Puppy Love and Painting

Sooo...  Here's my weekly e-mail.  Enjoy.

This first picture is of me (surprise) and a puppy we found in a field in the middle of nowhere.

 

It's sooo cute.  I wanted to take it home and make it our pet.  But the white handbook of rules says that we can't have pets.  And it already belonged to someone.  And thou shalt not steal is also one of the Ten Commandments.  Sooo...  The dog stayed in the field in the middle of nowhere.  (I'm crying tears of great sadness.)

This second picture is of us eating.  I'm holding a glow in the dark key chain that came inside the chocolate Easter egg we bought for dessert.

And the last picture below is my companion and me eating lunch at our service.

We painted the house that our branch mission leader rents out.  Mama, don't ever come to Argentina.  You would die if you saw what we did.  We literally just painted over the wall.  We didn't clean it or anything.  All of the mold and writing and chipped paint from the former inhabitant, still there underneath the new layer of salmon pink paint.  And when the paint started to peel away when we ran the paint roller over it, no worries, just get out the normal paint brushes and dab the paint onto the wall.  You can use the new paint to re-glue the old paint to the wall.  All in all, our branch mission leader was very content with our service.  

Con amor,

Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  This coming weekend (Apr. 5 and 6) is General Conference weekend.

During general conference weekend, Church members and others gather worldwide for a series of two-hour sessions to receive inspiration and instruction from Church leaders.  The talks by these Church leaders are broadcast live from Salt Lake City and may be viewed online.  If you have never watched General Conference, you might tune in this weekend.  The quality of the talks is exceptional.  On both Saturday and Sunday, sessions begin at 10am and 2pm.  Each session is unique, featuring different speakers and topics.  The president of the Church, Thomas S. Monson, will speak on Sunday, Oct 6th, during the 10am session.

The ol' "Slide in Sideways" manuever

Transfers were yesterday.  That's why I didn't write.  I am now in La Costa -- the southernmost part of my mission.  It was a hour and a half train ride from Cañuelas to Banfield and then a nine-hour car ride to Madariaga.  (And all nine of those hours the driver had 80's music playing.  We listened to the Police, and songs like "Take On Me" by A-Ha, "Enjoy the Silence," "Land of the Rising Sun," "What is Love."  Stuff like that.)  Trains don't run this far south, the furthest they go is La Plata.

There is sand everywhere.  Now, instead of streets made of dirt and rocks we get to ride bikes on streets of sand.  It's a little harder to pedal but the bike tires don't pop as often.  We do have helmets in this area but I feel like we might as well not use them.  They are so broken that, if we did fall, they wouldn't do anything to protect our prescioso brains.

I'm also not sure how I feel about our bathroom.  We can flush T.P. down the toilet here but the bathroom is about 4ft by 4ft -- shower, toilet and all.  You can't sit down like you normally would because the sink is right where your knees would be.  So you kind of have to slide in sideways.  If you aren't careful while doing this...  the toilet tips over.  BUT.  You can flush the T.P..  That is the most important to me.  And a very close second is that the shower head is considerably better than the one in Cañuelas.  I will finally be able to get all of the shampoo out of my hair.  Whoo!

Madariaga is a town full of gauchos [cowboys].  It's interesting because Pinamar, part of our district, is very modern and Madariaga is a little...  old.  But I like it here.  It's super calm and it also seems like everybody here knows about the Church.

My new companion is Hermana Pomader.  She's from Ecuador and she has about the same amount of time as me in the mission.  And that's all I've got for now.  I'm gonna clean all of the dirt and dust in the pench [apartment], kill all of the mold, and destroy all of the spiders.  And then it'll be perfect.  I think I'm going to like Madariaga.

Until next week --
Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  Here is the wikipedia entry for Madariaga.  "The economy of La Costa Partido is dominated by the summer tourist season (December–February), which sees tens of thousands of vacationers make their way to the Atlantic coast from Buenos Aires and the Greater Buenos Aires urban area."

Pinamar is a coastal resort town.  Located less than 400 km (249 mi) south of Buenos Aires, it is one of several small seaside communities that line the coast.  Since Pinamar's main attraction is the ocean, it is a fairly quiet town during the winter months.  Tourism is what fuels the economy of Pinamar during the summer.  (Remember that the seasons are opposite ours here in North America.)  Two facts set Pinamar apart from most of the other Atlantic Ocean beach cities:  it is a planned city with a very strict building code, and it has been artificially turned from wild sand dunes into a forest (mostly of pine trees, which explains the "pina" in the name).  It has been chosen as the summer resort for many well-to-do Argentinians, in particular those living in Buenos Aires.

About 18 miles inland is the town of General Juan Madariaga, or Madariaga for short.

Fat Calves Beat Skinny Calves When It Rains

Well...  it's been yet another week.

On Monday we had a great Noche de Hogar (FHE or Family Home Evening) with a part member family.  The mom and dad aren't married and only the father isn't a member.  All of the kids are less active and only the mother attends church every Sunday.  It was a great family home evening and the mother is super excited for our next family home evening that we are going to have tonight.  What's more, we have a new investigator from all this work with the family.  We've already been teaching the father but now we are going to start teaching the 24-year-old boyfriend of the 16-year-old daughter.  So not legal in the States, but then again, we're in Argentina and nobody cares if she lives with her 24-year-old boyfriend.

Tuesday all of our appointments fell through and we spent the day looking for people to teach.  We also missed the train for our meeting in Spegazzini (normally our meeting is in Eseiza but we teamed up with another district this particular Tuesday.)  We ended up taking a collectivo (a giant bus filled with people) because the next train got canceled.  And, just so you all know, we live in a little teeny town in the middle of nowhere where buses and trains only run every hour or so.  We were very very late.  And our train to return to Cañuelas got canceled as well.  But we ate the tastiest lunch ever.

Wednesday, don't have time to explain but we had a bunch of great lessons with recent converts and less active members.  Thursday too.

On Friday it rained allllllll day long.  To sum it all up in just three words:  lots of mud.  I got to try out the new rain boots that I got.  I don't know if I've already told you but I have really fat calves.  So I had to cut a slit in my boots so that I could actually get them on.  Turns out that it is better to have fat legs than skinny legs -- water doesn't slosh into my boots like it does with my companion's.  We only had one appointment that we could go to on Friday (because of the rain).  We walked for a little more than a half an hour in the rain in pure mud squishing around our boots, coming up to our ankles.  I thought it was fun.  My companion, not so much.

Saturday we had a few lessons with less active members and Sunday we went to church.

And that was my week.

Here's a picture of my companion and me on a sunny day.

Con amor,

Hermana Crotzer

When a Missionary Gets Sick

Editor's note:  Catherine saw a doctor this week and received an antibiotic to deal with a persistent sore throat and some other troubling symptoms.  She got permission to e-mail her mother today and wrote "Well, I don't feel like I'm dying anymore."  Hopefully this means that she will be able to re-focus on her missionary duties and will write home with news of her activities next Monday.

A Busy Week

A whole lot has happened in this last week and I can't remember most of it.  :)

We found a new investigator named Carlos.  We had an appointment with him on Tuesday but when we went, his wife had left and he was home alone.  As missionaries we can't be alone with a man so we rescheduled the appointment for Thursday.  He's awesome.  We could only teach him for about 15 minutes because we were a tad late (shame on us) and he has a very busy schedule.  But I'm pretty sure it was the best mega-short lesson ever.

We have another investigator named Guadalupe.  Our biggest challenge with her is that she has a boyfriend who she lives with and her relationship with him is a little unhealthy.  She thinks that she can't live without him but the problem is that he has left (don't know to where) and hasn't come back for about three weeks.  She's having an emotional breakdown.  Every time we go over she starts to cry and tell us how she knows that she needs to change but that he and her kids are her family and all she is asking God is to let her have her family.  She came to church yesterday and could actually listen because her kids weren't with her.  And she asked us to teach her how to repent so that she can be baptized.

We had a zone conference on Saturday where we got to hear a bunch of talks and listen to President Thurgood.  He told us that we need to simplify our teaching and to put more emphasis on repentance.  As missionaries, all too often we talk about faith and skip right over repentance and head on with baptism.  He told us that more converts would stay active after we leave if we teach them how to repent -- if we teach them how to change their lives and live according to God's commandments BEFORE baptism.

I got sick.  We aren't sure if it's something like strep or if it was an allergic reaction to something.  The nurse thinks that it was my allergies but I've never had a reaction like that before.  We were in an appointment and my eyes started to itch like crazy.  They have dog and a cat so I didn't really think anything of it.  And then my throat and mouth and lips started to itch.  We went home to eat lunch right after this and I took a look at the back of my throat  just to see and it was covered in huge red and yellow bubbles.  And they still haven't gone away.  I've been drugged up on benadryl for the last four or so days.  When I start to feel a little itchy in my face, I just take another benadryl.  The nurse said it was okay sooo...  that's what I do.

The mission president, his wife, and one of the senior couples came to our pensión last night.  We had a really quick, last minute scramble to clean a little bit more before he came.  It wasn't dirty, but it wasn't spotless either.  Turns out that it is a lot easier to get your requests taken care of if the president is there to verify that, yes we really do need two more bikes, two new seats for the bikes we have, a new fridge, a new shower head, and a new pot and pan.  They also decided that we could do with a new heater and fans that work properly.  I just think it's funny that they come by and say something like "Oh, you poor things living this way -- at least you have a toilet seat -- anything you need, buy it."  And there we are:  "Ehh...-- we have everything we need and it's not like we are dying -- but these would be very, very, very nice."

Mom asked if I have given talks, either at baptisms or at church.  Yes, I have given talks.  We didn't give the talks at the baptisms last week but the branch president asked me if I could give a talk on the Holy Ghost the next day (because all three of the newly baptized were going to be confirmed.)  And we teach the Gospel Principles class every Sunday because we don't have a branch mission leader here in Cañuelas.

And that's my week.

Pictures Galore

Well, we had our three baptisms this Saturday.  And all three of them were confirmed yesterday as members of the church and received the Holy Ghost.  Whoooo!

We had to clean the font Saturday morning so that it would be ready that evening for the baptisms.  :)  It was quite fun and we were whipped afterwards.  The baptismal font is really nothing more than a pool in the back yard of our church house.

Here's us being tired afterward.  :)

Here is a picture of Ariel and his family.  He's the little boy we taught this past week and who was baptized on Saturday.  He's standing on the far right in the white baptismal jumpsuit.

This next picture is Rosmari (who got baptized on Saturday) and her family:

Rosmari, in blue tank top next to Hna Castillo

We taught the Plan of Salvation several times this week.  This is a picture of the "dibujitos" [cartoons] that we use.   It was a little windy that day and we were outside, so we needed to put rocks on top of all of the little papers.

And finally, here is Priscila (who was also baptized on Saturday) and her family:

Priscilla, in white blouse standing next to Hna Crotzer

Well...  next week I'll actually write something instead of just sending pictures.  But, hey, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Con amor,
Hna Crotzer

p.s.  Rollup key boards are awful...  Who invented them anyway???

Editor's note:  Catherine smells really good to the mosquitoes in Buenos Aires, and so a couple of people who served missions in areas bedeviled by mosquitoes had some suggestions this past week on how to cope with being eaten alive 24/7.  When I passed along the suggestion that a fan near her bed might help keep them at bay at night, she sent me the following along with an interesting picture of her area:

We have a fan and it's even tall enough to reach the top bunk where I'm sleeping.  The problem with the mosquitoes is that they eat me when I'm outside, too.  :)  But Hna Betts told me that vinegar is really good for helping with the itch.  Sooo, today I'm going to buy some vinegar and I also need it because I have been blessed with foot fungus.  Whooo hooo!  It turns out that plodding through water all day long can do that to you.  :)

My companion...

Getting to Work in Cañuelas

Well.  I only have a half an hour to write because I waited and hit the reload button for a half an hour in order to actually open the e-mail account.  Gotta love Argentina.

Like I said in my last e-mail, the trip to Cañuelas was a little much for my suitcases.  I've attached a photo of what the wheels look like.  The wheel in the front is in wonderful condition.  Check out the wheel in the background...  I'm going to have to buy a trolly, whatcha ma callit thingie.  My English fails me.  I can't think of what it's called.

This next picture is of my companion and the granddaughter of one of the recent converts feeding a cow.  That's right.  A cow.  There are a lot hanging around Cañuelas.  And horses too.  And some chickens.

I don't have a picture with me standing with the cow because I was attacked by ants.  Ants really don't like it when you are standing anywhere near their nest.  And the ants in Argentina are considerably more aggressive than the ants in the States.  My foot looks like it got bit by about a million teeny tiny mosquitoes, there are a bunch of really red, swollen bumps all over my foot.  And they itch like crazy.  Another thing I have learned in Argentina - always, always pay attention to where you are walking, even if it isn't in the city and you don't have to worry about getting hit by cars.

Another picture of my companion, Hermana Castillo.

This next picture is a typical road in Cañuelas -- which is our area.  The other two missionary sisters (with whom Hna Castillo and I share a house) are assigned to the city.

There are going to be three baptisms in our area this Saturday.  Ariel, a boy, is going to be baptized along with Rosmarí and Priscila.  Ariel is the son of a recent convert (of about a month) and he told us that he wanted to be baptized too.  Well, he already has all of the church attendance that he needs, he has the support of his mom, and he learns really fast.  So, this week, we will be teaching him all of the lessons.

I have Tranmites (don't really know what that means, just that it has something to do with my visa and that everybody has to do it) on Wednesday.  Since we live in the middle of nowhere, we have to take a train in the night to Temperley, to stay with the sisters there.  One of them is Hermana Newman, so I get to see her again.  Aaannnd, all I know is that I have to be in the station after Adrogué--Burzaco at 8:30 in the morning  and I can't be late.  Should be fun.

Our bikes fell apart, literally, on Saturday and we missed two trains.  In Cañuelas, the trains don't really have a regularly scheduled time when they pass by, so we had to wait for an hour and a half.  My back tire and the front tire of Hna Castillo's bike popped.  Her chain kept falling off every two minutes and my seat came off.  But don't worry, we fixed them today.

Until next week,
Hermana Crotzer

Editor's note:  Here, for fun, is the wikipedia info on Cañuelas, Argentina:  "Cañuelas is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.  It is the head town of the Cañuelas Partido.  It is located near the outskirts of the Gran Buenos Aires conurbation.  It is claimed that dulce de leche was invented by the dairy Estancia La Caledonia near Cañuelas on June 24, 1829 by chance.  The area was also home to the first dairy factory in Argentina at La Martona."

Here is the wikipedia entry for Temperley, Argentina:  "Temperley is a city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, located in the south of Lomas de Zamora Partido.  It forms part of the Greater Buenos Aires metro area.  In 1854 the industrial and textile merchant George Temperley (born in 1823 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England) bought from the Marenco brothers 51 hectares between the present streets of Dorrego, Almirante Brown, Eva Perón and Lavalle, and built a country house there.  On October 16, 1870, Temperley set aside land from his extensive property for the establishment of a community, and participated in the building of both the original Lomas de Zamora City Hall and the Temperley railway station, one of the largest in Greater Buenos Aires.  In 1965 the town of Temperley was granted City status by the Provincial Legislature."

And now we know about Cañuelas and Temperley.  We don't have a clue what Tranmites is (because we couldn't find it on the internet in a language that we could read.)  But maybe Catherine will fill us in next week.