08.05.2008-Hola! (E-MAIL)

Hola mi familia!

Como Estan? Sorry if my punctuation is a little crazy. It turns out that even keyboards are different here. Interesting. :)

Well, I´m here! I left Tuesday morning I believe at 10:00 am, and I arrived to Neuquen Wednesday at about 5 I believe. I flew from Salt Lake to Dallas, Dallas to Buenos Aires (About 10 or 11 hours) through the night. We got to Buenos Aires and us Neuquen missionaries got to go to the Temple there really quick and eat (just like 20 minutes.) Really fast. Then we flew from Buenos Aires to Neuquen where President Cook and his wife picked us up. Luckily we had some good helpers along the way... members?... that helped us get to our flights and everything. Communication was small if you can imagine, but we made it. :)

Thursday morning I got to meet my trainer! We had a day of training with us 5 new missionaries. So about my trainer! Hermana Celis is from Santiago Chile and she´s great. I must admit that I was a little nervous about having a ¨latin¨companion, but it has been really good so far. She actually knows a lot of English so when I don´t know a word, she is usually able to tell it to me.I actually haven´t really read any letters so sorry I´m not responding. I will respond to your questions next week when I write.

Also, President Cook has advised that we only write to our parents. So Mom and Dad, will you please email this on to everyone else? Thank you. Also, President Cook was concerned about us not having enough time to write (we are allowed 40 minutes) if we are reading many emails. I am going to ask him if it´s okay if we continue this way, with me printing your emails and then responding next week, and then we can still continue to do email, rather than all ¨mi hermanos¨needed to use pouch. Another thing to take a look at is ¨Dear Elder¨a program on the internet. I´m not sure how quickly those get here, but it can be used here at the MTC. Anyway, I´m going to write President Cook and ask him, and then I´ll let you know what I find out.Also, about packages... they said that if you send packages, make sure to keep the worth of the stuff inside small, because I need to pay about half of the worth once it gets here. Hopefully that makes sense. :)

Alright, so here I am in my first area Plottier! There is one ward that we are part of, and it´s called America.

My first night here, Thursday night I believe, I went and met the Bishop and his family. They´re very nice and are very pacient with my Spanish. I already recognize that I understand a lot more than my first day, but this is definitely a very different experience to not understand! But all is well. The Lord is helping me to learn and I´ll learn on His time. I was actually reading in Ether 12 today and Moroni was talking about his weakness in writing. It got me thinking, and it actually helped me a lot.

The ward is pretty small. There were like 25 or 30 people at church on Sunday. Hermana Celis said it was smaller than normal. But I´m playing the piano for the ward. It´s nice to be able to serve in that way.Our area is really big, so we ride the colectivo (bus) everywhere. We actually spend a good amount of our time traveling. To get to some investigators houses, Hermana Celis says it would take about two hours to walk. We have two baptisms set for this Saturday! Rosio is eleven years old, and she´s great. Her family hasn´t attended church so they´re not ready yet, but she is. We´re hoping to continue to work with her family so they can be baptized soon as well.

Elva is this Saturday too. I actually haven´t met her because she has been on vacation.

Andrea is schedule for baptism the 16th. We had FHE with her and a family in the ward, Familia Higuera, last night and we talked about the importance of the family, and being married. She has two kids, and lives with her boyfriend, but they´re not married. She committed last night to talk to Andre about a wedding date before the 16th so she can get baptized. It´s hard because he´s not really investigating the church at this point.The ward members here are great and they´re really invovlved in missionary work. I think about all the investigators we´re teaching right now are referrals of the members. Pretty amazing.

Some fun and differeng things about Argentina... we do clap instead of knock at doors. Most houses have some kind of fence and so we clap. If there´s no fence, then we knock. You greet all friends with a kiss on the right cheek (females only for missionaries) :) I wasn´t super sure what to think at first, but it has grown on me. I think I may carry this on in Idaho as well. :D

The food is different, but similar. Mostly I´ve had pastas or baked things so far. They have yummy cookies/treats. Perfect!

The Spanish is different here. It is called castellano. Anytime there´s a y or a ll at the beginning or in the middle of the word, it´s pronounced kindof like ¨sh¨Somewhere between a ¨j¨sound and an ¨sh¨sound I would say. Interesting huh?

Other than that, I´ve found that people are the same. They´re still kind, busy, and worried about others. They love their families, and they need the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The church is true and I love you all so much. Thanks so much for everything!

Con Mucho Amor,
Hermana Jana Pincock

Pincock is pronounced differently here too. Fun fun. :D