Ese la pelicula Frewk!!!

It was brought to my attention that I have not blogged in a while. Since it takes me a while to blog...and I've been kinda busy I just haven't done it. My bad.
Not really sure when I last posted so if stuff sounds repeated..deal.
Lets start at the beginning of the month. Pamela (Kirsit's friend) came up from Buenos Aires and stayed for a couple days. We went to the plaza one day and all we really did was speak Spanish..although I mostly listened to see how much I could understand and then would ask questions and what not. We had a fun time. For a couple weeks we've been seeing a guy who isn't right in the head every time we would go to the plaza. Apparently, the day before when Kristi, Pamela and Danny had gone to the plaza the guy kinda freaked them out enough that they left. So we have good times every time we see the man.
That sunday...the 14th I think was Lois and Loida's going away. They were leaving on furlough the next day. So the youth sang a song for them and I helped out again in the 3-5 year old class. That Monday after Spanish class, I went with Mrs. Gibbons and Kristi to the Chilvicoy hospital. NO WORRIES...no one was dying or anything. Kristi had to get a vaccination...great experience. Um. I went visiting that week too with Mrs. Gibbons which I love doing...we went to a lady's house from church and talked to her for a while.
Okay. So. The road that leads to Beatrize's house, well actually all the roads leading to Beatrize's house are getting paved and naturally it rained so it was kinda muddy...just what I love. The day after all the rain came, I tried to walk a different way thinking there was a sidewalk there, which as I found out halfway there, there wasn't. One of the workers yelled and motioned that I could walk on the ground cause they had just laid stuff on it so it wasn't muddy. NOT sure what it was, but apparently, I didn' t roll my pants up high enough because I got it all over my shoes, feet and pants. Naturally this would happen to me.  I looked ridiculous. I washed my feet and shoes off at Beatrizes and took a different way back.
Also, that week I went to the store all by myself and got some fruit and vegetables. BE PROUD.
At prayer meeting that night I prayed in Spanglish, been doing that for the last couple weeks.
Rocio came over that Friday and we frank Mate and looked at some of Kristi's pics.
A family from church came over and their son, Samuel is in my Sunday school class. ANYWAY, we were watching the kids and the little girl Sophia saw a poster of Shrek...she was mesmerized by that poster and pointed to it and said, "Ese la pelicula Frewk." When I would ask her if it was Shrek or Frewk, she would say, No! FREWK! She's two by the way so it makes it wicked cute.

Saturday we went to the plaza principal with Rocio. Rocio and I talked for a little bit in Spanish.
Umm...Played volleyball and dodgeball that night at youth group and then walked some of the kids home from that. Brian, one of the kids, preceded to play, what we call in the states, "ding, dong, ditch" at one house....oh my goodness.
Sunday was church, helped out in Sunday School again. I made the little verse thingy that they look at when we teach them the verse. Monday we went to the campo and stained the gate again and cleaned up a bit in the building. I can't remember what Tuesday was nor did I write it down. Sorry. WAIT. I remembered. It was the first week of Ladies Meeting...or Ladies Bible study..whatever you want to call it. I went and I even took notes outside of what was written on the board...we then made cards with songs on it for the Bible club they have at the campo. OH. I think on that day a dog followed me home from Beatrize's house. He would wait for me to cross the street and everything...strange. All I could think of was the song from Annie that goes, "Dumb dog why are you following me?"
IT'S BIBLE TIME: okay so that kinda was for those who know about NBT. Anyway....on Wednesday..we went and helped out at the Bible club they do every couple weeks at the campo. We sang songs with the kids...

                                           Did I mention it is starting to get cold here...
Thursday was kinda a chill day with church at night...did my prayer in Spanglish again.
Yesterday, Jane and Raul came to visit for a couple days...they live in states and work at the mission headquarters there....we went out for pizza and noticed people we going really dressed up into the Catholic church...and found out they were having a wedding there. We waited for a while to see if we could  see the bride, but she never came out. FAIL.
Today, I went to the store again, I think we are going to the campo and then youth group tonight. Phew. If you have read this far...way to go.

Updated and hopefully it won't be so long till the next post. Going to BA next week for a couple days so stay tuned.

Mormons, Elders, and JWs.

It has been a while since I last wrote. Days are busy and time seems to go by quickly. A couple weeks ago Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons, a couple single lady missionaries and I had lunch over at Beatrize's house. Her 95 year old husband made us Italian. He fought in a couple wars and is pretty spry for a 95 year old man. He made the biggest thing of lasagna I have ever seen/eaten for that many people. Apparently, they really enjoyed that time because Beatrize said we should do it once a month(surprising and awesome!).

   That afternoon we(me, Kristi, and Danny) went to the Plaza to drink some Maté with Rocio (one of the girls from church). We had fun chillen and taking pictures. On our walk back to drop Rocio off we were walking downtown looking at the shops and heard some guys who looked absolutely like they were from the States. Why did we know this you ask....ahem. Well, they wore white shirts and dress pants and were Mormons. So Danny made the first move and went over and talked to them. I think they were happy to speak English with some people. We talked for a while and they asked us our names so we told them. However, when we asked them theirs all they did was point to their badge that said, "Elder **insert their last name**".  Kinda strange to say the least. I mean usually people would exchange first names, but whatever. They asked us where we lived so they could invite us to play bball with them...in which case none of us figured they would come and ask us. We were wrong though, because last Sunday they stopped by to ask. For those of you wondering....the answer was no. They kinda stopped by at a bad time. I mean they were knocking on the doors of the neighbors spreading their religion when everyone and their mom (well, except for us) take siestas.
Church was the next day and then Friday some girls(Flava and Salvana) who are around my age came over. It was just me and them after Mrs. Gibbons left and Kristi and Danny were in the other room. True test of my Spanish skills. They stayed for a while and we drank Maté and tried to communicate with each other. I had lifelines in the other room so whenever we were totally confused or should I say when I was totally confused I would yell for some help. After that we went with the rest of the youth group to Rocio's house to have pizza and just hang out. We had fun taking pics and goofing
off..although it was kinda hard to follow conversation when all of them would talk at once. LOL.

                                                       Me and Rocio
Saturday night the Valettes came up from Uruguay to visit for a little vacation. We took the kids to the plaza in the morning and there was a baptism at church that night. The teens then went downtown for some wicked sweet ice cream from Trapani. Rocio and Brian pointed to stuff and told me what it was in Spanish the whole night..I learned a lot of new vocabulary. Rocio and I had more of a conversation on the way to drop her off at her house. OH. ALMOST FORGOT. We  were outside before the service started on Sunday and a JW stopped to talk to us about his religion. We were legit right in front of the church building and it was obvious that we go there. I guess we are now magnets for that kinda stuff.

We went to the Zoo this last Tuesday with everyone and had some fun times petting..yes petting baby tigers and for some baby lions. We also rode a camel and the little kids rode the elephant. It was kind of like a petting zoo. The owner must've liked ducks because there were like hundreds of ducks just like walking around and chillen...hundreds might be an exaggeration...might be.We also ate at McDonalds.  Good news on the way back though...we stopped off at the new Walmart that was just opened in September.

Church again on Thursday...I did a little praying in Spanglish. Friday we went to Diagos house to swim and Saturday Rocio came over to watch a couple movies. I also went with Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons to Silvana and Flavas house and drank Maté with them and their parents. Youth group was also that night...played some soccer and volleyball.
Phew. I caught you all up and myself up on the last couple weeks. Keep praying!

 

Mmm....Maté. I even learned how to make it.

Morgan Freeman?

Apparently in any culture/country Morgan Freeman's name comes up in a conversation of my name. My Spanish tutor asked if I was related to Morgan Freeman this past week because of our names. Priceless.
 I think it was on Tuesday we watched some of the kids from church while their parents talked with Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons and then went to dinner at one of the members of the church houses.
On Wednesday, I went with Mrs. Gibbons to visit one of the ladies in the church. I had a hard time following all of the conversation especially when they would switched topics. After that Kristi and I went to Alien's grandparents house/ panadería for a sleepover with some of the other girls from the youth group. We  ate pizza, played games and watched a movie and lets just say we didn't sleep that much.

Thursday was church (good news! I got the three major points of the outline from the message!)I know you are all proud of that accomplishment, well, at least I am).
Friday a couple and their daughter came over for dinner. Again, I had to have some jokes/stories explained to me (which is due in part cause I still don't know a lot of spanish, cause it was getting late and I was having a hard time focusing). It is tiring trying to listen so closely to understand what is going on. So I was wicked tired after that and probably cause it was 11:30 ANYWAY.

Saturday was youth group and I followed the message a little bit (  I mean real little). But the highlight of the day was when Danny and I went to buy some vegetables. I had the list with me and Danny was there only if I truly needed help. I got through it...you feel kinda humble not really being able to say a lot when you are trying to buy something from someone.
Sunday was church.  I helped out with the little kids and reviewed my colors/ clothes vocabulary words and such with them as they colored their Bible story pictures. I then gave my testimony in church with the help of Mrs. Gibbons translating it for me. I don't really like speaking in public and trying it out in Spanish would've been way to much to take at this point I think.
This week was challenging, but good.
God is good!



The farm Danny and I bought.

Morgana

The week went by pretty quickly. We drove my parents to the airport in Buenos Aires on Monday and then drove to pick up Pablo. He had driven with the teens up to their camp that started that day, but the van they were in broke down so he needed a ride back home. Bright and early on Wednesday we drove with an Argentine couple back to Paysandu to pick up the Gibbons car that had broken down last week. I played Wii with the Valette kids and got to see Willems who I met three years ago when the Northland soccer team came down. It was fun to hang out with all of them as we waited for the mechanic to come and then fix the van.
Thursday was church and it was good to understand at least some of the prayer requests, even if I couldn't understand the message. On Friday I went with Mr. and Mrs. Gibbons to Beatrize's house to met her and have a Spanish lesson. She is 75 or 77 and  extremely nice. Her 97 year old husband was there too. He said that he fought in a couple wars which I thought was pretty cool. Beatrize speaks English pretty well which helps me when we go over my workbook. We talked for almost two hours and she told me we wouldn't set a time limit when I did come over. She went on a little spiel about Argentina and inflation and told me she studied English in Argentina and I think California. She invited us over there for lunch on the 24th. 
She also told me that she had never heard of Morgan as a first name and said something about it being a last name and then something about Morgana...she than preceded to call me that so I think that is what she will call me from now on. She also told me I need to use my hands when I spoke too. She is going to be fun to get to know. She isn't saved though so pray for opportunities with her and for my Spanish to expand.
It rained Friday night and the mosquitoes were out in storm the next day when we walked to the center. But we stopped and got some milkshakes before youth group that night.

 

The two Morgans at the conference in Uruguay.

First week in Uruguay

Hey everyone,
Just a little update on my time in Uruguay. We (my parents and I) arrived in Buenos Aires on Saturday morning and were met by one of the missionaries, who was picking up someone else, and a Argentine pastor named Juan Claudio who spoke very little English. Naturally all I had been taught in Spanish seemed to be totally gone so I couldn't think of what to say, but I could kind of understand a little of what he said and respond with "Si." The pastor took us to the bus station, where a couple of hours later, we got on a 5 hour bus ride to Colon. We finally arrived at the camp in Paysandu around 7 or so and met the rest of the missionaries at the conference.
The conference was amazing. Myself and two other people watched all the missionary kids for the week, which ended up being a little bit of a challenge since it rained everyday but one (someone said it rained like 20 inches). My favorite part, that was a blessing to me, was after the services at night all the teens, the couple leading the teens that week, and me would spend hours playing random fun games until late hours of the morning.
Random side story: the main building where meetings were held had a tile floor and apparently when it got wet it was extremely slippery. I found that out when it was pouring rain and I was running to get inside and of course slipped and hit my head on the tile floor. <- real smooth I know.
On the last day there the van broke down driving it up to the main building. This in turn was a blessing because we were still at the camp and not stuck on the side of the road. God works things out though and we rented a van and drove back to Argentina.
I had the opportunity to go to youth group on Saturday night and church as well on Sunday night. The language barrier is somewhat challenging, but I know I just need to practice it.
Prayer requests!!
1. Language study and practice. I will soon start meeting with a Spanish tutor, a woman in her 70's who is unsaved. Pray for me as I learn the language and opportunities to share the Gospel with her.
2. There are a couple girls my age here who really need someone their age to encourage and disciple them. Pray for wisdom for me and a growing friendship with them.
Thanks for all your prayers!