Dear Family and Friends:
I´m here! I can hardly believe it! At first I thought the time in the MTC would never end, and then suddenly it all went by so fast. I mean, I guess you can´t really call a 14 hour flight fast...and it wasn´t... but yeah.
So we flew in to Buenos Aires and took a bus to the temple, had lunch in the visitors center, and walked around the grounds a little bit. Oh, and Wallaces, we didn´t go to the mission offices so I didn´t get the chance to visit with Brother and Sister Wallace, which I was super bummed about. :(
After that we took another flight and bus ride to mendoza where we met with President Goates and his wife. We had the rest of that day and most of the next of orientation and interviews, after which we met our companions and were assigned to our areas! Hermana Tirada is my companion, and our area is San Rafael. Hna Tirada is amazing! She´s more of a compañita because she´s, well... small. :) But she´s been great. She´s from Peru, Cajamarca. She has one brother and he nor either of her parents are members. But she has a very strong testimony, and a great love for the gospel. She´s been out about a year and says that if they asked her to stay out another 6 months after her 18, she would do it in a heart beat. My spanish is better than her english, so although she speaks some, we speak spanish almost all the time. Also, she sings, which has been great. We walk a lot, as missionaries do, so we sing together while we travel. She´s the best.
Let´s see, the housing. San Rafael, like most of Mendoza, is very poor. Most of the neighborhood streets are dirt, as well as the sidewalks, and the houses are very humble. It reminds me a lot of Ecuador, and actually it´s almost exactly similar. It is the end of winter but each day has been considerably warmer than the last. I wore a coat the first two days, but now I only need a little sweater and I´m good. The nights are a little colder, but my sleeping bag has been excellent. Thanks dad! :) Also, the shower, like Joey´s in columbia, is just a hole in the wall that spurts out water. Apparently those are all the rage here in South America.
As for packages, the official word is don´t send them. If they ever do eventually get here, the president or zone leader or someone has to go through customs to get it, and the tax usually costs considerably more than the items in the box, so it´s just a huge hassle. Letters though normally get here, although I think I have to pick them up in the main office in Mendoza. So if you want to send pictures, drawings, or dear elders, I would love to get them! Just know that it will be a while before I can get them. Not really sure how often we go to mendoza.
The language. My companion tells everyone that my spanish is really good, so there´s that. The main problem is that Castellano is awfully fast. So listening to the people here is like putting together a puzzle in my head. I catch words every now and then and try to put them together. But it´s getting easier, so with time, and Heavenly Father, I´ll get it.
And the thing I love here about being a missionary is seeing all the little miracles that happen. Just little things that God puts in our path, like finding un Hermano on the street and talking to him, just to find out he´s the person who´s house we were just going to visit. I´ve realized these past few days a new level of closeness we can have with God through prayer and diligence in following Him that makes it easier to see these miracles and find blessings.
I love you all and hope things are all going well! So much more I still wanted to say, I need to learn to plan my emailing time better. :) Love you!
Hermana Cannon
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