September

Madre,
     I am sad I received no email. Anyways I am still waiting for word on those dog zappers (that make the harmless noise dogs hate). I kick and throw rocks at whatever dog tries to bite me and we hurt one pretty bad which I felt bad about because I don´t like to hurt anything. We got him somewhere on the head at close range. One dog got my shoe, but at this point in time my pants remain untorn, unlike the majority of missionaries here.
   Padre, como vivo:
   We have a cute little pension that is built into the front of some guys house. We can flush our toilet paper, we have hot showers, a little gas heater. Up to a year ago all the missionaries hand washed their clothes but the mission bought a bunch of clothing agitators/washers. They do the work so we don´t have to which according to the other missionaries which is nice. We hang our clothes on different things to dry. We also have an oven, stove, microwave, and blender. We make our own breakfast and eat lunch with members. Here is the part I love: NO Dinner! Dinner is the most worthless waste of a meal I´ve ever heard of. I can comfortably eat a good breakfast and lunch knowing that I will not eat food until the next morning. Seeing we walk ten hours a day I do not think I will gain any weight. I hope to eliminate dinner from my life forever. We eat tasteless empanadas, rice, bread, chicken, whatever. Their hotest hotsauce is not hot. They don´t even eat hotsauce. A sad country when it comes to food. I do admit though that Dulce de Leche is disgustingly good.
    Spiritual experiences. I was on splits with a zone leader who is awesome and we went into a contacts house. He is all about commitments and has lots of success as a consequence of that. We taught the restoration. We did the whole find out for yourself thing if its true. We could all feel the spirit. They said more or less we don´t really know who you are but we can feel that what you are saying is true and that you are true servants of God. We will hear all of your words. Way open minded people.
    The following day in my area we taught a contact my companion had with the other zone leader. We explained our purpose as missionaries. We were talking about our purpose is to help people prepare to make covenants and the importance of them and we gave the example of baptism. He was like, I want to get baptized. This all happened in the first ten minutes. A very friendly open guy. He wants to learn more and we will see if he keeps his commitments. If people don´t keep their commitments they don´t progress. It´s kind of like homework. If you don´t learn and push yourself you fail. The stakes here are bigger then school because if you don´t work you fail life. And as Calculus class taught me, when you fail you feel bad and are not happy.
    My companion, Elder Sander continues to be THE MAN. He is a very good missionary. He is from Rivera. Can you ask Robert Reed if he served in Rivera?
     These days have been very hard for me. Argentines. That´s all I can say is Argentines. Ocupado, Ocupado, yo SOY muy Ocupado! Very few people are willing to listen. In the Utah Provo mission people have as many baptisms in a transfer as people have in their mission here. I did have the wonderful opportunity to talk and teach some Paraguayos y Bolivianos. Man, the Lamanite people are amazing. So open minded. I hear the missionary work in Bolivia and Paraguay is progressing very well. As for the Argentinians I will continue to love them.
     Our biggest problem. We have three couples that are pretty much ready to get baptized. One wanted to get baptized six months ago. Guess what happened?? Or what didn´t happen. They don´t get married. No one is married. They have four kids, but it is still too big of a commitment to get married? My companion says Uruguay us the same as Argentina. I´m happy someone understands the culture because I don´t. The six month investigator really wants to get baptized, has gone to church four months, the whole thing. Now he has stopped. His girlfriend who he has lived with for four years and who he has had a kid with will not listen to us nor will she get married. To much commitment. I´m confused to say the least.
     I loving the mission. Lot´s to learn. I´m doing adult things and helping adults overcome their biggest challenges when I´m just a kid. Crazy! Have a most wonderful week.
    -Elder Reed