Alright family, here it is! haha
So its been ridiculously hot a couple days here and rainy a lot too. during the hot days, its gotten up to 45 degrees celsius, i dont know what that is in fahrenheit, but i know its over 100 degrees haha look it up and tell me! but when we played tennis last week it was freakin hot and i got burnt pretty bad on my neck. but its all better now dont worry. but sometimes its so hot here we cant freakin sleep in the night, even with the fan cuz were sweating. so something that elder lindseys brother told him is to shower in your garments in cold water and just climb into bed like that. ive done it once and its amazing. i slept through the entire night. and woke up completely dry, thats how freakin hot it is. the other day it was like 75 degrees outside and i was absolutely freezing. i wore a freakin sweater haha i guess im accostomed to the heat now.
so another thing about how weird my comp is....he likes to smell cats. whenever we go to a members house and theres a cat there, the first thing he does is pick it up and stick its head right in his nose. the other day he was smelling a kitten and then he bit its ear and just let it dangle from his mouth like that. yeah. i have no idea either. those dang peruvians haha. so here in argentina i have lost something like 10.5 pounds. when i got here i weighed 90 kilos and i weighed myself the other day and i weigh 85 now. so im pretty sure thats something like 10 pounds. im lookin good! haha
so i dont know if i told you this, but we had to go to salta on saturday because Elder Christofferson was coming down for a mission conference. i got to shake his hand and it was way cool. turns out he served in the same area im in now on his mission, so he talked in spanish to all of us. we were all expecting him to like lay down the law and just rip us a new one, but he actually told us that god is very thankful that were here making all these sacrifices to be on the mission. he talked a lot about prayer and stuff too. it was way cool.
friday night was my first baptism!!! it was way cool, even though there were only like 7 people there. it was me, my comp, two ward members, the ward mission leader, Jorge the kid we baptized, and his mom. but he didnt want anyone there so it was alright. but it was way cool to see how it changes a person. he was so much happier and just had a smile on his face the whole time. super cool. we also have three more baptisms scheduled for this friday, so we´ll see how that goes. and the goal to baptize weekly is the mission goal, not ours. everyone in the mission is expected to baptize weekly, so its a dang lofty goal, but its definitely possible here in argentina.
also, if you guys want a piece of my life here in argentina, go on youtube and look up Watchiturros. its a music group down here and i hear it all the freaking time. its basically the music you listen to when youre drinking. also, me and elder lindsey were talking the other day and he said after the mission youll have learned 4 languages down here in argentina. castillano, español, tucumanese, and with enough liquor, portugeuse! haha
right now, we are talking to about 21 people. theyre all investigators, but not all are progressing, though the majority of them do have a baptismal date. hopefully we can get at least half into the water. and here in tucuman, im pretty sure theres a stake, but i have no idea how many wards there are here. the members here provide almost every single lunch, and we just dont eat dinner cuz the lunches are pretty big. for breakfast, i just have a massive bag of frosted flakes that i eat every morning for breakfast. our area that we serve in is the poor part of tucuman centro. theres centro 1 and centro 2 and i think were centro 1. our area includes what they call San Cayetano Ciudad. its basically the ghetto parts on the outskirts of town and we have a little bit of the more ritzy uptown part of centro too.
so your story about reading those testimonies out of the ensign reminded me of what happened in the MTC. i was reading that exact ensign and those exact testimonies and after i had read a few i stopped and wondered why i had never received a witness like that. i had prayed before about it but had never received an answer. in that moment, the spirit just came so strong and i knew without a doubt that the book of mormon was true. so that ensign kind of has special significance and it helped me receive my testimony of the BoM.
how we get paid here is we have a separate debit card that we get money on at the end of each month. we get about 1400 pesos, but about half of that goes for the apartment. i think the things here are just as expensive, but there are definitely some cool things that i want to buy and send home for ya.
so you better make sure that makayla takes voice lessons now, cuz shes gotta do something artsy haha in her letter she said she wants to and i think that would be perfect for her! and i cant believe those guys are coming home already off their missions. i swear it hasnt been 2 years already....but tell em hi from me. and also about my crappy punctuation and whatnot, the keyboards they use here are a lot different and i dont know where like any of the punctuation marks are and i dont want to take the time to look for them haha
a little about my week. i had to go on splits with the ZLs and i ended up going to their area. while we were there, i had 2 members tell me that i could speak better than the guy i was with and hes been here for 22 months....i dont think he was very happy. but while i was in their area, i ended up giving a blessing of comfort to this one lady and it was really cool. i had never met this lady before in my life but she wanted me to do it, so i had to go by the spirit in order to say what she needed and it was awesome to feel the spirit working through me. the lady was crying and stuff at the end, so apparently i said something right. i also had to bless a house while i was out there too. lots happened haha
that one lady thats convinced shes gonna marry me is solid. were baptizing her this friday and its not cuz she really thinks she can be with me haha shes read like half the book of mormon and shes already testifying of the gospel to her grandkids and shes not even a member yet. she did get pissed when one of her friends came in the other day though and kissed both me and my comp on the cheek. she started yelling at this lady and how she had kissed her husband and then she yelled at me for letting it happen and it was just hilarious haha
i havent received any other mail here, but hopefully ill get taylors letter tomorrow. it should be here by now. i also showed the picture that i have here with me to a member and she just kept saying what a life you have, what a life you have with the boat and tubing and all that. so i dont think ill show them very much cuz its almost embarassing how much stuff we have and were not even rich.
so i think ill have to drink the water in my apartment at least eventually, cuz the filters on our water bottles only last so long. the texan has been drinking the water for a while now and hes fine. so maybe the water in the apartment is okay, but not out in the ghettos where we serve. youll have to do some research on the water here in argentina and tell me what you think.
so there are bugs all over in my apartment, when you turn the light on in the bathroom in the morning they all scatter to their hiding places. they are also in the drawers and cupboards. but luckily we dont cook like anything, so we dont have to worry about it. and no i dont have fleas....i dont think haha but we tried to sleep outside on the balcony the other night and apparently my feet were uncovered and they got absolutely devoured. ill send a picture of that too. but thats all for now, happy anniversary! hope you have a good week, and i love and miss you! cant wait to hear back!
con amor
Elder Sirrine
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