico. Either it is my skin or my voice, i hope the voice. Ha ha.

Here is San Rafael is really different during Christmas time. In Bermejo, my first area, we didnt see anything christmas like. But here they have a lot of stuff. Trees´, lights and a lot of PAPA NOEL, santa clause. So it feels a little more christmas like but at the same time it is hot which changes it. This last week was actually pretty nice. It rained about 4 days out of the week. Esspecially yesterday. It started raining at about 5 30. it rained for like and hour and a half really really hard and it started hailing really hard too. It was pretty fun. The San Rafaelinos were crying because they had no rain and now they are crying because there is too much. Oh well.

So when does chritmas break start for bryce. The kids here are on summer break right now. They are all happy. One of our investigators sons is going to Buenos Aires for summer break which put a hinder on the work. He might go. I sure hope he doesn´t, he is was is pushing his family along.

Well this week we had a pretty good week. We had Patricia go to church yesterday. She and her kid Kevin stayed for all three hours. I think she liked a lot. We are hoping that she gets baptized on the 26 of December. Norman, Esteban and Francisco are progressing too right now. She had some theater project yesterday so i think that is why she couldn´t go. But we are pushing them alont. We are also teaching a lady name Vanessa. She had a Jehova Witness friend that is talking with her too. We were teaching about baptism and we read in Acts where Felipe asked what he needs to do to be baptized. He says he believes that Christ is the Son of God and he was baptized by water. Well in the JDUB bible (i really dont like their bible). That scripture is just taking out completly. Ther is just a line. So we are going to try to trade her bible for a new bible of ours in spanish. We have to get that so called bible out of there. It is horrible. We found a little JDUB book that is called ´What the bible really teaches.´ it is the worst translation of the bible in the world. We read it amazed on how they think these things. JDUB´s are really good people which is really sad. So we just have to help them. But we will just keep on trying.

Well we are going to have another good week. And i hope that you all do to. I love you all a lot.

Elder smith