October 15, 2012

This week was real real good. As much as I love and am going to miss the villa and its lifestyle (seriously), I am happy to be here in Tolosa. This week was a huge eye opener for me. My idea of Argentina in the last few months has become one of danger and robbings and dirt and poop and guns. But I had never been to Tolosa. There are flowers everywhere and the people are all really educated and nice and give you strange things to eat that you don't get in the ghetto. There are three universities close to my area, so there are tons of students walking around all the time. It's so so different. It's actually kind of refreshing.

Not only is Tolosa really beautiful, but it is full of work to do. This week we visited so many intelligent, interested quality investigators who were all so ready to accept baptism. It was amazing. Generally in my mission, I have kind of avoided wealthy areas because less people listen to you there. It's different here. All the people have money, but are just open to listen. It sounds strange, but the people here even reject you well. In Avellaneda, I was used to the typical Argentine reject, which consists of lots of bad words and asking why I feel the need to infringe of peoples privacy. The people here just tell you that they are very thankful for the notion, but they would really appreciate if we came back another time. Obviously, they don't really want us to come back another time, but they are so nice about it. It's refreshing. The members in Tolosa are pretty self-motivated and give a lot of references. So Elder Romero and I are not spending much time clapping doors or anything. 

Elder Romero is so so funny. This week he told me that he respects no man who doesn't have a mustache and that it caused a deep, searing pain in his soul everyday when he shaves. He is so Mexican and it makes me laugh so hard. I feel like I am living in Nacho Libre. Dream come true. He is 27. He finished all of his studies and is a professional architect. Even though I have a lot more time in the mission than him, I kind of feel like a little boy with him. He is totally cool though and lets me take the lead anyways. 

Our pinch is smaller than our family room. hahahah I can pretty much go to the bathroom, cook some eggs, take a shower, and lay in my bed at the same time. Seriously. It is just one big room and a tiny tiny bathroom attached. We do have hot water though. A hot shower felt so so good after four and a half months of cold showers. I don't really mind the tinyness of the pinch anyways, we are almost never inside of it. But a member did invite us to come and live in a house that they rent out behind their house. We went to check it out and it is so so big. We will see though. The member asked a lot of money for the rent, and I don't know if the mission will accept it or not. 

This week we had a baptism! It was a little strange because I had only taught the girl three times, but it was exciting anyways, We baptized an 11 year old girl named Ivanna. She is a granddaughter of one of the members. Ivannas parents are members, but inactive. She is super super smart, and goes to a special cool for genius children. She always tries to explain really complex math to me. I act like I already knew was she was explaining, but really have no idea whatsoever. I would send pictures, but this computer is not behaving.

I just got an email from the mission asking for some dates for the plane ride home. WHhhhhhaaaa?! Very strange.