What's up everyone? The first week out in the field was literally insane... But let me start back before we left the MTC: On our last Sunday it was really awesome, we gave out blessings to our companions to prepare for the field, and we had a great Testimony Meeting. Monday night was the last night before everyone left, so we could basically have as much ice cream as we wanted. I ate like 7 fudge bar thingys, and that was awesome, but those fudge bars would come back to haunt me later.
On Tuesday morning President and Sister Smith, who are in charge of the whole Buenos Aires North Mission, came and picked us up from the MTC. We rode in a huge van with them to the Mission Home, and let me tell you this is the first of many experiences I've already had with crazy Argentine drivers. Traffic is crazy, and the drivers are insane. Those fudge bars were about to spilled all over the van. But, thankfully we made it to the Mission Home in time for me not to puke.
We get to the Mission Home and do some paperwork, have some interviews, and eat some awesome empanadas and do a little training. Then the moment of truth, when we find out who our first companion is, and my trainer's name is Elder Damian Telis. He's from Montevideo, Uruguay and guess what, he doesn't speak a lick of English, so that has made things interesting these first couple of days. Anyway, we leave from the Mission Home and go to our first area. The name of the area we are in is "Boulogne" and we are in the Buenos Aires North stake. We show up to our first apartment, and man, this place looked like a murder scene, I mean it was worse in there than after Hurricane Katrina hit. Broken glass everywhere, and just super small, none of the light bulbs actually worked. We just got to work cleaning it up, and made it look all spiffy.
Wednesday was business as usual, we went out and got to know as many members as we could. We are opening a new area here in the Boulogne ward because missionaries haven't been here in a while, so we have got a lot to do. We went and had lunch with a member, and just talked with everybody we saw. It turns out it's a lot easier to talk about the church when you have someone that actually speaks Spanish. 😮
Wednesday night, we get a call that says we have to move out of the apartment into a new one which I wasn't too sad about. Thursday morning, we get up and pack, and a moving truck comes and these dudes come and just start moving all the stuff, so I was like "cool, let's move!" So we move all this heavy furniture, and mind you this is on the second floor, with some super-narrow staircases that's really scary. Finally, after like 2 hours, we have everything packed up and in the moving truck. Then, the owner of the apartment shows up, and says that most of the furniture belongs to him, not the church. So then we have to take all the furniture back up to the apartment, so that wasn't fun. Our new apartment is nice and pretty modern, and its got a McDonald's around the corner. The only downside is that it's actually outside of our area, and like a forty minute bus ride to the Chapel. On Thursday night we had Zone Conference, and introduction thing, like 1 hour away. There I got to meet up with Elder Byers because he's my Zone Leader, so that was cool too.
Friday was such a long day. We had to run a ton of errands to get our visas done or whatever. So we rode a train basically to San Fernando and had to stop at a bunch of different places and then wait for like 3 hours in the Argentine version of the DMV.
Saturday was normal, we just proselyted, met with a bunch of investigators and members.
Sunday was cool, went to church and all the members are all super-nice to the fact that I don't really speak Spanish. Sunday night we were prosletying, and this is my funny language mistake for the week. We were walking home and this lady calls out from across the street asking how tall I was. So, we go over and she's super-nice, she's just chilling out there, cooking some asado. We start talking to her, and she was really receptive and she tells us about how her life is kind of hard. She keeps saying that she likes "merca" and I have no idea what "merca" is. So, I just nod my head and say "que bueno." Then she says do you want some "merca", and I say "sure" trying not to be rude or anything, and I'm genuinely curious what kind of food "merca" is. So, then my companion jumps in and pulls me away and says "no thanks, we don't want any merca". and we start walking away from this lady rather hastily. I'm like, "come on man, I was teaching that lady", well then he tells me how "merca" means cocaine and that that lady is a coke addict. So, that was funny.
P-day (Preparation Day, Monday, is the day off to do errands, shopping, etc) was good we did some shopping, and it's nice everything is pretty cheap here. Then we played some soccer at the church with the other elders in our district. And we got some Burger King, which was soooo good.
Anyways, I love my mission so far, go read John Chapter 8, verses 1 through 11, it's one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. bye
Family update:
1) What is your companions name?
Elder Damian Telis
2) Where is he from?
Montevideo, Uruguay
3) How tall is he?
178 cm = 5'10"
4) What is he like, what does he like to do?
He's really hard-working and funny, at first it was hard, but I can understand him better everyday. He really likes soccer, and likes to drink matte
5) How many brothers and sisters does he have?
5 siblings, he's the second oldest
6) Do you knock on doors mostly or just talk to people in the town square?
When we do proselyte, we mainly street contact. We try to find investigators from the area book because they are usually more receptive
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| All the missionaries at the Argentine MTC that left on August 7th, 2018 |
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| MTC District of 13 missionaries. 9 of them went continued on to the Buenos Aires North Mission together, the others to various other missions in Argentina. |
We get to the Mission Home and do some paperwork, have some interviews, and eat some awesome empanadas and do a little training. Then the moment of truth, when we find out who our first companion is, and my trainer's name is Elder Damian Telis. He's from Montevideo, Uruguay and guess what, he doesn't speak a lick of English, so that has made things interesting these first couple of days. Anyway, we leave from the Mission Home and go to our first area. The name of the area we are in is "Boulogne" and we are in the Buenos Aires North stake. We show up to our first apartment, and man, this place looked like a murder scene, I mean it was worse in there than after Hurricane Katrina hit. Broken glass everywhere, and just super small, none of the light bulbs actually worked. We just got to work cleaning it up, and made it look all spiffy.
 |
| First apartment: 575 Virrey Vértiz, Boulogne, Buenos Aires |
 |
| Elder Tellis & Elder Christensen, probably at the Mission Home or LDS Chapel near the Mission Home? |
Wednesday was business as usual, we went out and got to know as many members as we could. We are opening a new area here in the Boulogne ward because missionaries haven't been here in a while, so we have got a lot to do. We went and had lunch with a member, and just talked with everybody we saw. It turns out it's a lot easier to talk about the church when you have someone that actually speaks Spanish. 😮
Wednesday night, we get a call that says we have to move out of the apartment into a new one which I wasn't too sad about. Thursday morning, we get up and pack, and a moving truck comes and these dudes come and just start moving all the stuff, so I was like "cool, let's move!" So we move all this heavy furniture, and mind you this is on the second floor, with some super-narrow staircases that's really scary. Finally, after like 2 hours, we have everything packed up and in the moving truck. Then, the owner of the apartment shows up, and says that most of the furniture belongs to him, not the church. So then we have to take all the furniture back up to the apartment, so that wasn't fun. Our new apartment is nice and pretty modern, and its got a McDonald's around the corner. The only downside is that it's actually outside of our area, and like a forty minute bus ride to the Chapel. On Thursday night we had Zone Conference, and introduction thing, like 1 hour away. There I got to meet up with Elder Byers because he's my Zone Leader, so that was cool too.
 |
| Apartment: 4666 Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires |
Saturday was normal, we just proselyted, met with a bunch of investigators and members.
Sunday was cool, went to church and all the members are all super-nice to the fact that I don't really speak Spanish. Sunday night we were prosletying, and this is my funny language mistake for the week. We were walking home and this lady calls out from across the street asking how tall I was. So, we go over and she's super-nice, she's just chilling out there, cooking some asado. We start talking to her, and she was really receptive and she tells us about how her life is kind of hard. She keeps saying that she likes "merca" and I have no idea what "merca" is. So, I just nod my head and say "que bueno." Then she says do you want some "merca", and I say "sure" trying not to be rude or anything, and I'm genuinely curious what kind of food "merca" is. So, then my companion jumps in and pulls me away and says "no thanks, we don't want any merca". and we start walking away from this lady rather hastily. I'm like, "come on man, I was teaching that lady", well then he tells me how "merca" means cocaine and that that lady is a coke addict. So, that was funny.
 |
| Boulogne Ward Chapel, 1309 Olazábal Boulogne Buenos Aires |
P-day (Preparation Day, Monday, is the day off to do errands, shopping, etc) was good we did some shopping, and it's nice everything is pretty cheap here. Then we played some soccer at the church with the other elders in our district. And we got some Burger King, which was soooo good.
Anyways, I love my mission so far, go read John Chapter 8, verses 1 through 11, it's one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. bye
Family update:
1) What is your companions name?
Elder Damian Telis
2) Where is he from?
Montevideo, Uruguay
3) How tall is he?
178 cm = 5'10"
4) What is he like, what does he like to do?
He's really hard-working and funny, at first it was hard, but I can understand him better everyday. He really likes soccer, and likes to drink matte
5) How many brothers and sisters does he have?
5 siblings, he's the second oldest
6) Do you knock on doors mostly or just talk to people in the town square?
When we do proselyte, we mainly street contact. We try to find investigators from the area book because they are usually more receptive
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