Elder Preston Vance: Week #7 ~I have survived!

Hello Family,

I have survived being in a foreign country for a week! I have never seen so many dogs in my life! I am currently in Olavarrì, it is north of Bahia Blanca. We had to take a bus over night and two cabs to get there. I am learning so much here and Argentina is so different then I thought it would be! I did not learn this language in the CCM. My companion is really cool his name is Elder Siverston he is from CEDAR City, Utah. We receive about 1500 pesos a month for food and everything else—about 100 us dollars.

The region I am in is very poor and we are not allowed to eat with members because they feed us more food then they eat themselves. We eat eggs and rice for every meal. We have 4 investigators right now but its hard everyone here really doesn’t like Mormons, the last missionaries were annoying I heard and made a lot of the people not like them.

We have a great apartment and its in the tallest building in the city! We are on the top floor so its nicknames is the penthouse and it is only three stories tall. We have running water which is nice. We have about 8 min of hot water and our washer is a big bucket that has a blender thing in the bottom that spins it around then we just hang it up. I drink from a 5 gal jug that we get delivered from the mission office.

I can tell you all about the area next week we are both new here, sorry mom. I am emailing from a little kiosk in the downtown. We are going to the mail center after this and after I send my photos from the church so I will hopefully know more. I run along the river every day! We live north of the river it’s the big three of four story building.

But I am trying to learn, it’s very difficult they all talk so fast and have a super thick accent which is very different from what we have been taught. I got to bare my testimony this fast-Sunday and it sounded like when a mother tells their little child what to say at the pulpit.

I am glad I brought so much with me, there are no cloths stores in about 50 miles. Everyone takes a bus to the city south of us to get things they need, there are street vendors for all the food we buy. I also didn’t realize how far you walk out here. It’s about 10 miles a day just going to all the investigators houses. But it gives me a lot of time to pick apart my señor comps brains about this strange language I am expected to learn. I under stand probably one out of every 30 words, so not at all its very crazy here and super stressful.

I am probably the biggest person in the city, the closest person to me is about 5’8”. It’s funny when we go to that market I am only seeing the top of peoples heads. We aren’t allowed to have bags because its looks like we have stuff that can be stolen. I have to wear my suit everyday it’s a new rule so I wear the same one everyday.

-Love Elder Vance