Week 9

Well not much to say. I got sick, and that was fun considering we walk so much. I’m better now. We have one investigator. He is a little slower, if you know what I mean, but he is a great guy. He gave me a little toy plane and a river soccer jersey. His name is Ernesto, and he loves aviation. I wish I could talk planes with him, but my Spanish still sucks. It’s getting better though.

We went to a member’s house the other day, and she has a disease that she is always cold, so her home was burning hot. It was already hot outside, and I was sweating bullets in there.

We had lunch with the Milano family. The dad’s family owns some horses, so I tried to talk to him a bit about them.

Me and my comp play a game of chess every now and then. He is really good. He has beaten me 3 out of 4 times.

I love the recipe book you sent with me. It’s a great reminder of what I can’t cook here. Over half the stuff I need is either super, super expensive here, or they just don’t have it. Today I wanted to make Cornflake Crunchies, but they don’t have peanut butter or corn syrup. It’s hard to ask my comp if there is anything close because he has never heard of them, and I need to translate it to Spanish so it takes a while. Oh well. Tonight I’m cooking some steaks for us because it’s Thanksgiving. They don’t celebrate a lot of holidays here.

If you send a little something for Christmas, try not to send stuff that is silly or just not needed. I have to pay for half the package when it gets here, and I don’t have much extra cash as is. My comp’s credit card doesn’t work here, so I’m wondering if mine even works. If you need package ideas..... peanut butter, a model helicopter for my friend Ernesto, nothing expensive just kind of small. It’s his birthday here in a month, and he has done a lot for me.

Love you all,
Elder Newman

I guess I’m that guy that wears shorts and cowboy boots. Haha

Week 8.

Well not much to report on. It’s hard here. We walk all day, literally. The tips of my toes have blisters on them, and I don’t know why. My shoes fit right. Oh well. We talk to a lot of people, and I understand about 3/4 of what they say when they don’t speak a million miles an hour. It’s harder to talk [in Spanish], but it is getting better.

This week sacrament meeting was a bit better because the bishops kids were running outside, but the windows were open because no A/C. The Hermanas had a few new people there; we had none. We haven’t even been able to teach a lesson to a new investigator yet because no one is ever home. Dañel is in a different area, so I don’t know how he is doing. We do have this one crazy lady named Lucia. She is off her rocker, but she is great. She always calls us her babies and says bye-bye really weird. She is great.

One thing I could always get in a package now is candy. The candy here is weird, but the good kind is expensive.

I helped a guy with his car, but he couldn’t explain what the problem was. From what I could tell, it was a vacuum leak, and all he had to do was find what adapter had the problem. Love you all. That’s all for now.
Bye-bye
-Elder Newman

I found Pepsi! Usually they only have Coke here.

The Allen Rail Monument was in the main city of Allen. It was built with the remains of railway materials.

This is about what my view is all day. There are some poorer spots, but this is the only spot where I felt safe enough to take out my camera.

A meal I had [milanese]. It was really good!

Week 7

Where to start? It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write. First off, our Mission President doesn’t speak very much English, but my Spanish is improving very fast. Being out in the field beats the ccm [mtc].

My area is Allen, and my new companion/trainer is Elder Cardenas. He speaks probably 20 words in English, so it is very hard to communicate. He is from Ecuador and is pretty cool. I like him a lot, even though it’s hard to talk sometimes. I am learning a lot of Spanish, pero I don’t know what I’m doing half the time since I can’t speak it or understand it. I’m his last companion, then he is going home, so that’s cool.

First day in the field we went and had leccions with investigators and inactive members. I did the first vision to Dañel and then asked if he would prepare to be baptized on the 28 de Noviembre... he said si!  He lived in a very poor town named Ferri. It was so sad to see what these people are living with. The poorest people in America have more stuff than these guys have.

There are dogs literally everywhere. It’s crazy. I haven’t gotten bitten yet, but I’ve had a few dogs jump on me. My new shoes are great except for the blisters they mass produce. It’s a good thing I have duck tape. My little Toyota would fit in great here. It could probably pull more than a lot of the trucks here too. One weird thing here is that my allergies are gone, and it’s like twice as dirty and dusty as at home.

The food is great, a lot of new things. The only thing that could make it better is if there was pepper. They have plenty of salt though. I had some rice the other day that seemed like they boiled it in the ocean. The people here are really hard to understand. It’s like in English, but a redneck, but they are some of the nicest people. The drivers here are crazy. I still haven’t seen a wreck yet.

This week in Sacrament meeting I had to give a talk....in Spanish. I’m pretty sure I slaughtered it, my comp. was laughing. The Bishop’s kids were running all around and making all kinds of noise, and he was doing nothing about it. It was hard to feel the spirit in that meeting.

I traded American dollars for pesos with a member named Pedro something, but he likes to go by peter. So I prayed for him, and in the prayer he laughed. It was funny.

Also I can’t believe already I’ve had two threats. They are a lot more scary when you can’t completely understand them. One guy said something like I want to kill Joseph Smith. Another guy said something I couldn’t understand; but he didn’t look happy, and he put his hands in the shape of a gun and acted like he was shooting us. We just said “qué tal” and smiled and waved.

It’s hard for a gringo that doesn’t speak Spanish to live here. It’s hard to buy stuff and get simple things said and asked for. They say I should have the language down in a month.

It is Elder Cardenas´s birthday today so the hermanas in our area suprised him with a cake. It was a good surprise.

Love,
Elder Newman

Argentina!

Well, I made it here safely. It took over 20 hrs of flight time to get here, which sucked, but we made it. It’s awesome here, and I can’t wait to start doing missionary work. It’s different here, and the drivers here are crazy! I'm surprised I haven't seen a wreck yet, but we are totally safe. All is well here. I can’t wait to actually be able to understand people. Hopefully it will happen soon.

 I LOVE YOU ALL!