Week Fifteen

Hola,

Sounds like you had a big staff party this year mom. I'm glad your business is doing well. As Christmas gets closer I think of your pumpkin pie more and more and the delicious baking. They love fruit bread and like dry cookies here. They are pretty good cause I'm not very picky. The Christmas conference was great. We had to get up at 3AM to catch a bus to Cordoba which was 3 hours away. Plus like usual we were late getting out the door so we had to run a little bit and it was still hot, so I felt like I had just taken another shower after my first one that morning. We talked about missionary work of course at the conference. It was great to see other missionaries and talk to a few of the ones that flew in with me and realize they have the same struggles and realize it's totally normal. President Salas dressed up as santa for us and handed out packages. I got the one from you. I might have opened it. Ooops! It was the one with the stuff from dad to. Thanks so much for the shampoo and reeses puffs, anything peanut butter is heavenly because it doesn't exist here. Plus our fridge finally works so I could have reeses puffs with real cold milk it was a miracle of Christmas!!!! The other packages will get here I'm not sure when I'll get them though. But honestly the thing about Christmas I look forward to most this year is just talking with my family.

Oh, I also finally got mail so I got your dear elder mom. You can send letters that way cause they are free and it doesn't matter how long it takes because mail is grouped together till we get it anyways. Oh and tell Auntie Deb thanks for all the letters and jokes.

The missionary work here is a mixture of contacting people on the street and then stopping by, asking the members for referrals, working with less actives and rarely knocking doors. We had the baptism of Osualdo this week. We were a bit nervous because of his smoking problem but he is finding strength in the Lord. He is such a great guy and I loved seeing him sit there in his white shirt and tie and receive the Holy Ghost and see the peace enter his life.

The people here are a variety of classes. There are different sections of town of income status. We generally work in both. I've seen houses with pools and houses that are two rooms and dirt floors but I love them all. The people are all very welcoming and even though they have little, they give everything.

As far as groceries go things are a little more expensive here. Like a liter of pop is 10 pesos which is a lot of pesos but it's 4 or 3 pesos to a dollar so it's not bad when you think it that way. and They don't have dimes, nickles or pennies so we don't have a lot of change which I like. We receive plenty of money every month for our needs. I make sure to spend it wisely. My bike was having issues this week but we got it fixed by this old guy who runs the shop out of his garage. He rides his motorcycle with viking horns but is a really great guy and the best deal for fixing bikes. You can tell he does it cause he loves it.

Things about Argentina, hmmm I still don't understand the driving here people just honk or flash their lights at an intersection which is interesting. Plus I've seen all sorts of people riding mopeds, dirt bikes or anything with a motor that runs and has two wheels really. Or we see people riding through town on horse and buggy very interesting. hahahaha

Anyways I should get going. I hope all is well with everyone. My thoughts and prayers are with you always.

Love Hna Potrie