Week 8 & 9

¡Hola Familia y Amigos! 

        Dang Germany, beating my country. Apparently it was a pretty good game, although I wouldnt know, I couldn´t watch it. Argentine people are nuts. Anytime Argentina scores a goal or gets scored on, you know. The entire city rumbles with screaming, car horns, and drums. After Argentina beat the netherlands in the semi-finals. the town went nuts. The entire town ran, biked, drove, and probably drunkenly stumbled to the center of town to rabidly scream at each other in beautiful chaotic harmony. Man, I love these people.

            My spanish is going very well. They say I speak very well for the amount of time I´ve been here, which is super awesome. Unfortunately it is a gift and a curse because when they think I can speak well, they think I can understand well, which I most certainly cannot. I still just hear "Shama shavar esha shamalama shim-sham-flam-wam shamtastic shimy sham" (trying saying that out loud.) I am fairly certain that these people go out of their way to find words with the "sh" sound in it. The sad thing is that I can understand the native missionaries from other countries, just not the one I'm in. Oh well, I'll get it eventually. 

            Right now we have 4 really promising investigators. A 24 year old girl named Yohanna (pronounced SHow-ana, I know, I don't understand either) and this awesome family. I helped teach a bunch in lessons and in contacting but I rarely understand what they say back to me, unless it is a short sentance. 

             Here, they don't love Americans a ton, they call us Shonkies (Yankies.) The mentality here is that America just goes around and bomb stuff we don't like, which isn´t entirely false, I guess. Luckily for me, nobody thinks I'm from the states. I've been asked if I'm from the netherlands, belguim and a couple days ago, after the semi-finals game, some people drove by and started yelling "down with england!" at me in spanish, so that's pretty funny. They really hate England, because of the whole falkland war thing. Yesterday after the game, people kept saying "son alemanies?" (are you germans?) and then we´d wave our blue ties and say no. That was fun. 

           My zone is pretty cool but I'm not really a huge fan of the zone leaders. They're kind of over enthusiastic. For whatever reason, the Elders in my zone find it necessary to constantly put their arms around  me. Everytime I walk in to a meeting within seconds some Elder has got their arm around me saying "Elder! Coma Esta!? Todo Bien!?" like I'm a five year old. We're even all pretty much the same age. I think I'm going to put a tazer on my shoulder. Then it will be "Oh elder, coma estahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!" then I will laugh triumphantly but say nothing because I still can't speak spanish.

            Every thing is good here. I like it but it sure is ugly.

Mom and Dad:

Foods good, but not that good

I still can´t speak spanish

Packages go to the main office in Bahia

I can't really send pictures because I dont have enough time to load them.

The wards super nice and I like them all

I also might spend a little bit of money soon to buy me an argentine jersey

Could you get megan to get Mr. Mason's email for me?

Jackets fine

Love

Elder Evans

I can't remember if I told you but I got head-butted by a blind dog trying to bite me the other day. It was super funny.

Love

Me

Dear Familia,

        Another week in the beautiful paradise that is Santa Rosa. I saw a bunch of adorable puppies eating half of a cat yesterday. It doesn't get much better than this! It's been a weird week, they've sent me on divisions with everyone and their mother. I've been with both of the zone leaders, one I love to death and the other I can't stand, then some chiliaen from my district and a Elder Chandler from Las Vegas. My divisions with the zone leader I'm not a huge fan of, felt like forever. He believes the only reason that I can't speak spanish yet is because I'm not trying hard enoguh. So in lessons, he kept putting me in super weird positions without any kind of warning and then he wouldn't help get out of them. Luckily, I prayed for relief and Heavenly Father sent some in the form of hidden cheese (he is lactose intolerant). We were eating lunch with some members and I thought the noodles had butter all over them but it was tons of cheese, so needless to say I died. However, I didn't have to work with Elder Rodriguez for the rest of the day because I was dying. I regret nothing.

         One of the other Elders I was put with was so awkward it was funny. He has been on his mission for over 6 months now, but he can barely speak spanish. So then people think that he is brand new. Besides this, he is really bad with people. Every house we went to goes like this:

(imagine with lots of awkward spaces)

Elder C: Hola, Coma esta? (how are you)

Person: Hola... bien... (well)

E.C.: Todo bien? (everything is well?)

Person: ugh... si...

E.C: Somos missionarios ...( blah blah, something no one can understand)

Person: Como? (what)

E.C: Como? 

Person: Como?

E.C: Que? (what also)

Door Slams.

It was pretty funny but it may have been the longest day of my life.

       I've actually started contacting now and I understand what they are saying most of the time, unless they say more than a sentence, in which case I am usually doomed. The other day we gave a little lesson to Sadam Hussein look alike and it was nice. The best part about our sadam hussien look alike is that he speaks the most awful spanish ever. It sounds like a mixture of yelling, crying, growling, and someone messing with the volume control. Elder Webb says that even Argentines have a hard time understanding him. 

        I'm having a grand ol' time here! Its hard but I'm fine with it. We teach lessons every day but lately all of our investigators have just started ignoring us and won't answer their doors or talk to us. Elder Webb says Argentines are quite lazy and from what I've seen, I agree. So then its hard to get them to commit to anything. If I had a dollar everytime we taught the first lesson, Id be a rich man. 

Mom: I show our family picture to all the members and they think you and dad are super young. Then they don't believe me when I tell them how old you actually are (32, right?) So way to go, you are angering and impressing women on a different continent. Also packages take like 2 months to get here, so if you want to send one every once in a while, that be great. 

Dad: You would die here. I have never seen such awful teeth in all my life. More than half of the people have missing teeth or just straight black teeth. So then it makes it million times harder to understand what the heck they are saying. They don't care though, as long as they have their scooters and mullets, they are good.

Megan: One of the other Elders, a mexican, saw a picture of you and said you were pretty. After I beat him to a pulp, I told him you would appreciate the compliment.

Sam: Did you send these children a message or something! Because every kid here want to beat me up. I've been punched, kicked, bitten, stabbed, shot, scratched, and tackled so many times already and I feel like you are behind this....

Love,

Elder Evans