The truth is that the argentine way to do Halloween is to not do it. I saw some stores that looked like they were selling costumes and some people had a Halloween episode of the Simpsons playing when we came in to their house but that was about it. The pictures I sent should be of an awesome asado that we had in the pensión last Monday, we bought and prepared and cooked, and then feast como reyes! (like kings) It was a nice break. Then some special Halloween pictures just for my beloved family!
Oh small story we now have the permission to use the secretaria para hacer ciber en p day so we are in the church doing it right now, but we made a copy of the key so each companionship could have one but ours didn’t work! And there are only two computers so the other elders are going to come later. Long story short there is a small window above the secretaria.... and nothing can stop determined elders from reaching their goal! haha the crazy things we do, I sometimes think that the craziest members of the church are the missionaries. Dad, it sounds like you were a missionary! Are you guys doing anything to try and brush up on your Spanish? The castillano is really hard for me sometimes. On Friday I had to present the information for our companionship for ward counsel because we had to do an intercambio (splits or exchanges), I just got a little discouraged. I completely forgot that yesterday was Fast Sunday and remembered after I had made and eaten my morning oatmeal, so I am fasting today, and one of the things I am fasting for is the gift of tongues through my efforts to learn. Also how did you work on your accents because that is also something I really want to do?
Thank you for the pictures! I was remembering last Halloween when we were all sharks, what fun it is to be part of the Andrew family. Daniel is quite the kid, que pícaro que es. Sounds like typical him. I don’t feel sick, just a bit hungry. Oh Mom, for your boy scouts, I recently bought a compass "brújula" to help me navigate better, I guess the things I learned weren’t actually pointless! And they don’t have scouts here, I think it might be starting in South America but I haven’t heard anything of it here. Oh there is a new rule that we can drink mate cosido en la pension ahora. It tastes like yard work but,for some reason, when you drink it you just want to keep drinking it, kind of weird.
Early in the week Elder Aldana and I kind of got into an argument; it was like the tensions just boiled over a bit. So we sat down and talked and argued a bit and sort of resolved a few things and then had to go to a cita. The next day I knew we had to talk about it some more, so I tried to come in with a humble attitude and I didn’t want to fight or argue and I prayed real hard before that to be able to do that and told him that how I was being wasn’t right and that I wanted to change and repent and help him out how I could. We talked some more and helped to resolve tension. It was so important to come into it with an attitude of humility and of change and to show that I really do care about Elder Aldana and I want what is best for him. And there are definitely still times that we aren’t the best of friends or we bug each other, but we know we can work on it. He wasn’t the kind of trainer I expected or maybe even wanted but I’m pretty sure that he is the trainer I needed. My training will finish in 2 weeks and i will be a "normal" missionary. It is so important to seek to resolve problems that you have with people. I don’t remember where I read it either scriptures or pmg that the easy way is to get mad and hold something against some one. And Elder Dodge told me that it is like a math problem, if there is an error early on in the problem no matter how many times you try to solve it you can’t until you go back and resolve that error. A lot of times it is embarrassing and takes a lot of courage to do, but it is what the Lord wants. I know that this kind of skill is very very important especially inside a family and especially inside a matrimonio.
Oh about the weather, it is still weird some days it’s hot and then other days it rains, and then other days it is cold. Argentina just hasn’t made up its mind to be miserably hot yet, but I’m sure it will come soon enough.
Elder aldana almost never gets correspondence from his family so I was wondering if you could get together with Levi or just yourselves and send him some emails. I think it would really brighten his day. Thank you for all that you do for me beloved family.
Elder Andrew
