Dear family,
what up?! youre lucky youre getting this letter cuz you seriously have to like battle for computers with the local kids who are in the cibers playing world of warcraft and its ridiculous!!! but yeah im going to explain everything that happened after i got off the phone with you guys so get ready!
so right after i got off the phone, i had to board and i made it fine, not a big deal. we loaded everyone onto the plane and we sat there forever. we were kinda terrified when we got on the plane cuz everyone spoke spanish and we couldnt understand a thing. but we got over that quickly and just started talking with everyone to see if we could. it ended up being really fun. so then they came on the intercom and said the plane was too heavy and they needed 4 people to deplane...that took forever and the people were finally gone. then right after, they came on and said there were some maintenance problems that they had to fix before we could leave. it started raining in the meantime. then they came on and said volcanoes were acting up in chile and there was too much volcanic ash in the air so we had to wait for that. then it started pouring like crazy and they said we couldnt leave until the storm passed. finally, we heard a huge clash of thunder and a few minutes later they came on the intercom in english and said that lighting may have hit near the plane and if we smelt burnt iodine it was normal. then they came on in spanish and all they said was something had exploded in the front of the plane and that we had been hit by lightning. way cool haha so we ended up having to deplane and then there was almost a riot at the terminal because all those people going to argentina had been waiting for 3 days and had been delayed every single day. we ended up having to leave to a hotel in dallas. while we were waiting for that, all of us hit up mcdonalds, which was amazing, and then i freakin forgot my carry on bag inside of security. so i had tsa go find it and they said the police had called the dogs to come sniff it or whatever when they arrived and grabbed it and brought it back to me. super close call.
so the next day, we had a 12 hour flight and i slept for like 8 of it, it was amazing!!! we got out of customs and everything and there were 3 guys waiting and they never introduced themselves or anything and just kinda shuffled us all outside, grabbed our bags threw em in a van, and then shoved us in the vans and off we went. pretty sketchy, but they did have a sister missionary with them, so we figured it was alright. they ended up taking us to a best western to stay the night. on the way there, we were talking to the sister and she served in salta and was leaving the next day. one of the first things she said to us was if someone tries to rob you, just give them what they want, they will kill you. hows that for freakin words of welcome?! ridiculous! haha so we were pretty terrified after that.
anyways, we woke up the next morning, went to another airport, where there was another stranger who failed to introduce himself and he just took us by groups to our flights to different missions. we got on our flight and then we arrived in salta like 2 hours later. we didnt have to take a bus luckily. we finally got there and our president and his wife met us. theyre both super cool, but the pres cant speak english, and his wife knows a few words so that was an adventure. we finally all got in vans and headed to the mission home. we dropped our bags and then went and had lunch at the presidents house and it was way good. we went back, and got to meet our papis, or our trainers. mines a peruvian native and doesnt speak a word of freakin english! its been rough at first but now we can talk to each other and stuff. we had like initiatory training and whatnot, and then they sent us out tracting at like 8. super fun, but i couldnt understand anything. i was almost positive we were gonna get robbed when we were talking to this one guy who took us everywhere and tried to get us to come into his house with him to get stuff, which was a giant dark broken building. we didnt go in haha but speaking of understanding, i can understand a lot more each day and its getting easier! so thats definitely a good thing. after tracting, we went to the APs apartment and basically had a giant sleep over in their living room. there were 14 of us, plus the people who lived in that apartment so it was crazy.
the next day, we had to go do paperwork at immigrations and i had my first encounter with the one eyed monster. there was a woman breastfeeding in there without shame...its happened several times since then, including when we were giving a blessing, a lady directly in our line of sight in the bedroom just popped it out and stuck her baby on. it didnt help that shes kind of immensely fat and had to lift her shirt all the way up.
anyways, we had to go to the giant bus terminals after that and we contacted while we were waiting. pretty fun. we had a 5 hour drive out to my area, which is tucuman centro. we planned when we got back and went to bed. but the apartment im living in could be pretty nice, but its disgusting right now. the shower curtain is almost completely mud and there are bugs all over in the bathroom. there are also bugs in all the cupboards and everythings dirty. we cleaned this morning, but its gonna take a lot more than that. we live with two other elders, one from peru elder ruiz, and one from texas elder lindsey. theyre pretty cool guys.
The next day, we had lunch with the members and it was way good food again. i couldnt understand very much and they liked to make fun of me, but it was alright haha they decided theyre going to call me elder sirena, or elder mermaid in spanish, because my last name is too hard to say. we went out to work after that and we met a drunk guy in the street who said he was a member. he started bawling and like grabbing my hand and my companion and saying he wanted to leave alcohol and tobacco and all that and he just kept saying help me, help me. super sad. we told him we would come back in a couple days cuz we had so many appointments.
the next day, we had lunch with more members and it was way fun. i could actually have conversation with them cuz i understood what they were saying sometimes. ive been told that there are three kinds of girls here worms: who are like 8 year old girls who love you, snakes; who are the attractive or not attractive girls from like 16 to 30, and dragons: or the old ladies who just love you cuz youre young. ive already encountered all three, especilly because im american and they love the color of my eyes cuz everyone here has brown eyes. ridiculous! i wish i wasnt american, cuz its like almost distracting for them during lessons. but, in the words of elder ruiz: flirt to convert! haha
so we went to a members daughters baptism and that was sweet, i got to play the piano and stuff for it. they all told me how beautiful my playing was and stuff cuz no one can play down here. i also had to play organ yesterday in sacrament. AND i had to bear my testimony in front of the ward. one of the members told elder lindsey the texan that i need to teach him how to speak cuz apparently my accent is better than his or something. he was freakin torqued. but i would rather understand more than be better at speaking so then i could at least know what was going on.
so here in south america, traffic is freaking ridiculously sketchy. people do not slow down for you and will not hesitate to run you over and there is no such thing as a cross walk or pedestrians have the right of way. we had to cross like an 8 lane highway yesterday walking and stop in the median in the middle to wait for the traffic to slow down on the other side. dont worry though, were safe about it....or as safe as you can be here haha but i have yet to see a posted speed limit, there are one way streets everywhere and i dont know how people know which is which because there are no street signs anywhere, including stop signs. you just go and hope you dont run into someone when youre driving. ridiculously scary. everyone also has a motorcycle and ive seen families of 5 squished onto one that normally holds 2. the dad sits in front with a kid on his lap, then 2 kids behind him, and then the mom, who may or may not be holding a baby. so sketchy.
the people here all kind of eye you funny until you say hi and then theyre all smiles and kindness and its kinda cool. especially at night. i was so scared the first night cuz i was convinced that everyone was going to rob me because of the way they were looking at me. then i figured out if you say they really like instantly change and all the tension and fear is gone and no one wants to rob you haha.
ive already given a blessing in spanish to this lady and it was freaking terrifying!!! but it actually went halfway well so it was pretty cool. oh and tell the bastians they would love it down here, cuz you cant drink the water from the tap its so bad, so they have that nasty soda water crap everywhere! so we drink pop and juice and thats what we survive on here.
but everything is going way good, hope to hear from you soon! love you guys and miss you!
Con amor,
Elder Sirrine
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