Hola Familia y Amigos,
I'M IN
ARGENTINA!!!!! What even is life?!
I honestly cannot believe it one bit! The moment I have been waiting for since
May 18th is finally here and real. I'm a missionary in Bahia Blanca, Argentina.
Wow.
Okay so
I'm going to do my best to try to describe how I got here and my first week
here in Argentina!
Last Monday morning I said goodbye to my sweet companion and roommates from the past 6 weeks, and left the MTC in Provo at 8:30am with a group of missionaries who were all going to different areas of Argentina.
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| My cute companion and roommates dropped me off at the MTC travel office on Monday ;( |
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| Adios Provo! The 3 Argentine missionaries from District 35E ;) |
We took the Front Runner train to Salt Lake,
then TRAX out to the airport where I got to talk to the fam bam for a couple of
hours, which was awesome. From SLC we flew to Atlanta. During the flight I had my first real
missionary experience talking to a woman in the seat behind me (along with one
of the other Elders on the flight) about where we were headed and why. We basically gave her Lesson 1 on the
restoration of Christ’s true church. It was awesome! She was super interested and we talked for the
full 3½ hours. She is going to request a Book of Mormon and said she
would read it, yay!
In Atlanta
we boarded the long 10 hour flight to Buenos Aires - taking off at 9pm and
landing at 9am the next morning. I couldn´t sleep on the flight, mainly because I
was so excited, but let’s be honest, who can really sleep well on
airplanes anyway? Once we landed, we all
got through immigration and customs without any problems and walked out into a
sea of people that were all speaking in a language we couldn't understand one
bit! The only thing we could understand was the writing on a clipboard being
held by a cute little old man that said "La Iglesia de JESUCRISTO". That was honestly so relieving. We
followed this man to a bus, which then drove us about 45 mins through Buenos
Aires. We passed by our LDS temple, and
what looked like the slums of Buenos Aires. Keep in mind, up to this
point we still had no clue where we were going or how exactly we were getting
to our individual missions.
We
eventually arrived at a little domestic airport in Buenos Aires around 11am and
had to wait until 5pm for the flight to Bahia Blanca. During that time we
sat in the corner of the food court with all our bags, just waiting.
Super fun! Around 3pm, the native missionaries from the Buenos Aires MTC
arrived and met up with us. In total there were 11 of us heading to Bahia
Blanca - 3 Hermanas and 8 Elders.
At 5pm, we
boarded our short 1 hour flight to Bahia Blanca.
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| Boarding our little Argentine flight to Bahia Blanca ;) |
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| I spy with my little eye something that is green...THE CAMPO of Bahia Blanca |
We were met at the
airport in Bahia Blanca by President Cifuentes and the AP's [assistants to the president] who loaded us up into cars and took us
to the mission home. We met Hermana
Cifuentes and had dinner, which was none other than...EMPANADAS!! Oh boy
they were delicious. Seriously the best first meal we could've had in
Argentina! That night, we stayed in the mission home and in the morning
we had an orientation with the office Elders about the mission.
President and Hna Cifuentes are AWESOME and so funny! I can't wait to get
to know them better!
Next came
the much anticipated meeting when we would meet our trainers....
There were
3 Hermana trainers there... 2 Latinas and 1 Yankee (that’s what they call the
white, gringo missionaries here). Right before I met my trainer, I once
again prayed like I have been praying since May that my trainer would be
Latina. Let me tell you my friends...God
hears our prayers because my companion is HERMANA PALMA!!!
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| Hermana Palma (You've gotta love the mission home door!) |
And you’ll never guess where she’s from....
CHILE!!!! Hahaha - I guess if your name
is Hermana Bartholomew, you are going to get a Chilean trainer! ;)
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| Mi Chilean mami :) |
After
lunch we headed out to our area, VILLA FLORESTA. Our area is located in the north part of
Bahia Blanca, and I kid you not, it’s HUGE. We honestly walk about 30mins
to1 hour one-way every time we are going to anyone's house. Its
nuts. But yeah, we took all my bags to our cute little green apartment
and then immediately headed out to teach.
My first
lesson was with a part-member and less-active family. I could hardly
understand a word that was said, but I just smiled and testified about the
importance of going to church as best as I could in my broken Español. (Side
note - the best part of the lesson was definitely when the mom just pulled her
shirt down to feed her baby right in the middle of our discussion... hahaha it’s
totally normal here, but I was not ready for that - super great welcome to my
new home ;) ) As hard as it was to not
understand much of anything, that evening, as we were walking back to our
apartment, I was welcomed by the most beautiful sunset. It reminded me of
the ones back home in Draper and was definitely a little tender mercy from the
Lord that calmed my heart. This place is beautiful!
My first Sunday
was great! I had to get up in sacrament meeting and introduce myself and
bear my testimony. Luckily I was able to make a little joke about my Spanish
and get everyone to laugh so hopefully they will forgive my lack of knowledge
of the language.
Anyway, I
still can't believe I'm here right now! I'm in a different world, let me
tell you! But I love it! I'm so grateful I have Hna Palma as my
mission mami! She’s taking great care of me and helps me out a lot!
She knows a bit of English and is super patient and good at helping me
understand what the heck is going on here.
The food
is fantastic! My only complaint is the milk. For those that know me well, you know that I'm
addicted to milk and it’s been a bit rough here... it just doesn't taste the same
as it does back home. Plus it comes in a bag which is super weird. But at
least I have a filtered water bottle....#countyourblessings ;)
Well I
love and miss you all, but I'm super happy that I get to be in Argentina right
now! As hard and weird as this first week has been, I know my purpose and
know that I have my Savior on my side helping me every step of the way (which I
need because my feet are super beat up right about now). I'm so grateful for the chance I have to share
the reason I’m so happy with the people here in Bahia Blanca. I can´t
wait to see what this next week brings.
Wishing
you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Con mucho amor from Bahia Blanca ARGENTINA,
Hermana Bartholomew ;)
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