Josh – #3 Argentina    March 30th, 2015

For this week to the end of the year there is an initiative called #GrasiasaqueÉlvive, ÉlVive.Mormon.org is the Spanish website, it’s about remembering Christ and Easter stuff.

Apparently the stake centers in Argentina have rooms for the English speakers, so I can watch General Conference in English.

Yeah. This week went by fast, feels like I was just writing.

This week had a big range of things happening. First we got our first (found) investigator. His name is Luis, we met him when we were out street contacting. We started talking to him and he said he was busy right now (and very tired), we brought up the Plan of Salvation and he got us some chairs, and five seconds later, we started to teach. Then we left all happily and such (because it was my first lesson and such and I was able to understand him well and say what I wanted). We have more citas planned with him and I hope all goes well.

Other than that, some of our citas fell through (with less active members), and most of the ones that didn’t fall through were super long so we missed out on our other planned citas.

If you can send a thing about Easter and each day that would be cool.

Good news though everyone we have been talking to made it to church yesterday! (From less active members...) Almost everyone else is Catholic or Testigos de Jéhova (JW’s), but we still talk to them hoping they want to talk and listen to what we can bring them.

Little by little we are making ourselves known with the members (and getting referrals from them) and making them like us so that later they will accompany us with lessons.

Glad to hear everything is going well at home (Except for brother Rob Whiting).

Also can you tell me who else in the Stake got Mission calls and where they are going?

Anyways, Happy Easter and Merry General Conference!

Till next week,

Love,

Elder Erickson

Josh – #8    [Argentina Retiro - 2]    Mar. 23rd, 2015

Whoa, this week seemed so short, but a lot happened. P-day last week we played some quality Soccer-Futbol. Today we’re doing a hike of Zonda? Not sure what that is, but it should be fun! Yeah my foot is all better, the picture I took was when it was all swollen. It looks just like my other foot now. And no, I didn’t really find out what happened, hopefully I don’t die.

Oh FYI – the Mendoza mission is roughly the size of California.

My comps mission ends in June, he is from Trujillo? He’s going to be home for the dedication and everything.

The part of Argentina I’m in (State thing) is called Santa Lucia; Ward – Retiro. Most of all our efforts in my companionship is towards reactivating members, there are somewhere around 100 members in our ward, but less than 50 go to church regularly. So most of our lessons are about Church attendance and the importance of the Sacrament.

I didn’t know how afraid I am to talk to people until I have to speak to them in a different language. Update on understanding the locals, I can understand them perfectly fine as long as they have teeth. I also had the cool opportunity to do two blessings. We were visiting a couple of less active members when Herm Tapia said, "The Rojas family needs some blessings." So we walked about an hour to their house and gave the blessings (in Spanish obviously). I was freaking out a bit because I haven’t given blessings in my own language (and I don’t think my Spanish is very good), but really it doesn’t matter what language it’s in Heavenly Father will understand. We had a lesson with the Rojas, and they all recovered well and attended every meeting in church.

We have been hosting/ visiting less active (non-active) members to have Noche Hogars or Family Home Evenings. Most of the lessons we have are about the Temple and how Church attendance is key towards the Temple. There are no requirements to enter Church, but there are to enter the temple.

The secret – I honestly don’t know if it will be announced in General Conference, but that would be the place you would hear about it.

Zone Conference was in the San Juan stake center, there were 2 or 3 zones combined! It took about a 30 minute "collective" ride. And President Goates was there, that is the 5th time I saw him in a week (which is pretty rare) he must be keeping an eye on me... The main topic was Faith, and how you need to be humble and obedient first to have faith. I thought it was a really good conference! I learned a bunch between the two conferences. The stake conf. talked a bunch about the members and missionaries and how key the members are to the success of the mission, I’ve already seen how key the members are to lessons and referrals.

Before I forget, tell Roger and Parker congrats on their calls, forgot to tell them last week.

Yes dad, a bidet, that’s exactly what it does. [Last week we weren't sure whether Josh was talking about using a bidet or having to burn toilet paper, found out they use bidets.]

Oh, some sisters in the ward signed up to wash the missionaries clothes. We were going to do that this week but we forgot, so we washed our clothes by hand. First time I’ve done that!

Included Pictures: Me and Elder Saavedra, and me at our church!
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OH! For my birthday we ate at a members house and had some Chicken Asado. It was the best chicken I’ve had. They took a picture of me blowing out a candle on the chicken, I’ll try and get the picture for next week.

A bunch of less active visits and lessons, then at night we had a little party in the house of the ward mission leader! There was a bunch of Coke (the drink), Empanadas, and pizza. It was quite a fun day!

Till next week,
Elder Erickson

First week in Argentina!

#1 -- Argentina    [Retiro - 1]    Mar. 16, 2015

So the flight to Argentina didn’t seem that long. There were blankets and pillows so I tried to sleep, but I don’t think I did. There were movies and such (we were allowed to watch pg or g movies) So I watched Hero6? I think that’s what it's called.

We land in Buenos Aires and everyone is confused. I dońt know where to go, but since I knew the most Spanish in the group everyone looked up to me. I finally found where we’re supposed to go and jumped on the bus to the smaller airport to fly us to Mendoza. Nearly everyone fell asleep on the bus, we were all exhausted. Got to the smaller airport and had–if I remember right, a 3 ½ hour wait. So I bought a meal and waited it out. Sadly my first meal in Argentina was a cheeseburger and fries with a Fanta. The flight to Mendoza was nice, while waiting for our flight we ran into another group of missionaries going to Mendoza from the Buenos Aires MTC (CCM) so in total there were/are about 20 new missionaries going to Mendoza. 5 from Provo, 15 from Argentina.

We arrived about 5:00 p.m., Arg time. The AP's and President and Herm Goates were there to greet us, it was pretty nice. I had a nice beard growing, because we have been traveling for >30 hours. I felt pretty gross not showering and such for that long, but whatever.

We had a couple of activities, saw a couple of sights, and learned a couple of secrets (I can’t tell anyone until it’s official BUT IT’S SUCH GOOD NEWS!!). Then we had a nice big dinner at the mission home, lasagna! At the mission home my left ankle was hurting, so I took a look at it, and to my surprise, my ankle was swelling up and was red. We slept at a hotel nearby.

I didn’t know who my companion was or where I was serving until Thursday.
On Wednesday we had interviews and an activity going to the Cerro de la Gloria (you can look it up on Google, it’s really cool!). Then we had the opportunity to Abrir La Boca (ALB) a.k.a. street contacts. It was pretty interesting. I went out with Elder R, he is from Pleasant Grove, Ut. I was able to understand just about everything.

Fast forward to Thursday, my companion, trainer, is Elder Saavedra (he is from the city in Peru with the new Temple dedication this year–Trujillo). I can understand him well, but struggle to find words when I need to talk. I am teaching him English. He is a good example especially considering he is going to die training me (die means finish your mission). He is very respected among the Elders and well known with members, so yep it’s pretty cool.

I’m serving in Chimbas, Retiro A – it’s in San Juan. The toilets here can’t handle toilet paper, so they have Bidet toilets.

We got to our pension and it was a mess. The previous Elders were messy and gross. Me and Elder Saavedra spent a while cleaning up and it looks 1000x better now.

I was fairly sick and junk on Friday and Saturday. I drank some water and had a BAD experience. And my foot was still swollen and hurt to walk on. Not good days.

The members usually provide lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal here, it’s pretty odd, ALSO there is a Siesta!!!! Which means the missionaries have an hour nap each day until my birthday! (the Siesta–practically the whole country of Argentina shuts down during the heat of the day so the people don’t die.) The shade is practically my best friend so I don’t die.

My first Sunday in Chimbas was actually their Stake Conf. The Area 70, Chile Santiago Temple President and the Mendoza Mission President (aka my mission president) attended and spoke. It was really cool and felt right at home in our stake, but it was in Spanish-Castillano and I didn’t understand everything. Everything I understood I liked. I found out that the Cordoba Temple will be dedicated on May 17th, and I should still be here, so I will be able to participate in that!

We didn’t have any lessons or anything because, not only am I new to the Area, Elder Saavedra has never been in Chimbas. So we are both learning together!

We have a bunch of citas set up this week. We also have Zone conference tomorrow, so I will see President and Herm. Goates tomorrow!

Anyways, love you all, and trying to adapt to this culture shock!

Enclosed pictures are of Cerro de la Gloria and my foot which is 100% normal, but it was frightening at first.