Yes, I'm Still Here...

Dear Everyone,

Well, this week was a very sad week. This country is a wreck after the game. We received permission to watch the game and it was very frustrating to watch. Well enough of that because it just makes me even more sad. One more thing about it, I can’t even tell you how many people I saw crying that day. Anyway, just another week here in Argentina. We had a baptism Saturday. It was of a girl who turned 9 years old last week and so we were placed in charge of her. It was a very nice baptism. There was also a baptism of the branch so it was a primary baptism. So at least we have one baptism now. It is going to be a little bit harder finding another baptism but I’m sure we can find one. We had one of our investigators come to church for the first time yesterday. He is a 19 year old from Bolivia. I think on my side of [the city of] Grl. Rodriguez we have the whole country of Bolivia. Chiste. But we are hoping to get him to come to church more. He said he is going to come next Sunday also so we’ll see what’s up. I think an easier way of telling you what I do every week is to just video everything I do and then you can see what I do. But the computers down here load too slow and so it takes a long time to load videos, like 45 mins for one, and that’s if I am not doing anything on the computer. Anyway, enough quejaring.

My hijito is still struggling. He is still struggling with the language but talks to everyone igual. I have to translate sometimes after he is done talking with them but he is progressing nevertheless. We are getting better. We have had funny moments where he mixed up his wording. For example, instead of asking a woman if we can compartir un mensaje with her, he said, queremos compartir una familia con usted. Que día podemos pasar? It was the funniest thing to translate afterward because we did get her address and so it made things just a tad bit funnier. He was embarrassed after and so was I because apparently we are both going to be sharing a family with her. Jaja. It’s just a process that all missionaries go through. Yesterday for the 4th of July, we cooked ourselves an asado, well we took meat over to a members house and they helped us cook it. We had a cut of meat called tapa and it was really good. We cooked about two and a half kilos of that and two whole chickens. Yes, we were really stuffed afterward. You can imagine all the meat, salad, bread, and sprite we consumed. A ridiculous amount of food. We all wore our red white and blue tie to church. I wore the Argentina USA pin that Dad gave me. Happy 9 de Julio. I really wanted to be in 9 de Julio for 9 de Julio. That would have been a cool celebration.

Well thank you Mom and Dad, Abuelita y Grandpa, and Grandma and Grandpa Packard for your letters. We are almost at the half way mark. Only like what two and a half months until that point. Jaja. Sara, happy birthday. I hope you’re not too drugged up to celebrate. If you are, I will celebrate for you. Oh and there are going to be some people calling you for your birthday on Thursday from down here. I think.... well they said they would. We have lunch with them on Wednesday so I’ll talk to them and averiguar todo. Well nothing else exciting is going on. I hope everyone has a Wonderful 9 de Julio without me. We all know that it’s not the same without me. Jaja.

I love you.


Elder Pickett