Argentina!

Okay Family,

Time is so short and I received 58 emails so my time to write is super short!

Thank you all for your support. It is so great that you all are there supporting me. Okay so I have to pay for letters to receive them and so if you are going to send letters from home, put them all in one envelope so I don’t have to pay for 7 letters.  I only have a certain amount of money a month so by next month I should know how much extra money I have. But as of right now, I am so confused on how much things cost because of course the money is different here. 

So my companion is Hermana Guzman.  She is from Mexico. She does not speak any English! It is soooo hard! Because I don’t speak very much Spanish!  People here don’t even speak Spanish. It is Castillano. It is like Spanish but it sounds different! What the heck was I even studying in the MTC?! Hahaha So, the President and his wife are super nice. Dad, President didn’t ask me to talk about myself in our interview so he doesn’t know that I pluck strings and ducks hahaha. My companion is super nice and patient. I ask her so many questions. We have a goal that I will be fluent in 2 weeks.  hahaha Maybe if I keep telling myself that, then it will happen.  I have already learned so much. But people talk so fast-it sounds like one word. And people look at me and say something, then I just look at my companion and then my companion explains that I don’t speak the language. Then they all start laughing and they start pointing at me and start talking about me... But I have no idea what they are saying. So I really am hoping I can learn the language in 2 weeks. 

So my first day with my companion we arrived at our house at 1 am.  I was so confused at what the heck was going on. The first thing I saw when I walked into my house was a huge spider!!!!!  It was bigger than a quarter. It was like 4 quarters. Then I got in bed and the next day I unpacked. But all I wanted to do was get out and start teaching haaha. Yesterday we started teaching a family and it was the first lesson. I had the prompting to invite them to baptism but I was afraid I would say it wrong so I didn’t say anything, only my testimony! Ugh I am so sad I didn’t listen to the spirit. Oh well, next time I will. The people here in Argentina are all Catholic. They are, on average, pretty willing to let us teach them, but they don’t want to join the church because their family is all Catholic and they can’t break tradition.

Uncle Ron was right!  Everyone drinks mate! But my Mission President won’t let us drink it. We can’t even have Coke!  Crazy huh? 

The food here is pretty good, but it isn’t as good as the food in America. But they have these really good desserts!  It is hard to know what water I can and can’t drink because my companion drinks everything. So how long does it take before you get sick after drinking bad water?

So my apartment does not have a washer so I wash my clothes out of a sink. Ugh it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. Ugh Be grateful for a washer. hahaha

It is so crazy when I bear my testimony in lessons. The people stop and look at me because “ohh the Gringo is speaking Spanish!” hahaha

I stick out way bad here... I get all the cat calls, ugh- which I hate! Anyways I have to write more people! Ugh the time goes by too fast.

Sorry if you can’t understand what I wrote. The keyboard is so hard to type on and it is a little different and everything I am writing says it is spelled wrong because the spell check does not recognize English words. 

Hahha I am doing great. Loving this adventure.  Pray for me to receive the gift of tongues and to not want to be home.  I need help to care more about others rather than what I am feeling.

Oh and Dad, the toilets do flush in a different direction.  hahaha. 

Love you all! Thank you all for the letters. Sorry I don’t have time to write you all back individually. 

Love,

Hermana Bailey

 Oh and right now we as missionaries are really focusing on teaching others why we have Christmas. We invite everyone to watch this Christmas video. You should watch it. It is great.  Navidad.mormon.org 

Love you all