Christmas in Buenos Aires!

Church Building and Quemados

Dear Family,

Ok, just finished reading the long letters of Mom and Jessica. I´m not in the usual Cyber, so I´m not sure how to print out the letters. Next week hopefully I´ll be able to print them all out. I like keeping the record.

Last week was definitely a different week, with the fiestas, Navidad, and all. It was a bit more difficult to do the work in some aspects, but easier in other ways. We went to our ward mission leader for dinner en la Noche Buena (Christmas Eve), but we missed out on the good stuff. He was cooking a great osado, but we had to leave early to get back to la pension by 10PM. We watched Joy to the World with them and ate the matahambre (literally translated is “kill hunger”) with cheese. It was alright, but I know the other meat would have been better. We had problems returning because at 8 the bus system and all the Remises (equivalent of a Taxi) stopped. A friend of Hmo. Carabajal was going to pick us up to take us to la pension, but it had engine problems. So instead, another friend with a car had to come by. We got back late. Oh well, we tried our best to be obedient. We were a bit frustrated through.

Here, Christmas celebrations are much different. In La Noche Buena, they pretty much stay up all night partying. They spend it drinking and shooting off fireworks. I´m not sure if that is such a great combination—I´m sure there were plenty of accidents. For preparations, there are kids selling cohetes (fireworks) on almost every street. They sell cohetes instead of lemonade. So, all night long, we heard cohetes going off. It is kind of sad to see all of these people spending almost all of their living on fireworks and alcohol. I guess that is one reason we are here, to teach them more wisdom. We still slept well during the night because we were exhausted.

Christmas morning I opened my package! Thanks family. I think I´ll definitely enjoy the Prego sauce. Thank you for the ties as well. I´m pretty sure Dad bought them. I recognize his style. Dad and I are fairly alike in our choices of ties. Thanks. And of course, thank you for the letters.

Afterwards, we had a zone activity. We went to Ituzaingo to first have our district meeting, because we had the reunion of translados (transfer meeting) monday. Oh, I should tell you that my companion, E Spendlove is now a District leader. He was saying the last transfer that he had passed the point that he would ever be a leader in the mission. I knew he would be the new district leader though. He will be a great one. He has a lot of leadership abilities. And it will also give him a chance to learn a little more patience (the aspect that he has been working on for his entire mission and he has improved. I wouldn´t say that he´s a very impatient person).

Ok, back to Christmas. Each district cooked their own lunches. We made pizzas, but with a more American flavor. We had some ham and pineapple pizzas. Also, we loaded others with meat and olives. I´m coming to like olives a lot more that in the past. Green olives, they don´t really have black ones here. They almost always put olives on pizzas.

Then we played quemados. Or in English, dodgeball. That was a lot of fun, but really tiring. And we were sore for the rest of the weak. We were still able to work, but a bit painfully.

The call home was really nice. Dad, I used your AT&T card, so I´m going to save the one I bought here (for 10 pesos! So cheap) for mother´s day. It was great to hear all of the voices. Although, I felt that it was really short. 40min. isn´t much time. And yes Jessica, you can laugh at my English. I had a hard time speaking at first because I was still thinking in Castellano. Especially with simple things that I say every day constantly, like Sí and ¿Qué? I couldn´t say those in English at all. I look forward to the next call.

We have another baptismal date, for the 10th of January I believe. Hernan is the son of one of our investigators who is a family member of a recent convert and has been coming to church, but has to get married first. Hernan wants to get baptized and he is ready. He also has the friendship of his cousins to help him stay active. We hope his mother will follow him soon. And that we can talk with and help his father in the process as well.

Yes, it is getting hot, but you shouldn´t worry too much. We nearly always have a breeze, which helps a ton. And there are a lot of trees. They don´t cover the road too well, but they make nice shade spots to have lessons. On hot days, we get plenty of water and juice from those we teach, so we don´t get dehydrated. Don´t worry.

I love you all and am glad you had a wonderful Christmas. May the spirit of the Lord always be with you and that you can enjoy your breaks from school.

Love,
Elder Drake Ranquist