July 13, 2011 - Letter

Dear Family!

How are you?  I hope that you are all doing well and that by now you have gotten my Fathers Day package!  

Things here are going great!  I have high hopes that this week we will be able to find new investigators!  Now that Damien has been baptized our schedule is wide open. :)

I just wanted to tell you a couple of random things about Argentina that somehow I always forget to tell you.

#1 - In Argentina, if you say our last name without the "n", it's a swear word.  So, I have to be super careful to say all of the letters in our last name.  And, all the members who say my last name are very, very careful.  It's super funny.

#2- Here in Argentina they don't put salt on popcorn.  No, no, they put sugar on popcorn.  And yes, I do like kettle corn but the popcorn here is not good.  Dad, you would be appalled!

#3- After years and years of not like ranch, I actually miss ranch.  That's right folks, there is no ranch here in Argentina.  Instead, they drench salad in oil which, if you ask me, completely defeats the purpose of salad!  I mean, the oil is literally dripping off the lettuce. It is really gross.

#4 -  I have shown people our family pictures, not a surprise.  And, of course, everyone is very generous with their remarks, that all the siblings look similar, we're all really pretty (except for Zac who is handsome of course).  But, mom and dad, I have especially good news for you!  Every time, without fail, when people see the picture of the whole family, they comment on how young you are!  And mom, they think you should be a model. So, even though you've been married for 23 years, you no longer have any children in elementary school and 2 of your children have graduated from high school, you are still young!  Isn't that great?!

#5- Are you ready for this?  In Argentina, for women, I am on the tall side!  First time ever!  It's so funny, and I certainly am not used to it!  But, it just throws me, even more every time we go to the mission office (which is at the same chapel we have district meeting in) and all the office elders are 6 foot plus  I feel extra tiny.  It is a weird thing to be on the taller end of things.

#6- There are dogs everywhere.  Everywhere.  A lot of them are stray, too, which is really sad.  However, it has just help firm my conviction that when I have my own house I don't really want a dog.  They are dirty and gross and I have little to no desire to worry about having the waste of an animal anywhere on my property.

#7- Mom, you'd probably have a heart attack with the way people drive here.  it's a mild heart attack every time we go in Remiz (taxi) or collectivo (bus).  At times it also makes crossing the street a little nerve wracking.  but, I've gotten pretty good at doing ti here.  It really isn't too difficult.  95% of the roads here are one way streets.

#9- My makeup here, I found out is 90 pesos, which translates to $22ish dollars.  So, if possible, I'm going to ask you to send some every now and then.  Also, maybe some hot chocolate.

Okay, so these are some pictures from the baptism!  They are a weird, small size since, well, this is Argentina.  but, here you go!

Do you have any questions for me?  I hope my letters are sufficient.  I never feel as if I have enough time to tell you what I want you to know. So, this is a letter with some of the random catch up.  

I hope you know that I know that this church is true.  When life gets hard, it means that we are doing the right thing and Satan is trying to get us to stop.  Even though at times it might be easier to give up - don't let him win!  One day soon, he will fail, and all he ever worked for will fail, and everything we work for and believe in will win!  This God's church and this is His work.

I love you all so much!  I miss you and I pray for you everyday!

Love, 

Corinne

P.S.  Dad and Zac - you should read "God Helps the Faithful Priesthood Holder" by President Eyring and "An High Priest of Good Things to Come" by Elder Holland.  I have recently read them and they were excellent!

Baptism pictures

Hermana Orton, Damien, Facundo, Hermana Durham

Obispo Rojo and Damien

Hermana Orton and Damien

Sylvia, Bety, Damien, Hermana Durham, Hermana Orton, Facundo

July 11, 2011 - Letter

Dear Mom,

Well, this week really wasn´t that great of a week. We just didn´t have much success, and it was just plain difficult. But that’s how it goes sometimes, and Hermana Durham and I are ready to have a really great week!

There were two things of interest that happened this week though. One of them really really funny. Hermana Durham and I were on our way to a cita, and randomly this guys stops us on the street and shakes our hands. He looked a little familiar, but really, a lot of people here look familiar and I have absolutely no idea who they are. Anyways, we shake this mans hand, and he gets really mad that we don`t beso him. We explain to him that we don´t have any personal problems with him, but as missionaries we aren`t supposed to beso the opposite gender, simply for precaution. We talk to this man for 15 minutes. During the course of this discussion, he tells us that we should change religions because we aren’t allowed to beso him. He didn’t care about any of the other men. Just him. It was really funny. We told him that not being able to beso men for 18 months isn’t a good reason to change religions, but he just wasn’t having any of it. Finally, we said goodbye, and Hermana Durham reminded me that we had taught him and his wife a month ago, and that while kind, they are kind of a crazy old couple. I wish I could paint the picture better, but there you go.

The other things is not so funny. We are without electricity. Somehow. It is a very complicated story. A chapel in Bahia for some reason hasn’t paid their last two electricity bills. Somehow, our apartment here in Punta Alta is connected to that building? And so when we got homw this morning from the grocery store, we didn’t have any electricity. After a good deal of time on the phone and going to the office, we learned that we are not going to have electricity until the bills are paid in full. After another couple of hours trying to find who is in charge of paying the bills. We finally tracked him down and we are going to talk to him in person tomorrow when we go to Bahia. We were hoping that tomorrow we would have electricity again, after he got everything figured out, but then we learned that tomorrow is the Day of the Electricity Worker, so they are going to be closed. So we will be without electricity until Wednesday. A little unfortunate, but a couple of weeks ago we started a food/emergency storage, and in that storage, we have candles!!! So we at least wont be without all light!

The weather the last couple of days has been great! About a week ago, we thought we were going to freeze, but now things are good. It was 70 degrees today. Almost perfect!!! No, we don’t have central heating. We have a little radiator in the kitchen and then space heaters for our rooms. But we can only fun one space heater at a time or the fuse blows, so we usually just all hang out together. It works out pretty well.

I am praying for you all! Especially those of you who are having problems with your knees!!! Are you getting excited for school to start? Its coming up soon, isn’t it? About a month away. I love you!!!

Corinne

July 4, 2011 - Letter

So this week really wasnt that exciting of a week. I actually spent the entire walk over here trying to figure out what I was going to tell you! And, I only really could think of a couple of things.

First, I still haven’t been feeling that great. Some days are great, I have little or no problems, but other days, my head simply wasn’t doing any better. And, I was starting to get a cold, as we are headed into the most frigid part of the year here. So finally, on Tuesday I decided to ask for a blessing after district meeting. Elder Garcia, my district leader anointed the oil, and Elder Bills, his comp. gave me the blessing. It was very nice. He said that it was the right thing for me to do, to be on the mission. And I haven’t been questioning that at all, but it was nice to hear again all the same. It was comforting to hear. I don’t feel like my Spanish has been progressing as much as I want it to, so those words were great to hear. He also told me that I would be healed, and that I would be able to do the work that I was sent here to do. That was a relief more than anything, I was so tired of being sick, and feeling that I wasn’t able to work to the best of my ability and that I was stopping Hermana Durham from doing her work as well.

On Wednesday, I woke up feeling worse, which was the opposite of what I was hoping to feel. The only good news about that was that Hermana Freeman was also feeling sick, so we did divisions. Hermana Durham went with Hermana Collette to their area, and Hermana Freeman and I went to the two citas we had and then we went back home to not be in the cold and to rest so we could try to get better.

Thursday was Hermana Durhams birthday! And Michelle, who is great, planned a surprise birthday party for her at the church. And, for how cold it was outside, a decent amount of people showed up! It was great! We had a lot of fun, and I forgot to bring my camera…I will send some pictures of that later. My bad. But we did have a really fun time. We even had a couple of less actives who haven’t been in the church for a very very long time come so they could celebrate her birthday. That was also really cool.

Friday and Saturday passed by without any real exciting-ness. We had a couple of really good lessons, but they all said that they wouldn’t be able to come to church on Sunday, so that was a little disappointing. But overall, things are going well. We need to find more people to teach, but I have a feeling that I will be saying that every week. It is also getting a little harder to contact people. Before it wasn’t too bad because there were people on the street we could talk to. But now it is all cold and stuff outside, so there is no one on the street. I would say for a good forty, forty five percent of the day we are the only ones outside. And the cold is the excuse that most people give us for not wanting to talk to us, and its like, yes, I know it is cold outside. I am standing in it. You however, are inside, and we could, just maybe talk inside, where it is not (as quite) cold. But that is okay! We are going to find the people who are prepared for the gospel! They are just waiting for us!

Sunday was good. I really enjoy fast Sundays. I don’t know if it is a tender mercy or if I am just tougher on the mission, but so far fast Sundays really haven’t been that difficult. It may been that we fast from lunch to lunch, since we don’t have dinners with people, but the hardest part is explaining to a less active member that we are fasting, the investigators we have told have been really understanding. We didn’t get a chance to teach very much yesterday, which is a bit of a bummer, but it all in all it was a good day!

I am so exciting for you to go to girls camp!  Mom, are you freaking out yet? I hope everything goes well! I am sure that it is, girls camp is always a great experience! Tell all the girls I say hi and that I am thinking of them! Oh, also, I read the Power of the Priesthood by President Packer, and I think that everyone should reread it here soon. It is really really great!

I hope you are having a great fourth of July and I love you!!!

Corinne

June 28, 2011 - Letter

Dear Mom,
I am going to apologize right off the bat if my grammer is bad, but I had a very VERY interesting weekend and I want to give you as much detail as possible! It started with Saturday.
In our wonderful ward Atlantida, we are without a ward mission leader, so Hermana Durham and I had a lot to do. We started the morning with a quick lesson with one of our investigators, Alan, because we really wanted him to come to the baptism, which he ended up not being able to do. But oh well. We then went to lunch with the family Martinez, and found out that they were unable to feed us that day. So we ran like crazy to the store to get something to make. So we got lunch done in a whirlwind, and then ran to make the program for the baptism. Which, as it turns out is really hard to do in Spanish!!! So that took about an hour and a half, a good hour longer than we were planning on. And by this point, we were in the middle of the siesta, so nothing was open where we could make copies! We finally found a place, and then hightailed it to the church! We got there just in time to get everything set up before people started to come. And then the miracle, people came! We had a good 20 people there! It was so great! We had a really really great service, and I sang at this one as well. Which may have been a bit of a mistake, I have had a lot more requests to sing now. And that was Saturday. But the more intersting part comes on Sunday.
Sunday started out pretty normal. We went to relief society and everything, no problems. And I sang in Sunday School per request of the teacher. And then sacrament meeting. I dont know if I have said before, but Damian has a very difficult time paying attention, especially in sacrament. He is very disruptive, and he likes to hit his brother all the time. This sacrament was the worst. And, right as he was about to get confirmed, a dog somehow made it into the chapel. So there was a good 5-10 minute period of time where everyone was chasing this dog around, thrying to get it out. So finally this dog gets out and Damian recieves the Holy Ghost. But then he started running around the chapel and misbehaving. It was unpleasant. And Hemrana Durham and I spent most of the time chasing him around and trying to get him to behave, because his mother didnt come to church. But the kicker is what happens after church.
All of the primary children here run around all the time, so we didnt think much of it when he ran off after church. But after a while, we simply could not find him. He had run part way down the block and found a part empty spray paint can and had spray painted his name on the side of a wall. Someone who was driving by called the police and that is how was found him. Surrounded by 2 police men and some of the ward members. It was...interesting. So we then spent the next half our talking to the police, the bishop, his mother on the phone, and the land owner. Thankfully, no charges were pressed, but how is that for a first confirmation on the mission story?! Talk about an experience I never thought I would have!!! Haha. Everything turned out okay, it just shows how much his family needs the gospel in their lives!!!
I am already out of time, I am sorry, but I did also send some pictures! I love you all so much!!!
Love,
Corinne