"Igualamente"

Igualamente is a saying that they have down here that basically means "you too." Like someone will say "Que le vaya bien" which basically means like "I hope everything goes well for you" and then someone will respond "Igualamente" and return the salutaion. Anyways, this week we were opening up the mouth with the lady and her two little kids and we just talked about her family and how the gospel will help raise her kids and bring success. When we were done Elder Robinson said "Good luck with the kids" and just out of custom or habit she responded "Igualamente" haha. Get it? We don´t have any... It reminded me of the Brian Regan joke of "You too!" and I thought it was funny because it was happening to me in another country and in Spanish.

This week for March Madness we had a focus on Assistances (Attendences) and little Bowen pulled through and helped our Zone to another win with 5! We played these kids at soccer and whoever lost had to buy the other team a soda. We lost (except not really because this kid always changed the score) but we said that we´d have their soda along with banana bread at church the next day haha. They´re friends with members so it wasn´t too big of a deal for them to go but they did and even their mom came as well. So that was pretty cool, I think we´re going to try to start teaching them this week.

So the reason I´m writing this a day late (again) is because we had interviews with President yesterday in San Rafael. We had a sweet game of soccer against the Zone from San Rafael on a full 11 vs. 11 field. Zone bragging rights were on the line. They started out well with a 2-1 lead early on but Zone Alvear doesn´t give up. We fought back and ended up winning by a lot actually haha. It was way fun. Interviews with President kind of took a while so we didn´t get back home until pretty late. He just asked questions to kinda get to know me better and he said he´s going to try to find a stud latin to put with me next transfer so that´ll be a fun change. I think I´ll only have one more interview with him before he leaves and the new Mission President comes in.

On another Spanish note, I learned the word for tuna this week. However, when I asked Elder Robinson about it the member we were eating with asked what I said and then said that in some places that´s a bad word. Haha. I don´t really know where exactly but I guess if you´re ever in a Spanish speaking country, be careful to discuss tuna very much. haha.

Other than that this week was pretty normal. We found a couple more solid investigators to teach, one of them is Flipa and her husband who have been to church before and almost got married so they could get baptized but I think moved before anything happened. So hopefully we can finish what other missionaries started for us but we´ll see. Teresa didn´t get baptized yet but we´re hoping to try harder for this Saturday. Vamos a ver. Other than that we´ll still working with the husbands of all the Bolivan sisters. Two of them need to get married and one of them needs to quit smoking. We´re making progress but it´s kinda slow and delicate because we don´t want to mess anything up and do something that the members will get offended by or something. Also, the mission focuses so much on finding new people to teach that sometimes it´s hard to really focus in on a lot of people and go by their houses close to everyday so we have to pick only a couple of people to really focus on and then just help the others progress a little at a time.

Welp, I can´t think of much else

With all the love of a bottle-nosed dolphin,

Elder Lounsbury

March Madness

This month, in honor of college basketball, the mission is having its
own March Madness. All of the Zones in the mission (there´s 12 of
them) compete against each other and whoever wins gets a to take a
trip up to Mendoza and eat with President and his wife. Various points
are given for different aspects of missionary work. Points are awarded for
how people are in church, how many lessons we had with memebers, etc.
We won last week and won again this week so we´re looking really good.
It´s kind of a cool thing because it´s something that the whole zone
can rally behind and give everyone a little more incentive to work
harder.

On Sunday night we met the Zone Leaders in Oeste and went on Divisions
to try to boost our numbers a little bit more. I went with Elder Barra
who is from Buenos Aires and a member from the Barrio in Oeste so it
was 4 hours of nothing but Spanish. I actually understood almost
everything that was being said though so that was a rather pleasant
surprise. I learned a lot from him, he is way legit. In under 4 hours
we got 11 new investigators, which is almost as much as we´d usually
get in a whole week haha. It´s easier when that´s all you focus on but
it was still really cool. There were a couple times when people looked
like they were going to be really stubborn and closed and who didn´t
want to talk to us at all but somehow he got them to listen and open
up and by the end of it we were able to hand them something and
actually teach.

At one point we were at an intersection in the middle of this campo
and he asked, "Alright Elder Lounsbury, which way does the Spirit tell
you we should go?" After I chose the way there weren´t any houses for
a while and it started looking like a dead end. Then when we finally
got to a house no one answered. I was like shooooot, this is so
embarrassing, now my Zone Leader probably thinks I´m a terrible
missionary who doesn´t know how to listen to the Spirit haha. But we
walked a little further and found this guy named Fabiano who seemed
way prepared for the gospel. He listened to us and was open to what we
had to say and then accepted a fecha right there. The cool thing is
that it wasn´t even his house, I don´t actually know why he was there
but he lives way further out in the campo so that might have been the
only time we could have found him. It would wayyyyy legit if he got
baptized.

Oh, and I had a wild pomegranate on the way back. Also, I don´t think
I spelled that right. But it was way yummy in my tummy.

This week in Bowen was still a little slow, we have a lot of people in
our teaching pool but they´re just progressing slowly because it´s
hard to find very many people we can teach consistently still. We do
have this old lady named Teressa who is supposed to get baptized this
Saturday but she´s had a baptismal date like two times before so we´ll
see how that goes. Maybe the third time is the charm. She feels the
Spirit while she´s at church but on Friday or Saturday we found out
that some people from other churches had been basically trying to
scare her out of it so hopefully we can help resolve her concerns.

We are also teaching this guy named Juan Gomon who is wayyy nice. He
always lets us in and buys soda and cookies for us. We´ve been
teaching him for a while and we think he´s starting to understand the
Restoration and baptism better but he´s still not super commited.
Those are the people who are the closest to being baptized right now.

Usually when Elder Robinson and I are walking around we try to nutmeg
each other with rocks and pebbles and whatever else is on the road. So
far he holds the record for 6 in a row, but I´m gonna break it before
he leaves. For the past couple weeks I´ve tried expanding my horizon.
So far I have nutmegged him with random fruit we pass, a plastic
bottle, a cereal box, a broken bike pedal, a shoe, a purse, and this
last week I even got him with a dried up dead toad. I don´t even know
where it came from or why it was so dried up and dead, but I took full
advantage of the opportunity. It was magical to say the least.

Also, our Zone just got done with a little fishing adventure. We
bought 5 peso bamboo fishing poles complete with a hook and line that
was about two feet long, walked like 20 mintues to this ¨river¨ that
was more like a large stream, and caught absolutely nothing. haha. It
was still really fun, we made a fire and skipped rocks which is what I
usually end up doing when I´m fishing so it was just like home. I also
found a skull of a dog head and proceeded to nutmeg Elder Robinson
with it. haha. Que vergüenza.

Oh! I almost forgot, I finally got your birthday package! It was
fantastic, the American chocolate is like gold down here. So good in
my mouth. Thank you all very much. We have yet to make the cake but I
think we will for sure next P-day.

Welp, I guess that´s about it.

Love, Elder Lounsbury

Summer Storms

Hey family!!

First of all, sorry I didn´t write ya´ll yesterday, it was a random Argentine Holiday so all the places where we go and do internet were either closed or full of kids who had the day off from school. So here we are. I have some good stories this week so hopefully that´ll make up for it.

The awesome thing about Argentina is that we have some pretty freaking sweet summer storms. The day will start out sunny and throughout the day more clouds will start moving in and then by 8 or 9 there´s lots of lightning and it´s just pouring rain like crazy. The not so awesome thing about our pench (apartment) is that aparently it´s not very waterproof. Let me explain. Our pench is basically a giant trapazoid made of cement and our doors are all made of metal. I am fairly confident we could be bombed and come out fine. The roof starts out high enough to have two stories (which is where we sleep) and then gradually slants down until it meets a verticle part of the building where a sign could be placed, about 6 feet above the sliding metal door we open for church. On the inside there´s a rectanglular section of sheetrock to hide all of levers and chains we use to pull up the garage door. There´s a couple lights on the bottom side to make everything look better.

On Saturday this giant storm started coming in, and we were all excited because we usually have fun watching them and whatever, storms are cool. After it had been going on for a while we realized water was starting to come in under the door, where there´s a space of a couple centimeters. At first we were like, "oh that´s cute Mother Nature, too bad our pench is impenitrable" and we stuffed a couple towels under the door to stop the water flow. Then water started coming in from above the right side of the garage door. We started taking matters a little more seriously but we were not about to get beaten. It was Man vs. Nature at it´s finest. We abandoned our battle front at the door and started using the squeegy to push water from the right side of the building to the left, and out the door. We thought we had everything under control, we thought we were invincible. Then water started coming down from one of the lights in the sheetrock. At this point we realized the war was slipping out of our hands. We were bombed from the right flank, a huge peice of sheetrock and gallons of water fell down. We were shelled from infront, water flowed out of the lights in our sheetrock. And through it all we were trying to control and push out the water still coming in from the door at our left flank. Chaos insued. We realized that although water was dripping out of the lights in the sheetrock, water was coming in the pench faster that it was coming out of the lights, so the whole of this rectangular sheetrock thing was filling up with water and would probably fall like the other piece did. We were forced to sacrifice some of our own. We punched holes in the sheetrock and forced the water out of the ceiling and out the door. The battle was fierce but in the end the storm passed and after our soldiers worked with the squeegy for about half an hour, our fortress was more or less under control again. Although it´s very humid and has a weird smell now. haha. Oh, and then the next day we had church here. It was quite the adventure.

In other news, breastfeeding down here is super weird. They have no shame at all, very few people make an effort to cover up. It´s really awkward. This week we were teaching a mom and her 16 year old daughter and 12 year old son. The 16 year old has a 6 month old baby and the mom has a 2 week old baby. First of all, that in itself is really weird. The daughter has a kid older than her mom´s kid.. At one point during our lesson both were feeding their kids. It was very uncomfortable to say the least. Sometimes it´s hard to keep from laughing because the situation just seems so weird. haha. Also, I don´t know what it is about down here but they have like a statue of a lady breastfeeding in the city plaza and there´s this famous painting i´ve seen a couple times of this baby breastfeeding off of her dead mother. I don´t really get it, but maybe I´m just missing something.

Also, we had a Zone training meeting this week and it was the best church meeting I´ve ever been in, in my entire life. We got to watch Kung-Fu Panda. haha. It was soooo legit. It had a really good message that we applied to our work as missionaries and if any of you haven´t seen it you should definitely do so right now. I was laughing the whole time. But that might be because it´s the only entertainment I´ve had in 4 months so maybe don´t get your hopes up too much.

Well, if I had more time I´d tell you more stories but I guess that will just have to wait for next week. Our investigators are doing alright, it´s really really really hard to find people who we can consistently teach. But I guess all of them are more or less progressing, just slower than we would have hoped.

Thank you for your prayers and love. And don´t let your dad´s eat pie!

Love, Elder Lousbury

Time is flying

It has been a whole flippin transfer. I can hardly believe it. Like it´s soooo crazy to think it´s gone by that fast. I´ve been in Argentina two weeks less than I was in the MTC, but it seems likes it´s only been a couple of weeks.

This week was interesting, it was the biggest week for the cosecha, the harvest, so everyone was busy. Everyone. Our investigators, the members, everyone was working. So it wasn´t as successful as we were hoping but it was still good. On Friday and Saturday there was a big festival celebrating the Plum haha. We went on Saturday for like half an hour and just looked around, it was kinda like a way smaller version of the state fair. There were a couple little rides for kids, and a lot of booths where people were selling watches, hats, gancho stuff (that´s like the Argentine Cowboy), soccer jerseys, and just all kinds of stuff. Then they had a live band and chorizo which is like the Argentine version of the hotdog. Anyways, turn out to church the next day was super lousy because everyone was at this festival until like 4 or 5 in the morning. We had a member who was selling clothes there who didn´t come, and all of investigators were there late sooooo in the morning there were 5 people that went in the traffic with us to Oeste. haha. I think the Oeste meeting was small too, they said it´s usually way more full but still, there were more people there then we usually have in Bowen and we had three hours of church which was kinda new for me. It was the first time in three months that I´d been to a regular 3 hour church meeting with families. Anyways, I´ll try to go through our investigators like you asked.

Pedro y Lucas: The hardest thing for them is just finding time to teach them, they go swimming and study a lot and now that school has started I´m sure they´re going to be studying a lot more. Pedro is the one that went to church by himself that one week, and his older brother is named Lucas. They are like 14 and 16 I think. They´re way outgoing and whenever we see them, if they see one of their friends, they don´t hesitate to call them over and have them talk to us. We really need some youth in Bowen (among lots of other things like Priesthood) so it would be way cool to get them but we just gotta find time when we can consistently teach them.

Omar: Omar is the one who was really sad his family left him and had a big smoking problem. He´s been to church twice but couldn´t go this week because he stayed up way late at the festival. The good news is his family and wife came back so he´s a lot happier and is excited that we can teach them now. I think the big thing this week will be talking about smoking, because both him and his wife smoke a lot. He has a lot of desire to change and become a better person though so that´s way good to work with.

Jonathan: This one is kind of a cool story. He´s about 17 and we opened the mouth with him one night like 3 or 4 weeks ago and he was way good. I thought he was just kinda going to blow us off but he ended up stopping and talking to us for like 10 mintues about questions he had about the Book of Mormon and what we believed and stuff like that. We gave him a pamphlet that describes the Restoration and asked him to read about it and then pray. We tried to set up a time when we could stop by and talk to him but he said that his dad wouldn´t like it. He knew a member so we were thinking we could maybe have lessons with the member but never really set up anything solid. Anyways, we were knocking doors on Saturday I think and we got into this one house and started talking to and teaching this guy and then Jonathan walked out! Turns out we had knocked his dad´s house. Well the good news is his dad is actually really nice and didn´t have a probably talking to us. They have doubts about the Book of Mormon and the dad doesn´t really understand the importance of being associated with Christ´s church, he just kept saying that all he needed to do was believe in God and didn´t really understand that if the Book of Mormon is true, it means he needs to be baptized into the church. But it was good that we found out their doubts and can now start teaching to them, that´s what´s so good about asking people to be baptized on the first lesson, even though it sounds kinda crazy, it helps a lot. Jonathan is going to read the Book of Mormon and just put it to the test and pray afterwards, and you can´t go wrong with the Book of Mormon so I´m really excited to see what´s going to happen. He is way solid though.

If I had more time I would go through more but we´ll see what happens after this week and I can give you all more info on all of our investigators. We have so many it´s hard to know who is going to progress and who isn´t.

Last week we realized that we needed to work a lot more with the families in Bowen, in a couple different aspects. There are only two families who both the mom and dad are members, and both of those families have inactive sons, so we don´t really even have a complete family in the branch. Since the missionaries have only been here a year, practically everyone can be considered a new convert, because they haven´t been growing up or living the gospel their whole lives. To help the families out we´re trying to shift some of the teaching responsibilities to the parents, instead of having us doing FHE in the church, we´re going to train all the parents so they can have their own FHE in their own home. We printed off some suggestions that we got from lds.org and then a story about how FHE helped a family and a calender where they could mark if they did FHE on Monday, if they did family scriptures and prayers on the other days of the week, and finally if they went to church on Sunday. We´ll see how it goes, hopefully it´ll start strengthening the families and family relationships though, because they are the most basic structure of the church, and if Bowen is going to survive it´s going to need some strong families. Next, we want to start teaching the three husbands (for lack of a better word because only one is actually married) of the Bolivian sisters who are active. One of them is Angel who got in a pretty bad car accident a while ago and now is looking really open to the missionaries. Another one is Cristian who is actually with one of the daughters of the Bolivian family who really has a desire to change and improve his family. And lastly there is the one husband who is married but is more apathetic to the church. It´s hard because he would be the easiest one to baptize because he´s actually married and the others aren't...and he´s the one who doesn´t seem to have as much of a desire to change or improve his life. Hopefully once the families start doing FHE the husbands will feel more of a desire to join the church, and hopefully the sons who are inactive will start becoming interested as well. It´ll also just help the children who are semi-active but aren´t really strong, because there´s a lot here that are like that too. Anyways, there´s a lot of work to be done haha.

They annouced transfers today and I´m staying with Elder Robinson so I´m pretty excited about that. I just need to work on speaking more spanish with him because I feel like I´m not doing enough in that aspect to improve my language. This week was pretty cool though because there were a couple days where I just stopped worrying so much about whether I said something wrong or not and just tried to talk. I asked a couple different questions to people that I wouldn´t have normally asked and talked to this little kid for a while which was pretty cool. I´m excited to be with Elder Robinson though, he is a really good teacher and we get along well. He´s funny and easy to joke around with so life isn´t boring and we keep things excited. He´s a hard worker and we had pretty good numbers this transfer so hopefully we can keep it up. So far we´ve taught 101 people some principle of the gospel. Kinda cool huh? Oh, also, on the topic of transfers Elder Summers who was in my MTC district is going to be in Oeste next transfer! Haha how crazy is that? It means I´ll see him every P-day when we do stuff with our zone (our zone has 12 Elders, and our District has 6) and then whenever Oeste and Bowen have activities together.

On a side note, Bowen has some kind of fruit canning factory or something so there´s a couple neighborhoods we walk through every day that smell like when mom is canning peaches. Haha, it´s kinda weird. Our schedule is never very set because no one else really has a very set schedule. We´ll schedule to come back to a house at another time and 90 percent of the time they won´t be there. Probably because they knew they were going to be gone and didn´t want to listen to us haha. We have a couple investigators that we go by at the same time every day but other than that we just kinda go by investigators whenever we think they might be home. We very rarely go tracking door to door, maybe maybe once a week, if even that. It depends on if we need new investigators or if we don´t have anyone else to teach but usually we stay busy teaching. We have Companionship and Personal study in the morning, and are out the door by 10:30. Then we work until lunch which is at 1. Then we go back to the Pench and have language study until like 4 because during the sista everyone is asleep haha. Then we´re out and working until like 9:30 at night. Right now we´re supposed to be in bed by 11 and up by 7 but it changes in the winter to the usual 10:30 and 6:30. Hopefully that answered most of your questions...I think I covered all of them.

Have a fan-flipin-tastic week.

Love, Elder Lounsbury

Dog Week

This week was Dog Week, it´s kinda like Shark Week but with dogs and in Argentina. I have two stories but first you need some background information. There are dogs everywhere. I´d say about 90 percent of the population where I´m at right now has at least one dog. There are also random dogs that just kinda roam the street, they just chill downtown, take a nap on the road, sleep by a store, they just kinda do whatever they want. But all of the dogs that I´ve been around are all bark and no bite. I´ve even seen two watch us coming, climb back under or through their fence, and then bark all tough at us, like if the fence wasn´t there they´d have at it. Bunch of wimps. They´re pretty funny.

Now for the stories. We walked kinda out into the campo (the outskirts of town) to try and find some nuevos and we clapped at this one house at the end of the road.We usually clap when there is a closed gate but in this case the gate was open but we clapped anyways because their house was kinda a ways away and I don´t know, it´s kinda like asking permision to keep going. Anyways, we clap and these 4 or 5 giant dogs just come running straight at us like the dogs off of I Am Legend. I about pooped my pants. My life flashed before my eyes. But then it was just kinda anticlamatic and the dogs got a couple feet away, stopped, and kept barking. Haha. The second story is that I saw the biggest dog in the world. Holy Cow. This kid was just walking it on a leash in the street and it looked like a baby pony or something. Like the kid was probably Caleb´s height it and it was up to his elbow. I think he was the dog off of The Sandlot.

Welp, besides that things are going really well. We started teaching a way legit family named Gatica and they´re looking like they´re going to progress really fast. They´ve already been to church and they know a memeber and even though some of the daughters were uptight at first by the end they were like joking with us and it was way cool. They were out of town on Sunday so they couldn´t go to church but they should go next week.

Also, I don´t know if I ever told you about this one lady we´re teaching but if she keeps progressing it would like be the coolest thing ever. Her name is Gladis and we opened the mouth with her one day and she didn´t want anything to do with us, her 18 year old daughter had died a couple months ago and she was just really mad at God. We didn´t give up and had to ask like 4 or 5 times but she finally gave us her address. We taught her a couple times and left one of these little pamphlets we have that explained the Plan of Salvation and when we went back on Saturday she said that her duaghter had read it to her and that she felt ¨tranquilidad¨ or like a calmness I guess. It was cool, afterwords they had some really good questions which means they´re actually thinking about things and that they´re interested so we´re really excited.

We talked to Pedro and Lucas yesterday but they didn´t go to chuch because they were at a birthday party until pretty late. It´s hard to find time to teach them but they would be soooo solid. Whenever we´re with them they just invite their friends over and we talk with all of them too. They would be some really solid youth which is someone Bowen needs.
We´re still teaching Omar and he´s been a lot better. He made a list of all the things he wants to change like to stop smoking and clean up his language and he has a really good desire to change so he´s looking way promising as well. We´re teaching a ton and stay way busy passing by a bunch of different people so life is going pretty dang good.

So a couple more interesting things before I go. At the grocery store when you use a card they ask you if you want to pay in one payment. I think you can split your bill in up to 3 parts but I´m not really sure when they end up taking the others off your card. Also, at the store a USB thing was listed as 2.89 x 17. Haha. So like unless you have a calculator or are really good at math you never really know exactly how much some things cost. Also, no one can really say my name. Usually they can get as fas as ¨Louns¨ but that´s about it. haha. So...thanks Dad.

Welp I hope all of you are doing just splendid. Thanks for the love and support!

Love, Elder Lounsbury

Gettin' a tan in February

How is rainy Oregon doing for you all? I hope I don´t make you all too jealous because I´m getting a real nice tan down here. Also, I have a nice collar tan...so half of my neck is white haha. This week was pretty good, it´s insane to think that this week I will celebrate 1 month in Argentina and 3 months on my mission! Time flies.

First off, today was the bomb. We had pancakes at the church this morning as a zone and I had some with Dulce de Leche (that caramel like stuff) which was soooo good in my mouth. Then we played soccer which was fun as always and went shopping to get stuff for lunch. We made some nice juicy good ol´ American burgers with Chedder Cheese, Guacamole, and even a fried egg on it. It was heaven. Also, speaking of food, the Oreos down here are insaneeeeee. At our store in Bowen they don´t even have normal ones, the have duo Oreos with TWO flavors. I know right? One was like banana and dulce de leche which I need to try and I can´t remember what the other one was but i´m pretty sure it was way good too. Also, they have triple chocolate ones with 3 things of cookie and two layers of chocolate frosting. They are to die for. Anwyays, that was probably the best part of my week haha.

This week our Noche de Logar and English classes were way better. Noche de Logar was so funny, we started out doing an exersize where everyone has to stand on a blanket and then you have to flip the blanket over without anyone touching the floor. Except Elder Robinson and I didn´t actually know what the trick is to do it ahaha. So that was funny. Then these two girls had a couple games that we played as well and they were so much fun. The first one was you get a plastic cup and two people race to drink it without using their hands. So if you try to go too fast you end up getting water all down your neck haha. But the next one was even better. It was a race with a cup of water again but this time you had to hold the cup up over your head with your arm straight and try to pour it into your mouth. It´s way to hard to guess where the heck the water is going to go so people were basically just pouring water on themselves trying to aim it in their mouth. I was laughing so hard. Water was spilt and fun was had. We actually had people show up to english class which was good but it was kinda crazy because these one or two kids are really loud. All we did was teach them the alphabet but it was kinda frustrating because it was so hectic and crazy. But hopefully next week will we better.

Also, we got 4 people to church on Sunday!! It was somewhat unexpected but way cool. A memeber brought a friend that we´re going to start teaching this week, and another one is living with a member but needs to get married and quit smoking and drinking before he can be baptized (it´s way hard to get married here by the way, I don´t really know why but it takes up to like a year. And if the people need a divorce it´s even longer so that´s frustrating when you have someone that wants to get baptized. So many people just aren´t married because it´s such a hastle). Anways, the other one was this guy we are teaching who is really sad because his wife and kids left him and the last one is this stud named Pedro who is 13 and came all by himself. We´ve been teaching him and his brother and their both way smart and get everything we teach and even said they felt something when they prayed about Joseph Smith which I think is the first time I´ve had an investigator here follow up on that commitment so was legit. We have a lot of potential again so hopefully we can work with that.

Well family, I´m glad all of you are doing well, thanks again for the emails and love.

Love, Elder Lounsbury

I flippin love this place

Like seriously, this place has so much character. I think I want to

live here for two years..oh yeah, I am! This week was pretty good, we
found a ton of people and our numbers were way high but after 3 solid
commitments from investigadors, none of them came to church. So that´s
basically all we´re going to work on this week. It´s hard because in
Bowen the people are almost too nice, they´ll let you in and listen to
you but sometimes just because they don´t want to say no. Or like on
the streets they´ll act interested and then just lie about their
address. But when we do open the mouths in bigger cities a lot of
people will just ignore you or say they´re not interested. For some
reason getting shot down in Spanish doesn´t bother me very much haha.

To answer your question I haven´t gone to the big branch yet, I think
we´re going to go next week, but I do think they have ¨normal¨
services with 3 hours and different classes etc. The water where I am
right now is okay to drink, it tastes a little weird but so does Utah
water haha. Tang is huge down here, I´ve started putting like just
half a packet in an old soda bottle to take away the taste, it kinda
ends up being like propel haha. Lunches with memebers are the same
every week. So like every Tuesday we´ll have it with one family and
every Wednesday we´ll have it with a different one etc. I just have
cereal in the morning and some kind of crackers or bread with jam for
dinner. We don´t really have a big dinner at all like in the states.

A couple way cool things happened this week. I had my first banana
split ever. It was so good. Like so good, we might go to the same
place today. But really, words can not even describe how beautiful it
tasted in my mouth. Also, there was one lunch appointment where I
understood like most of what was going on. It was a cool contrast
because it was the same family that I had my first lunch with in
Argentina 3 weeks ago so it was cool to be able to gauge the
difference. Being able to understand what´s going on helps me be
myself because for the past couple weeks I´ve just been really quiet
because I won´t know exactly what´s going on haha.

We started a Noche de Logar and English classes this week. Noche de
Logar is Family night but for the ward, so it´s kind of like mutual. Our
first attempt was soooo hectic. Like holy cow. Haha it reminded me of
home or some kind of family reunion because there were a ton of loud
kids. It was probably more hectic because I had no idea what they were
saying haha. Anyways, hopefully that will be better in the future but
we´re trying to think of ways to get the ward together and create
opportunities where investigators can make friends with the members.
English class was a fail because this furnititure store opened up
across the street and was like thowing a party for their opening haha.
It was strange. I swear like half the town was there. They had this
band play and were giving away matresses and tvs and stuff so I think
everyone who was going to go forgot and watched the party haha. Oh
well.

ALSO, holy cow, this country is so cool. in 2010 they made 5 special
pesos to celebrate their 200th year anniversary and the pesos just
have like engravings of famous places in the country. Anyways, one of
them has A WALRUS on it, not even joking. It is the coolest coin I
have ever seen in my life, I got one this morning and it made my life
complete. I´m not really sure what place it´s depicting haha but I´m
guessing it´s somewhere way south where they have penguins and
walruses apparently.

Welp family, thanks again for the love and support

Love, Elder Lounsbury

P.S. Happy belated birthdays to Dad and Isaac!!

P.S.S. If you have any really good FHE ideas send them to me and we
can try doing it with the ward. K I think that´s all, PEACE