Week 3 in Argentina

Hola!!

Wow this week was so great! We worked our butts off and we actually got the standards. They are goals set by the mission as far as the numbers of lessons and stuff. we had: 1 baptism, 5 investigators with a date, 6 who attend church, 12 lessons with a member present, 10 other lessons, 5 progressing investigators, 9 referrals received and 6 contacted, 16 new investigators (which means 2 positive contacts with each) and we had 141 street contacts! It was great! The assistants actually called us last night to say good job because that hasn't been done for a while in our mission. Pretty cool.

BAPTISM!!! Yes Joaquin got baptized yesterday and it was so awesome! He is a total stud and I really feel like his baptism will make his family a lot stronger in the church!

Okay so pretty much Pamela is just perfect. She came to church again and she is still set to be baptized this Saturday! She is so solid already it is amazing. We want to convince her to serve a mission. I feel like she would be a super good Temple Square missionary!

So I wish I could really explain how crazy the drivers are here, I´ll do my best, There are no speed limits, no lines on the road, and people pretty much do whatever they want! A lot of people just drive motorcycles because they are cheaper. The other day I saw one motorcycle with 5 PEOPLE ON IT! So crazy but its nice just being able to cross the street anywhere because crosswalks almost don't exist either.

So I found out that Messi the soccer player actually grew up in the area I am serving in. Pretty cool. Oh you asked about the size of it. You can look it up on google maps. Find the intersection of San Martin and Uriburu in Rosario (kinda southern) and then go a mile north south east and west. We cover close to a 2 mile square.

Elder Welsh and I are still getting along super well! Most of the time it just feels like I'm chilling with a friend. It makes it way more enjoyable and easier to work really hard!

I bought 2 new ties last Monday so if you see a $20 charge that is what is was. They are both sweet I like them a lot. I wore one yesterday for the baptism so you will see it in the pictures.

So I have been reading the book True to the Faith and it is super good, I like learning a little bit about a lot of things! But I read this week about Family Home Evening... haha I know we weren't the best at doing that. But i feel like that is something you guys should start doing. We have a promise from the Lord that our families will be blessed and strengthened when we hold a weekly family home evening! D&C 82:10

Questions: 

1.      Q:  How are your feet doing?  My feet are a ton better! I taped my arch supports into them and that helped a ton!  

2.      Q: Have you tried Alfajores (they are a brownie like pastry)?   Yes the rumor is true, Alfajores are very, very, very, very good and very, very, very, very fattening! I have had a few but we have done pretty good at staying away from those and Facturas (Kinda similar to a donut). I think I have gained some weight but not much. The walking and hot weather helps that a lot.

3.      Q:  Where do you go to get/send your emails?  Can you print them out?   We go to the Ciber inside of the big store here. It is usually about 15 pesos each for us (3 dollars) so its not bad at all. We could print but I always have enough time to read them all so I haven't needed to.

4.      Q:  Do you know if DearElder is a good way for people to write to you while you are out there?   Yeah DearElder works. But the deal with the mail is, it all goes to the mission home and whenever someone from your district goes to the mission home they try to grab everything from their district. Usually once or twice a month. That is for letters and packages.

5. Yeah I have been emailing some people. Friends and people from the MTC. No letters though.

I love you all and you are in my prayers! Have a great week!

Elder Sisk

P.S.  Oh also there is this guy here who is a RM and he speaks perfect English. His name is Juanmanual Gomez. Everyone in the ward gets me and him mixed up because they say we look alike. pretty funny.

Then also, last night we made cinnamon rolls from scratch. soooooooo good!! :)

Week 2 in Argentina!

Hola familia!

Okay I will start with your questions:

Question: It was about a charge on his debit card.

Yes the 160 was a fee that they made me pay to get on the plane but i found out when I got here that I didn’t need to pay it. The mission refunded me with 833 pesos so I will just use that as my personal money for a while.

Question: How is the food?  What kind of stuff do you guys eat?

The food is really good for the most part. BEEF all the time and it’s amazing. No pasta like we thought. I have eaten a few weird things. small intestine and blood sausage so far. but I like almost all of the food. No spicy food which is a bummer.

Question: How does the Spanish there compare to what you heard in NC or from the guys in the kitchen at Joes? :)

The Spanish is a little different but mostly because of their Castllano accent. (I miss Joe´s a lot...)

Yeah that package sounds great. Honestly maybe a few things of ramen haha 

Coley great job on making the choir! that will be so fun and you will make so many new friends. Congrats!

Okay so now for this week which flew by!! We have been working super hard and we taught 25 lessons this week which is a ton! 11 of them were with members present so that is super cool. we get a lot of support. We are going for the mission standards this week which would be awesome!

We have an absolutely golden investigator named Pamela Fierpo. She has a baptism date for the 4th of May and she is so awesome! From the beginning all she wanted was to keep learning more and more. She reads the BoM and watches the movies that we give her. She is a pro ballerina and she owns a studio so we went there and left a blessing on her studio and it was really powerful! She came to church yesterday and the first thing she said was ´´I just wish it was next Sunday already´´. We are super excited about her.

We have a baptism this Sunday after church for a little kid named Joaquin. He is 9 and is a total stud! His sister just recently came back to church after 4 years and got a calling into the YW program so that will be great for her.

                                                                       

We met a lady this week who literally talked about 150 mph. From the second she started talking I was just left in the dust. We haven’t been able to go back to visit her yet.

I gave a talk in church yesterday and it went really well. After my talk the bishop stood up and gave me a very nice compliment and talked about the gift of tongues. It was a little intimidating to speak in Spanish but it was good.

My foot was hurting all week. My arch supports kept moving around so finally I just taped them onto my insoles of my shoes and that has helped. but it was hurting my toe because my arch was in the wrong spot. I also had to pop a few blisters this week which was a big feat for me ;)

I got kinda sick on Saturday while I was on an exchange with the Zone Leaders. We think it was mostly lack of water.

There are so many dogs here it is unreal! Most of them are super gross and I would never touch, but the ones that are pets are super fun to pet and play with. I had one fall asleep in my arms on its back like a baby would right in the middle of a lesson!

We are teaching two ex pro soccer players right now. One played for Newell´s which is a big team here in Rosario!

Sorry for the lack of pictures. I will try to send what I can but i am in an area that we are not allowed to take our camera or phone with us. But I will take as many as I can I promise.

I love you all so much! I hope everyone has a great week!! Thanks for all the support! 

♥Elder Sisk

Week 1 in Argentina!

Hola familia!

Wow week one was so great already! Time is flying already and we are working super hard!

So the moment of truth.... I am serving in Rosario! I am in the city here and it is awesome! Its a big change from Hendersonville but I really like it a lot. My companion is Elder Peter Welsh and he is great. We get along really well and we have been teaching a ton already. He is from Bakersfield CA and he plays football for BYU. He has about 7 months left on the mission and he is like perfect at Spanish so its super helpful. I have probably already learned more Spanish here than I did in 6 weeks in NC. We are going to try to go running every other morning.

Okay so i will have more stories about investigators next week cause we have a big week planned but we are expecting and excited to see some success (baptisms) here pretty soon so that is exciting. We actually have one scheduled for the 27th of this month. His name is Joaquin and he is 9 and he is a total stud! 

Our apartment (pench) is actually really nice. I will send pictures of it. It is 2 floors and we have 2 bathrooms. 1 is pretty much just showering and using the toilet and the other is where we like get ready so its pretty nice to have. We get lunch (the biggest meal of the day) pretty much everyday here so it is super nice to be able to kinda get to know the members. I mean other than a small language barrier... hah

Each month we get 500 pesos which is about 100 dollars. I heard that is usually plenty so I wont be spending much of my personal money now that I am here. 

There are 2 recent RMs here who speak perfect english from their missions in the states so other than my companion and other missionaries they are the only ones I can talk to very much. One of them says he knew Elder Radford in Washington DC. His name is Eric Martinez. 

The flight was alright I slept for like half the time. I sat with Hermana Andrews on the plane cause I had 2 empty seats next to me. It was fun to catch up a bit. I got to talk to Zach Hixon on the phone one of my first nights here and he said he is going to try to come say hi before he leaves because he is going to visit an old area that is close to mine. 

So as far as mail here, it sounds like just send things to the Mission office and I will be able to get it all there. Most missionaries have gotten multiple packages and they say its pretty save as far as actually getting here with the contents still in it. I guess some smaller sized packages are not quite so expensive so if you were to send me one... :) ................ My inserts slide around sometimes and its annoying because of the ones I have right now.

Other news: I finished the Book of Mormon this week and that was pretty good. I am now going to start reading in Spanish. 

The drivers here are....CRAZY! holy cow it is unreal. There are next to no rules so you can imagine. Surprisingly there are not many accidents.

I love you all so much and I hope everyone is doing well! You are in my prayers daily. Have a great week!

♥Elder Sisk

 

PS. Matte is gross, and there are soooooo many dogs here. they are all huge too! a lot of them are gross looking and its pretty sad. I pet all of the ones who look decent at all haha

PSS. There is a place called Sisk Grill or something like that in Forest City, NC

Elder Sisk, Elder Welsh, President and Sister Giuliani

Buenos Aires Temple

Our bedroom

Our kitchen area