Monday, December 5, 2011

Navidad en el verano esta Veniendo (Christmas in the summer is coming)

Buenas!


Yes Mom, I am getting all of your e-mails and it is probably definitely the best way to keep in touch with me. It is always good to open up the email and see lots there waitin for me. I am not exactly sure about the exact amount of time that it takes for the letters and pouch to get to me. I got a dearelder from Grandma this week. First letter of the mission! Woo hoo! And yes, the baptism all went well!!! Woo hoo! I´ll have to tell ya bout it later in the email. Yep, you should go on the google maps thing and find Colonia Bombal and drive around in it. It is definitely one of the most farmiest places I have ever seen! Going into the city here in Mendoza is just a whole different world, people everywhere and lots more stores and stuff. My area basically has nothing... ha ha. I just sent another copy of that other email and tried to make sure that the pictures went through. Hope you got em. Hmm, what do we do on P-day? Well, the first couple P-days we went to Shopping, which is just the mall, and basically just did whatever was fun over there and did some compras but I never bought anything. I am on the lookout for a stylin jersey that is cheap but classy. In Argentina there is a pretty big rivalry which could be related to the Yankees and Red Sox but in Fútbol. The two teams are Boca and River. I need to choose one soon because everybody is asking me team I am a fan of. I think I´m leanin a little more towards River. Ha. I don´t know. We haven´t really had the best P-days ever. We can´t even go to Shopping anymore because the offices just sent us a message that we have to stay in our Zone for P-days and Shopping is just about 100 yards out of reach. Bummer. Today, we are getting some of the Zone together and playin games and stuff in the church after we are all done doing our stuff today. I just always look forward to Ping Pong, even though there are only a few that actually like to play. I hear that there are some really good Latinos in the Ward. But yeah, there aren´t very many cool sight-seeing spots in this area at all. I would have to be in more of a tourist town area. Maybe in the future. The mission pres is one of the coolest guys I have ever met. It is always just awesome to go and have him teach us stuff. Thats how all mission presidents are. He is making a lot of changes in the mission so it may be a bit hard to adjust our ways but I know that it is just going to revolutionize this mission. The language is coming very slowly. I really just hope and pray that it will start to come a little bit faster so that I could participate more in the lessons and be more of a help. But even though I haven´t been able to speak much in Castellano, I feel like I have still been able to communicate my feelings and teach the people. The gift of tongues is awesome. I need to start praying more for the gift of the interpretation of tongues now. And last question, yes my comp is pretty awesome, I am learning a lot from him and we are doing pretty great as a compañerismo.

Well, it sounds like Elder Kenyon made it home safe and sound. Now he just needs to remember all of the amazing experiences he had on his mission and never forget it. And always carry around a small photo album of his mission pics so he can show them on dates so he can win a heart of one of those BDOGs(Beautiful Daughters Of God), wow, I haven´t used that abbreviation in a while. Jason, follow the advisement of the profeta, go find a woman!

Mom, that´s awesome that you got that new calling as a Missionary Correspondent! I have never heard of that calling before, it must just be special for you because we have a ton of missionaries in the Ward! So are you going to be gathering all of the other missionaries stuff so I can find out how everyone is doing? I guess both of the mail addresses that we have work, but people are sayin that the one that says casillo de correo is a bit faster. I don´t know. Try it out.

I´m sorry to hear about the passing away of Sister Wiscomb. I think I remember who she is now that you said that she worked at Southland. I hope the family is doing okay. I bet it was really hard for them. Wasn´t she pretty young?

It sounds like everyone is done with Thanksgiving and getting ready for Navidad over there. Thats cool that you got two trees. We are thinking about going and getting one at some market. Chirstmas is gonna be a lot different this year but it will still be really good. We got some good stuff planned. They celebrate Christmas a lot different here though, I will have to tell you more next time about their Christmas traditions. It has a lot to do with fuegos artificiales y tomando mucho...

This week for definitely had its very high ups and some más o menos days. Aight, I´ll start off with the downers for us. We can´t really say right now that we have any progressing investigators but we have a lot to work with. It is just impossible to catch anyone when they are home or have time to charlar(have discussions) with us. But we have a few that are just definitely in need of the Gospel in their life and are willing to listen. I don´t know if I ever told you this but the Area of Colonia Bombal, the area that my companion and I are in right now is the only area in the mission that uses bikes. But the news is that they have been arreglando(fixing) for the whole time I have been here. But, they are supposedly supposed to be here tomorrow. I´m hoping for the best because another big problem and reason why we can´t do much work is that the area is just HUGE! And we need some better way for fast transportation. The baptism and confirmation this week all worked out as was mentioned earlier and was one of the most awesome experiences ever. I got to do the baptism...in Castellano so it was a bit different than when I baptized Micah. We had to have both of us in the font because of her broken leg and stuff and the water was really cold because the ward had no gas for the water heater. I also had to dunk her twice because the first time she didn´t feel like she wanted to plug her nose so when I dunked her she lifted her hands up out of the water. She really did not want to do it again and tried to walk out of the font, but we were able to pull her back and do the ordenanza de nuevo(again).

Some other stuff that happened this week...Well, we saw a few little boys just squatin next to their houses and doin their business right in front of everyone. That was quite the experience. I guess it is one of the customs that they don´t have in the US... ha ha ha. Oh, yeah, and there is this dog that looks like it just went through infierno and back that has been hanging out around our pension quite a bit. I think I may or may not have had a few nightmares about that dog. If I see it I will have to snap a pic of it so you can have nightmares too from its creepy stare. I haven´t seen the crazy Bolivian man this week at all. Well, this email is draggin on a bit. I have even more stuff to tell ya but that will have to wait till next week. Let´s see if I can attach a few pics to this email for ya...

Thanks for everything and for all the prayers and support. I know I say this like everytime, but it really does have quite an effect for us that are out here doing our best to serve the Lord. We really can feel the Lord´s hand in all that we do as long as we are being obedient missionaries. Enjoy the Christmas season!

Con Amor,

Elder Larisch

La Iglesia es verdadera!

PS: You should make an account on Walmart.com or some other picture website and give me the password and username and stuff and it may be a better way to give you all of my pictures. It is what my comp does and it seems to work good. Let me know so I could do it next week.