Week 22: Posadas, Argentina

 Hola everyone!!!! I heard it's pretty cold up there, hopefully everyone is staying warm. But this week was pretty good for us. We found some cool people to teach, ate some good food and had some cool experiences. It seems like ever since I got here to Argentina, it's been really crazy, like we are always doing something different, always changing companions for a day and working with other people, leaving and coming back to my area, traveling to make sure other missionaries are okay when they don't answer their cell phones because it rained really hard and their phone broke or coming home and having to do a bunch of stuff in the dark because our street lost electricity. But it's been pretty fun; the more unordinary things that happen the more interesting the days are and usually they are more fun. But hopefully everyone is doing well and reading the Book of Mormon ;) Have a good week!!!!!

Love,

Elder Ben Roberts

                                         

Week 21: Posadas

(From a letter to Elder Roberts' parents)

The family we baptized changed a lot as well; I wasn't really there for a lot of it, but they apparently changed a lot. 

And ahh 1 dollar burrito night at Cafe Rio sounds like I'm missing out. I'll have to go every day when i come back to make up for it. And the food here is actually pretty good. And we still eat at 1230, we have to, and we usually eat like civilized people in the house at a set table with the whole family which is really nice. I don't think I've had anything here that I really didn't like. 

And there's members that work for the police, work for construction, teach at schools, just the regular stuff.  I don't think there is anything out of the ordinary. And there are people that speak Guarani, but pretty much everyone speaks Spanish. There are a lot of Paraguayos because my area touches the border, the river. 

We are reactivating, well I hope, a Paraguayan lady and her daughter who may or may not get baptized. And my comp's family is very active. His dad has been the branch president for a longggg time and his brother is going to serve a mission in 1 or 2 years. They live in Yucatan, the southern part, and his dad speaks Maya and stuff so its pretty cool. But they are moving really close to Texas when he finishes his mission in June. But yeah I mean it's pretty safe here for the most part except for the part that all of investigators live in. The area is divided into little secciones called chakras which are like little neighborhoods but really divided well kinda like in Utah where everything is a square and the roads run parallel.  We are working a lot in the poorest one with the humblest people but also some dangerous people. So we usually try to leave by 700 or 730 to avoid getting attacked haha but its pretty safe for the most part. But yeah everything is going well, just trying to keep on working and helping the zone out with lots of stuff. like randomly getting called from the elders that live two blocks away that their kitchen is on fire and sprinting over there super fast and helping the put it out. So just fun stuff like that. But all is well haha. Have a good week!!! Tell Grandmom and Grandad I said hello!!! 

Love you,

Ben

Week 20: Posadas, Argentina

(From a letter to Mom and Dad) 
I heard it's pretty cold up there right now. but ahh thats weird with all the health problems.  But church in Posadas is pretty nice, air conditiong, there's a piano player and I don't have to teach the gospel principles class haha so it's nice. The ward isn't too big, like 90 people. Two other elders in the ward were sleeping in our apartment with us for a week but they bought air conditiong and now we don't see them as much. But we do divicciones(exchanges/divisions?) every week so I'll be able to see them more. And two of the secretaries to the president are in the district so that's cool to have them help us. Inside guys on the office haha get books of Mormon easily and stuff like that. And ahh there's so much stuff to do, I haven't slept a lot this past week haha. 

 But we ate and went shopping and did some stuff with the nubmers in the computer and went and got our clothes and all that good stuff for pday. But yeah elder Ake is super cool. I like him, really nice and he helps me a lot with what I should be doing. So it's good and we actaully take a lot of colectivos here, not sure at the end of the month when we run out of money haha but we take colectivos like every other day or sometimes every day to go to different parts of the area. And the people here are a little more receptive I think but it's just a little harder to find the really receptive people. But it's going pretty well. I hope everything is going well up there! love and miss you!!!

Elder Ben

Week 19: Posadas, Argentina

HOlaaaaaaaaaaa everyone!!!

I'll just make this quick, but I'm in Argentina! It's really cool. I like it a lot. The area I'm in is pretty nice and we have air conditioning where we sleep. so I can't complain. But it really has been cool, got to spend New Year's with some of the members and eat some good food and meet some new people. It's been fun. My new companion is Elder Ake who is super awesome and funny and we get along really well. Anyways I hope everyone had a fantastic New Year's and that all is well! Talk to ya next week!!

Elder Roberts

From a letter to Elder Roberts' parents:

Hola!! So this past week has been pretty crazy, fun, tiring, crazy and interesting. I left Ciudad del Este at 11:30 to go to the terminal, and left at 1:30 to go to Encarnacion. I stood up the whole night on the bus because there weren't any seats and got there at like 7:00 a.m. I got to sleep for the 30 minutes curled up in a little ball on the floor on the bus, so that was a fun experience. I got to Encarnacion early and waited there for a longgg time to get to go cross the border to go to Posadas, but I got to see a lot of people from the mission and I'm starting to make a lot more friends from other places in the mission now that I'm seeing them more so it was pretty cool. Then I crossed the border and went to the terminal at Posadas to meet my companion, and then we went back to the apartment dropped my stuff off and left to go work haha. My comapnion is Elder Ake, from southern Mexico, Yucatan, and he's super cool, super funny, super crazy, super animated and super awesome haha. We get along really well and he works like a monkey. so basically I almost died from being tired this week, but it was good. Working hard is good. I was just super tired from the bus ride and then ate a tonnnn of food for New Years and didn't feel so hot, and then one day after we ran to a bunch of lessons my neck started to stiffen up and the next day I woke up and couldn't move it. I was kinda paralyzed for like 2 days but I'm feeling a lot better now. Posadas is super awesome also. I really like it here in the Tacuari ward. the people are super nice. I actually kinda feel like I'm in the States. My apartment is pretty nice, we have air conditioning and a shower curtain... no microwave or stove... but everything else is good.  The office of the mission is like 15 min away so get to see the president and the hermana and the asistentes to the president a lot and talk to them. 

But I like it a lot here; there is a super market in front of our house, well kinda, that is like a branch off of Walmart, it has great value stuff haha so I'm excited to go there.