Monday, January 6, 2014

Oh Holy Night

12/23/13
Well, this week was a good one.  On Tuesday we went to the reunion. On the way home we were passing a fruit stand and I saw a huge watermelon for 35 pesos (5 bucks) and I just couldn’t pass it up.  I dumped off all of my books in my comps backpack, shoveled out 35 pesos and jammed the watermelon in there the best that I could.  I felt like I was carrying a grown man on my back but after 20 minutes I made it home and carved straight into that bad boy.  I ate solid watermelon for the next 2 meals, and did I finish it? Yes, yes I did.
After that we went and taught a family and headed to the church for a Christmas practice.  We had some of the teens help us sing "Oh Holy Night." They didn’t want to in the beginning but my comp and I were stoked because it sounded pretty good.
On Wednesday we had lunch with the family Guarachi and then taught another family a little something something about Christmas and the Christmas spirit.  
Then, it was show time!  My comp and I had been talking with some of the ward members, organizing the ward Christmas activity.  We had the little kiddies sing and do the play about the birth of Jesus. (Its called pesebre here but I cant really remember the word in English.) They sang and did everything perfectly.  We had an older, less active member who is a musician come and play the saxophone for Oh Holy Night and the flute for the song Hallelujah. My companion and I sang Hallelujah in front of everybody and got super shaky and nervous and my voice started squeaking like a 13 year old teen smack dead in the middle of puberty. We got everything ready to sing Oh Holy Night.  We set up the saxophone, the mic, and when we told the teens to come, the 2 boys weren’t there.  We only had 4 teens and 2 of them were missing. The girls said they didn’t know where they were and that “they just left." Gosh dang it. So we booked around looking for them and after 5 minutes of everyone waiting on us, we just decided to go on without the little punks. We had never practiced with the musician and he liked to make it a little "jazzier" and add his own style so it was kinda all over the place but we ended up singing and doing a half decent job.  I was pretty happy with the turn out.  After that we went a wassling and enjoyed the night.
On Thursday we were out the door at 7 because we had to renew my visa. We got there at 7:30 and waited and filled out this stuff, waited some more, filled out some more stuff, paid something, waited some more. And then little by little they called all of the missionaries...except for me. The other missionaries finished in 2 or 3 hours.  We ended up showing up at 7:30 am and waited in the same building until 1:30 pm. haha gosh dang it.  But we tried to make a good day of it.  We found some sweet references that were just eating up all of our questions. They were trying to interrogate us because they were pretty well read in the bible and everything that they asked us we answered right so they were lovin it and we had a pretty dang great lesson with them.  The family ormeno then asked us to make empanadas with them so we booked over there and taught them a little something and ate empanadas for dinner.  
Here is something strange with Argentines. They don’t care how hot or cold something is. They just go at it.  For example, they can have scolding hot water fresh off the stove and they just pour it in their mate and go for it.  It is the same with their food. The night with the family Ormeno cooked the empanadas and were all just eating it casually.  I picked one up and I didn’t think that it would hurt my mouth. Bad, bad mistake.  I took a bite and some of the oil on the inside burnt a straight line down my tongue. I tried spitting it out and it burnt a straight line down my lip and I got a white and puffy blister.  
On Saturday we did our normal bidness then taught Mariel, the Sajamas, a less active Mirta who was a chef who taught us to make orange chicken.  After that we went to Santiago and to Sajamas for a bit of service.
On Sunday we had church and then had lunch with Alex and Nancy and taught Alex if he wants to get a good job he has to pass school first and how the scriptures say that studying is important.  I remember being in the exact same position but I can’t remember why I didn’t want to study.  Haha I love studying now.  After that we taught Kevin and his family but it was chaos with all 12 of them there.  Then we went to the family Gaurachi and taught them.  Then we went to a Christmas special a city away and listened to a choir and watched a movie about Christ.  I didn’t realize before my mission how much I love music but now that I don’t have it that much, I love any chance to listen to it.
Today was our p-day.  We woke up, got ready, studied, and headed out with the other missionaries to find a bank for my comp. After getting the money in Constitution, the President told all 270 of the missionaries to come to his house for a Christmas lunch.  So we went to his house and it was ridiculous. They had hamburgers and watermelon so I went crazy with the watermelon. They would finish one and then pull out another from under the table haha.  It was a pretty dang good Christmas gift and sweet to see some of my friends from the MTC again. 
Anyways I love you guys and hope that all is well.
Love,

Andy

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