Rollin' in the Deep

Dear Family,

So first of all, i was thinking about trying to save some face and say that the reason we basically gave up our money and stuff to the gypsy last week was because we were trying to be meek and try not to cause contention, but i decided to own up to the fact that were pretty much idiots with no common sense haha but i still claim im less of an idiot than my comp cuz i only gave up 15 pesos.....so you guys can take it or leave it :)

So everything went well this last week, we actually had another encounter with the gypsy lady as we were leaving a members house and i found out her name is Marisol.  I kind of want a picture with her, but i dont trust her gypsy magical ways.  So youre gonna have to settle with her name i guess.  But im pretty sure the gypsies arent dangerous here, theyre all pretty chill.....they just prey on retarded gringos and yankees like us.

Also....i got both of your packets last week!!! Greatest things ever! Tell susan thanks and theres a letter coming her way (in spanish) and that i love the flip flops and hat.  The squirt guns were probably the best thing ever to send, weve already had one major battle with them.  The gringos won, and i think all of us fell victim to our slippery tile floor covered in water at least one time.  I was the first to find out how unmerciful the floor was when i went running down the hall in my newly received brasilian flip flops and i encountered a nice little puddle on the floor.  Lets just say i did a mean flying two-footed kick into our bottom cupboard.  Dont tell president! haha but no one got hurt and it was a very welcome break from the norm.

This last week, we went to Alex´s house again to teach our recent convert Carlos.  When we got there, they had invited one of their friends, juan, there to listen to the missionary lessons and it was literally the best lesson/testifying moment of the Spirit i have had in my entire mission.  We taught him the restoration and gave him a book of mormon and at the end of the lesson, we invited him to kneel down and ask God if what we taught was true.  He agreed and started praying.  he asked to know if it was true and there was silence for like 30 seconds....he finally said in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.  I looked up and there were tears streaming down his face and he had a huge smile on.  I asked him how he felt and he said different than he ever had before and that he didnt have words to explain it.  Needless to say, hes getting baptized the 19th of May :D

We went to Alex´s house the next night to teach Juan and when we got there, Alex and Carlos had the entire 2nd lesson prepared.  So we had them teach it, and i just thought it was cool to see how much they loved their friend and how much they wanted to help him know what they know by teaching him.  Alex´s brother hector came in and we talked with him too and the lesson ended up being a giant counseling session for alex and hector cuz i guess they hate each other.  So we talked for a while and got them to say they were going to try to talk to each other and when we went back a few days later they were playing the guitar together and singing! super sweet!!!! 

Alex and Carlos also invited another one of their friends to come to the English class that we had on Saturday night.  His name is Ui (Carlos) and i think he liked us and is interested in the gospel as well, because he ended up coming to Stake conference with us the next day.  Speaking of english class, i had to teach it solo cuz my comp went on divisions with the other elder and my new comp was latino and doesnt know english. but it was actually super fun teaching and i like it a lot! it would be fun to come back and just teach english here or in a different country i think.

Also, this last week we had an appointment with a members friend who went to general conference with her.  His name is Franco, and apparently hes already been to church a lot, but the elders have never talked to him.  Hes super awesome and is really interested in the church.  He already has a baptism date for next week the 12th, and i think we´ll be able to get him there to baptism! Im really excited for him.

Like i said earlier, we had stake conference and us as a ward had to take a bus again to go to Jujuy, but this time to a different building where they decided to transmit the conference by satellite.  it was really good, except for the satellite connection got lost twice.  it cut off right in the end of the last speakers talk, and came back on in time to see  the AMEN of the last prayer.  kinda funny.

Also, an update on Melani.  Turns out our president told us that tecnically she can get baptized and then do the confirmation after in the catholic church, but if she does that she´ll offend God.  But if she does the confirmation first and then baptism she wont offend him because shes not making the choice to do the confirmation herself, its her mom.  So we told her and shes made the decision to wait until after the confirmation.....which is in like 3 years.  So i told her i expect a photo of her baptism and that she has to keep coming to church haha

But yeah, were doing way good down here, we should start to have some baptisms rolling in here pretty quick, and ill be sure to keep you all updated! love you all and hope to hear from you next week!

Con amor,

Elder Sirrine

Robbed by a gypsy ladies love......

To preface this week's letter, let me start off by sharing the text that I got early on Monday morning from Taylor:

"Mom and Neccia...whoever gets this text first.  My companion and I were robbed by gypsies this week and my comp needs money.  Can you please put some into my account."

 

Needless to say, we worried all day wondering what had happened and if it was really real.  The following explains how brilliant Taylor and his companion are!!  Still little boys!!

 

 

 

 

Hey family!

 

So this last week was good, and i gained one of the greatest mission stories ever as you all know! haha But ill go into that later.  This last week was good, except for the weekend :( Turns out that melanis mom wont give her permission to get baptized until after she completes the catholic confirmation, and that wont be for like 3 years.  I guess when her older brother alez got baptized, he had already done all that, so that was why his mom was cool with him getting baptized.  We just learned last night that her mom said she can get baptized now if she still does the Confirmation in the Catholic church later, but we dont know if thats possible, so well see what happens.

 

Other than that, the week was way good! We found some way awesome people and one family that is amazing! They are the Padilla family. The first time, we knocked their door and the dad let us in and we just taught him.  We invited him to invite his family to the next lesson and he totally did! His wife and 2 daughters actually participated and his son was there, but ran off somewhere.  His daughter in an inactive evangelical, but still has the mentality of an active one, cuz we had to defend a lot of our doctrine against her and answer a lot of her questions.  it was pretty fun.  So yeah, the dad loves us, and if we can get him to get baptized, the rest of the family will follow suit!

 

The other guy we found last week, his name is Kiko! Hes kind of a recluse, but he wasnt that way before.  He has his own producing/editing company and apparently he does/has done some pretty big stuff down here in argentina! hes way cool and we had a good lesson with him.  When we explained about the book of mormon, he said that he had always wondered what had happened with the people from america and why jesus was only in jerusalem and what not.  So that was a way cool spiritual moment, and hes super interested in the Book of Mormon now.  Also, he had found this one video thats a documentary of this guy going around the world asking everyone what they think god is.  in spanish its called what is god, but english its oh my god.  he burned us a copy of it and we got permission from the mission president to watch it during the next few days if we have time.  im pretty curious as to what the people are going to say.

 

That was really all of the spiritual stuff, so nows here for the not so spiritual.  First, on thursday we went to go buy some ground meat for lunch and my comp bought vegetables while i was buying the meat.  Apparently, i didnt know how to buy or ask for the meat in the right way, cuz youre supposed to ask how much it is a kilo, then watch them weigh it carefully to make sure they dont screw you, cuz they like doing that to americans a lot cuz they think we have lots of money and theyre very dishonest. So yeah, i didnt know any of that, and the guy ended up giving me about 3 pesos worth of meat and made me pay 10.  My comp was TORQUED.  so yeah, watch your meats in south america.

 

And now the most anticipated part of all, the infamous robbing by gypsies!!!!  So my comp and i were walking along and this gypsy woman sitting in front of her house waved us over.  So we went over with the intentions of teaching the gospel.  When we get there, she starts going off about how handsome we are and how she was going to read our palms for free cuz we were so handsome.   So she makes us sit down and starts going off about our hands and then asks us if we want luck in work or in love.  My comp says work, i say love to be different.  So then she was like to my comp take out your money that you have right now and well bless it so that you will receive like a billion times more! so he takes out a 50 cuz that was the smallest he had at the time.  she puts it in the middle where our hands our and then asks if he has more money on him and if he does he needs to put it in there too so it can be blessed.  She makes him take out his wallet and she find the 100 in there and puts it in with the rest.  she told me to take out my money too so it could be blessed.  i luckily only had 15 pesos.  so i put it there, she crumples it all together, and then she tells her son to get a glass of water.  She takes the money and then her son dumps all this water all over it! i dont know if she like swiped the 100 out of there first or no, but she totally destroyed all the money and said that even though that hurt, he would gain much much much more in the future. So then with the crumpled mass of shredded bills in her hands, she tells me to take off the ring so we can bless it for love.  So taking it off, i put it in the money and then she has us blow on it and what not so its blessed and ill have lots of luck in love.  Then she says for the blessing to be complete, the ring has to stay with her, and i would have the love i wanted and my comp would have the work and the money.  So i left it there so i could say i got robbed by gypsies and we went on our way! haha my comp was pretty pissed after that cuz that 150 pesos was what was left of his monthly asignation.  I literally laughed my head off for 20 minutes because we got screwed by this gypsy lady, and then realized that i would probly have to pay for my comps food for the rest of the month.  so yeah, there you go! haha we got robbed by gypsies!

 

But thats about it for the week! lov you all and hope to hear from you next week! STAY AWAY FROM GYPSIES!!!!

 

Con amor,

 

Elder Sirrine

Another Good Week!!

Hey family,

 

So im just here to report in again i guess! haha This last week went by ridiculously fast, and it ended up being a pretty good week for us.  First off, ill just let you know that i wont be uploading pictures today cuz this computer is gay and doesnt seem to recognize my flash drive thingy. So until next week and then youll all get to know carlos! haha

 

First off, we did our first divisions of the transfer this week! It was a pretty good change.  An elder named Elder Sherwood came here to my area and i ended up being senior comp for 2 days haha Hes from missouri and hes way cool.  We had some interesting conversations, and we had both read a lot of the same books and stuff like that, so that was the majority of our conversation for those 2 days.  While he was here, we went to Anabel´s house and she fodged us.  So there was this group of kids outside her house and they all wanted us to play soccer with them in the street.  So we stopped and played for a few minutes and this one little kid just like drilled it at me.  He kicked super hard, and i just kind of flung my foot out to get in the way of it and i kind of ended up kicking it over into Anabel´s back yard! haha she wasnt home and her backyard is completely fenced in and the kids got SOOOOO pissed at me haha we were just like, Whoops! Sorry kids, we got another appointment and we really cant stay any longer and we left them without their ball haha But they got it back the next day so its all good :)

 

Also, Carlos got baptized on Saturday! Apparently hes a super stud because the Elder that interviewed him got done in like 7 minutes and said it was the shortest baptismal interview he´d ever had.  Go Carlos!!!! He ended up getting baptized at like noon, because the youth of the ward were going to EFY in Jujuy Capital, and him and Alex ended up going with them.  It was cool, because Alex, his best friend, got to baptize him.  And this week Alex´s little siter Melani is getting baptized by him too!

 

On Saturday night, we had told everyone in the neighborhoods and stuff like that that we were going to start teaching an English class. So we went there at 8 that night with a lesson all prepared and everything and freaking no one showed up! So were gonna announce it better this week and make some people come with us to learn english haha Me and my comp ended up making a zombie emergency plan, in case there is ever a zombie apocalypse and they attack our pension......our pension is now completely impenetrable and we will win the zombie holocaust when it happens.

 

Random note, i learned an awesome song on the guitar in Spanish! Its called Te Vi Venir by Sin Bandera if you wanna hit up youtube and check it out.  I will totally sing it to you all when i get home haha

 

So yeah, that was about it for this week, it was pretty dang good all in all! I do feel a little bad though, because yesterday i felt like we werent working like we should have been and we wasted a lot of time.....i dont like feeling like that, so it will be the first and last time that it happens.  So were gonna be working even harder this week to make up for our slacking last week! I will update you all on Melani´s baptism next week and hopefully ill have some photos! So i hope to hear from you all soon (Cough....Tanner.) and i love you all!!!!

 

Con Amor,

 

Elder Sirrine

Drunks in Church!!

Hey family!

So this last week has been just an awesome week for us! haha i love it
here in Perico! Its actually pretty fun putting back together a
destroyed area because now i get all the awesome opportunities that
those trucho missionaries missed out on before! Weve been working hard
and had a lot of success. Just to give you an idea, the first week i
got here, we had 15 lessons the entire week.....sucky number.  But
this last week, we had 30! Completely doubled it! and weve found some
awesome new investigators too, 3 of which are definitely going to get
baptized.

So talking of those 3 investigators, lets talk about the first one!
His name is Carlos and he is best friends with a member here in the
ward named Alex.  Hes super interested and such a stud.  Every lesson
we have with him he has just like a ton of super deep questions and
just wants to know everything! He is also getting baptized this week!
Hes been to church a lot already and wants to get baptized, so hes
completely in the clear.  Im super pumped for his baptism this weekend
:)

Secondly, Melanie! She is Alex´s little sister! Shes 12 years old and
loves the church.  She used to go a lot, and im not really sure why
she quit going....but shes listening to us now and is going to get
baptized next week!

And lastly,  Anabel!  Shes a single mom with a 7 year old daughter
named Ariadna.  I guess shes talked with the missionaries before, but
they stopped passing by and they lost contact.  But shes really
interested and has accepted her baptismal date for the 28th of April!
but i dont know if we´ll be able to baptize her then, cuz she didnt
come to church yesterday :( but we kind of knew she wouldnt come
because she told us before that she had prior committments being
Easter all.  But she absolutely loves us! The second appointment we
had with her she had bought pizza and a 2 liter of coke for us and
then gave us a giant jar of planters peanut butter that her friend
from the united states sent her.  I guess she didnt like it, but me
and my comp have already like completely destroyed it haha She also
told me that i look almost exactly like her brother that died when he
was 25 years old, so that might be why she likes us so much.

But yeah, things with my comp are going super good, its definitely
different having a gringo comp.  We know a lot of the same stuff and
have fun all day. But hes still kind of depressed and ive been trying
to help him out a lot with that.  He still feels really downtrodden
and just kinda takes whatever abuse comes at him.  So im trying to
give him the most lovin that i can (in a completely appropriate
non-gay way) and things will get better, especially once we start
baptizing every week!

And now, my crazy story for the week! So we went and looked for this
kid yesterday who recently got baptized and we were going to walk with
him to church.  When we got to his house, one of his loser friends was
out there smoking and drinking cheap boxed wine.  So we woke this kid
Gaston up, and then he came to church with his, and his loser friend
Joel ended up coming too.  So we come to find out after church, that
Gaston and Joel had gone into the bathroom during church and were
totally smoking marijuana in there! The bishops wife smelled it when
she walked past and kicked them out of the bathroom, and i guess the
Joel kid, because he was kind of drunk during class, just got pissed
and kicked this other kid super hard for no reason! So needless to
say, we will not be bringing any more drunk people to church, and less
Gaston or any of his friends.

So yeah, thats been my week! We´re doing good here, and mom im still
alive! you can sleep in peace! haha Love you all and hope to hear from
you next week!

Con Amor,

Elder Sirrine

La area esta hecho percha....

Dear Family,

So this last week has been pretty crazy as ive been here in perico trying to get settled in a little bit. First off, sorry im so late again, we had to go and do freaking real transfers today and we were in the terminal in another city all freaking morning until like 4 o clock....so im kind of upset. And also these computers suck horribly so thats why i only uploaded like 4 photos.

So yes, a little bit more about the area. Perico is super chill and a lot less dangerous than Tucuman, so you wont be getting any more scary stories like before haha I like it a lot here! Its a lot more cultural too, cuz its not just city. There are BILLIONS of Bolivians here and im pretty sure jujuy is basically another part of Bolivia. But its way cool cuz the people are way simple and humble and even poorer than the people in Tucuman. But theyre not as stupid as the people of Tucuman, so ive actually had like some civilized conversations haha Ill explain why tucuman people are kind of retarded when i get back from the mish, no time to put it all here. I will send some sexy pictures in my bolivian jacket that i have now next week. Oh, and its also a lot colder here too, i was dying like the first 3 days cuz i went from 95 degree weather to like 55. And yes, like you guys asked its a ton of tobacco fields. Everyone either works there or in the open flea markets they have here. And they dont really smoke that much, but everyone chews tobacco leaves in their mouths so thats just as bad.

The area here is a lot tougher here than it was in tucuman. Im not saying its a bad area, its the opposite actually, but it just sucks because there were a lot of crappy missionaries here before who did a lot of not missionary stuff, so the ward like doesnt trust us at all. So thats gonna be the first challenge is getting the ward to trust us. After that, the missionary who was here with my comp before was named Elder Silva and he was a freaking HORRIBLE missionary. Lets just say he abused every missionary in the pension mentally, verbally, and even physically. I think half the reason i got transferred here is because Elder Silva punched my comp in the stomach and then my comp ended up kicking him across the room and things almost got out of hand. So yeah, we are basically starting from ground zero here because a lot of times that elder silva kid just didnt want to work and refused to get out of the pension. But were gonna get this area better soon! If you have any suggestions about how we can gain the trust of the members, let me know :)

Speaking of my comp, his name is Elder Tietjen and hes pretty cool. Yes he is from the states, New Mexico specifically. He has like 18 months on the mission and we get along really well. He doesnt have too much self confidence right now cuz his last comp just absolutely ripped him down and basically told him he sucked at everything every day. But we talk a lot and can actually relate cuz we think the same! haha

The pension here is also freaking legit. My last pension in tucuman was absolutely worthless! It was infested with cockroaches and will probably be fumigated soon. This pension is giant, clean, has 2 floors, we have no neighbors underneath us, and the best of all! wait for it......my room has CARPET!!!! its like the crappy cheap stuff, but i was excited beyond belief when i saw it. But vacuums dont really exist here, so its kinda hard to keep clean. Ill send you pictures next week of the pension hopefully.

Elder Reece, my old comp in the MTC got transferred today and he went off to Salta, but it was good to live with him for a week and talk about the good old times (i sound so old). His comp Elder Cancapa is going to the offices tomorrow because he is going to train a kid! Were hoping its a gringo, because if it is, were gonna mess with him a little bit. My spanish is good enough now that i can pretend like im from some Latin country, and were going to do that. Were going to tell him that my comp only has 7 months and i have 18 and then my comp is gonna talk crap on me in english to the gringo and ill pretend like i dont understand a word....its gonna be fun :)

And last but not least......Conference! Super cool experience. It was kind of weird because here in Argentina you have to go to the Stake center to watch it. Well there is only 1 stake center in the entire province of jujuy and we ended up piling 14 wards into this small stake center on sunday to watch the 2 last sessions. It was kinda cool how everyone came together and like had their lunches prepared for in between the sessions to eat because they couldnt go back to their house because theyre too far away. We had to get on 2 buses with our entire ward and drive 30 minutes to Jujuy capital and watch it there. A ward bus! haha And then all of us English speaking elders got jammed into 1 tiny room to watch it together there, cuz its so much better in the original language of English. I also loved the speech by Elder Uchtdorf about the Stop it, way good talk. I also saw one of my friends who is a girl named Sarah Hermansen sing in the MTC choir! I was pretty stoked about that too haha

But anyways, were just working away here in little ole Perico, and hopefully ill have some better news to report next week. Love you all and talk to you next week! Love you!!!!

Con amor,

Elder Sirrine

Sorry I'm Late

Hey family!!!

So this letter is going to be dang short cuz life has been crazy and stuff has happened early that wasnt supposed to happen until next week! To start off......i finally got transferred! I am now in Perico, Jujuy and am comps with Elder Tietjen. Hes a gringo and he seems pretty dang alright. Also, the area where we are is a lot smaller and less busy than downtown tucuman and i think im gonna like this area a lot. And one of the coolest things is i live with my comp from the MTC! My third comp that is, Elder Reece, not Elder Flores. So weve been reminiscing and all that good stuff about our times in the MTC haha So yeah, i had to take a giant bus from tucuman to jujuy this morning and it was like a 5 hour bus ride. And now im here!

Also, we had a baptism last week, Silvina Juarez! Its kinda funny cuz her little brother Jorge was my first baptism in Tucuman and she was my last. A good way to end off i think. The baptism went really well and i think im gonna have to load the photos next week because we dont have a lot of time. Its almost time to go out and work and get to know the people here in the area!

Before i go, ill explain why i got transferred early. So there are lots of new missionaries who are coming to the mission, but they all had to wait for their visas, and theyre all coming in sporadically now. So we got a call yesterday afternoon saying that my old comp is going to train one of the new missionaries and he went off to salta this morning to pick him up. So then i got transferred a week early here to Jujuy!

I feel really bad that i cant really respond back more than this, but i promise i will write more next week! Im super excited to be here in this new area and i cant wait to tell you how it goes here next week! So love you all and talk to ya in a week!

Con amor,

Elder Sirrine

Rollin' with the Cumbia

Hey family,

Another week, and were still here having success and working hard :) Today has been the first P-day in a long time that weve actually done something other than sit in the apartment and clean and write letters. We got like 10 or 12 missionaries and some of the guys from our ward together and we all went and played soccer this morning, and it was way fun. I still suck horribly, but it was way fun to play and actually do an activity on a P-day for once haha

So the best news first......we had a baptism on saturday!!!! It was way good. We had a bunch of members come and even an investigator made it there. The ward members were really good to welcome the lady into the ward that got baptized and they talked a lot with our investigator too, so it was awesome. There just happened to be a massive stake relief society activity going on in the church and all the different wards were doing like dances and foods and culture presentations of all the countries in south america. We stayed for a minute to see a dance and make sure that our recent convert and the investigator were in good hands and we got out of there. But i did feel kind of bad during the actual baptism, because the lady Rosa Lopez, is like absolutely terrified of water and has never actually submerged herself completely in water. She ended up having to get baptized like 5 times because she kept freaking out and sticking a part of her body out of the water. But luckily neither me nor my comp were in the water with her, cuz her son has the priesthood, so he had to deal with the awkwardness of the whole thing haha But all in all it was a way good baptism. Rosa was so excited afterward that she kissed both me and my comp on the cheek and there was nothing we could do about it. But shes like 60 years old and not in love with me, so i didnt really care haha

 

We went to a less active members house on friday to do service, because were teaching the mom their and she bought stuff to paint her house like a year ago and still hadnt painted it. So we got there at like 9:30 in the morning and her daughter gave us all the stuff and then had to go to a meeting at the school with her daughter. She left us alone in the house and right before she left she pulled out a giant speaker with a memory card in it and just started blasting cumbia music. So me and my comp were rollin with the cumbia all morning long just painting the house. I kind of felt like a thug cuz the music we were listening to is what all the thieves and like street thugs listen to when theyre partying and getting drunk.....the whole time i felt like i was missing a beer or something and the image would have been just perfect haha But we got her house all painted and she came home just in time to cook us an awesome lunch. So it was a dang good day. And now i know a lot more cumbia songs from argentina too!

During this last week we also started to teach Suzanas oldest son David. Thats a miracle by itself because he told us he was gonna burn her house down when we tried to take the virgin statue out of suzanas house. But we talked with him and found out that the reason that he wants to talk to us is because his life is kind of a wreck and all this bad stuff has happened lately because he does a LOT of cocaine. So we talked with him about prayer and the Book of Mormon, and we got him some goals set to get him off of cocaine. Suzanas other daughter Silvia got to come home from the hospital for the weekend because it was her birthday and she got interned again this morning. So far all of her studies have come out good, and theyre just waiting on the one for toxiplasmosis. They might have to operate on her. So were not exactly sure when shes going to get baptized, but she´ll get there soon! We´re praying a lot for her so she can leave this whole sucky situation behind.

 Oh and your packages got here too, and weve already destroyed the candy haha And i opened peggys fudge there at the church and believe it or not it was still good.....just a lot of oil had come out of the fudge and was all over the container and inside of the box. She individually wrapped every piece and i think thats what saved it. We ate all of it, and so far no one has died so i think were alright haha The sending date on her package was the 19th of January and we ate it the 14 of March....kinda sketchy. But it tasted dang good! So tell peggy extra thanks!

But yeah, i think thats about all for this week! Were going to have another baptism this week, and it will probly be my last here in Tucuman, because we wont baptize conference weekend, because we dont want our investigators to wait a week before theyre confirmed. So ill let you know how our next baptism goes next week! Thanks for writing and i love you all!

Con amor,

Elder Sirrine