Day 145

¡hola familia!
it has been another great week with its ups and downs. on tuesday, i got really sick because i ate some bad yogurt... but later that night we went to visit marcelo because he is an enfermero, and so is his mom and sister, so i got some pretty good medical advice and they gave me lots of stuff to clear my stomach and keep me from vomiting. i had a blessing of health too so i was able to recover pretty fast. i learned not to buy any more bags of liquid yogur... anyways, now that im done with the negative stuff, i will update on all the good!! oh! and to answer a question- inglés means english in spanish.
conference was great! i missed elder perry´s talk because i was fiddling with the tvs trying to get it in english but i was unsuccessful. there were probably about 40 people saturday morning and they all wore normal saturday clothes. everyone wore saturday clothes for both of the sessions. it was a little frustrating watching it in castellano because i could hear the people speaking english but the spanish translation dubbed in louder. i could hear some things that were translated differently and i really wished i could have listened to it in english but i still got the same message that you guys did. i did not watch the priesthood session and i was a little disappointed that i missed it. it started at 9 and ended at 11 so my mission president told us we couldn´t watch it and nobody in my building recorded it for us. i missed elder hales and elder anderson too. did they speak during the priesthood session? nobody can tell me what they talked about during the priesthood session and it made me wonder if they even listened. they probably shouldnt have the session so late here in argentina... can you send me the english conference ensign when it comes out? i don´t think i can get it here... one of my favorite talks was by elder scott because he speaks spanish too and he recorded his own talk. in his talk, i actually heard the emotion in his voice and i really enjoyed it. the other talks were translated by people that spoke very fast to keep up with the speakers so it was awesome to listen to elder scott and maybe i will receive more letters from girls after listening to his discurso! jajaja. elder holland was pretty awesome too because i actually heard his voice over the translator sometimes.
i really missed you guys listening to conference and i definitely prefer watching conference at home on the couch with all the yummy goodies and french toast but i still enjoyed watching conference igual. how do i make french toast? that would be awesome to make some day... that would have been really fun watching it with you guys this year... i really wanted to eat lots of goodies but the only thing i had were lifesavers and i ended up giving them away to the kids.
pablo came to the conference with his girlfriend and he really enjoyed it. we actually put the fecha with him for april 16 and he is pretty set for that day. very determined to be baptized right now. brian also came to the conference. he is 15 and after the conference, we found him with a bunch of girls surrounding him exchanging numbers. que kpo.
quick question. is there such a thing in the united states called ´´eyeballing´´? its when people drink alcohol through their eyes. i saw someone doing it here and they said it was VERY popular in the US and he wanted to try it. how strange... another thing. the people get weirded out with me if i put my bread on my plate with my food and they tell me that it is yankee thing to do. i never thought of it as a big deal but one hermana during lunch kind of yelled at me. putting water in a cup after drinking juice was also unacceptable for them so i am learning, i guess...
it was awesome getting pictures of your trip to the aquarium and the zoo! that would have been fun! i guess there is a zoo here but i think it is in neuquen or in roca. there is also a science museum here in zapala that is free to enter but it is chiquitito (very small) and i think that we will enter some pday that we have. there really is not much to do here in zapala but it is very tranquilo. you guys will have to bring me to the zoo when i get back because they should have finished that extra part on the zoo by 2012. the movies that you talked about, were they worth it enough to be on my future movies list? dad asked me what i have done for fun lately and the only thing i can think of right now is the noches de hogar that we have with members sometimes. we haven´t gone to play futbol in a long time and our english class was a dud again last week. nobody showed up but we are going to give it one more week before giving up. in the noches de hogar we play some really fun games with the members and sometimes they have friends come. they play scattergories here but i am terrible at it because i can´t think of the words in spanish but i have tons of words in english and they tell me they don´t count... scattergories is called tuti fruti here and i´m not sure why. another game that we play is called chancho and it is so addicting. i think chancho means ´´tramp´´ because in the game you can cheat to get your cards and its really fun. my comp is really good at it and he ends up cheating more than most. i lost a ton at the beginning but now i´m pretty good. the game is a lot like spoons but one person is the announcer and tells everyone to put cards in the middle, or pass cards to the side, throw your cards in the air, do pretty much what ever and when you have all of your cards, you put your hand in the middle and say chancho. the last person to put their hand in the middle gets a letter, and the first person to have the word ´´chancho´´ loses. there are lots of ways to cheat and that´s when it gets interesting and more fun. we will have to play when i get back because its really fun to play after noches de hogar.
the mission work is going well right now, we haven´t found many new people to teach but at least we are finding. im pretty excited for pablos baptism in 2 weeks and i think brian will come pretty soon. his mom is still having problems but we are praying hard and we feel like she is going to change her mind and let him be baptized. brian has an older sister that is a member with her husband and we are thinking that maybe she can help us. i had an interview with president peterson and he told me that i should have my mind set on baptizing every week because he knows that i can do it. elder suarez and i are developing a plan to baptize every week and our goal of baptisms in april is 10 people. we can do it! i´m feeling pretty good about what we are doing here and we are enjoying the work.
mamita- i am receiving your letters. i really enjoy receiving them and i promise you will be receiving my letters very soon! family- thank you for all of your support and love. i am very grateful for the time you take to send me letters every week and they lift me up for another week. i love you guys a lot!!
con una sonrisa grande,
elder summers