Second Week in Patagonia

14-Feb-2011


sooo..MORE Info, haha mostly about life in Belgrano Sur! That´s my
area and the district is Rio Gallegos. It seriously is another world
here. I feel like we´ve time traveled from the industrious BS AS (BuenoS AireS) to
the rural South. Seriously the people here have everything a little
more old-time except the houses that we´ve visited where they´ve got a
huge plasma tv going on in there.
Not many of the roads are paved. I have suffered this week with VERY
sore legs from getting used to walking on rocks, pebbles and dirt. I
have conformed to the fact that yes, there will always be pebbles in
my shoe. I have lost the patience to be stopping to shake out my shoes
every 20 feet so I will walk with the dirt and rocks inside, thank you
very much. They are my friends, they are my friends, they are my
friends.
haha Ok, I´m crazy, I know, but you all love me anyway.
I did hear from Hna peña, just a quick message passed through I don´t
know how many elders so it wasn´t long and it wasn´t about her foot. I
imagine she is still out and about walking to and fro training her new
daughter and crying and loving it all. haha she is a very, amorosa (loving) haha english is failing me. I haven´t
spoken more than 2 english words in a week! Hna Salas is very good at
pronunciation but is working on the understanding so my spanish is
going to get extra great and a little Chileno might get in there too..


Hna Peña said that she is happy, she will be sending a couple things I
left and she says THANK YOU!!! For the package! She got hers now I´ll
be waiting for mine! THANK YOU! And I think mom DID send the baby BofM
because Hna Peña almost died saying how cute it was. haha


Hna Salas is from Chillán, Chile and is a great missionary! I love her
and we prepared and executed our first baptism without trainers this
weekend! We talked about how we felt like toddling little chicks,
barely hatched and getting thrown out into the world on our own but
President Gulbrandsen helped us learn a big lesson: the Lord prepares
the Called and we were called to serve here in Belgrano. I learned
that if I don´t have faith in ME, the Lord can´t use me and the
talents with which He has blessed me because I am unwilling to grow.
But guess what? I learned! I love Hna Salas, the branch and Rio
Gallegos!


Oh my goodness Dad, thank you for the info about the temp differences.
I thought I was crazy but yes, this does feel like home and Alaska.
Although it is VERY windy! It was really comfortable for a few days
with the sun (though the ozone is almost non-existent down here so let
me tell you, we were ROASTING) and very little wind. Then, Saturday
rolled around with wind and threatening rainclouds. Then it started to
rain. hahaha By no means is it Buenos Aires rain where one minute
there´s nothing and the next minute the road is a river. haha the rain
here is like a baby sneezing. Well, Hna Salas assured me it does rain
harder than that but not often. But in the morning when I am studying
after a nice shower, I FREEZE. I am used to sitting and feeling the
humid heat seep into my body. Here the heat is sucked out and I start
out my study just fine but end up putting on my scarf, two sweaters
and socks. Then today, the wind is super cold and I studied with my
coat on too. hahaha i feel so ridiculous but the heater will be on
from now on. All is well.


Anywho, with all the intense weather changes, I have taken care to
drink a lot of water, take vitamins and make sure I´m not too cold for
too long. The last thing I need is to get sick right now!


Ooo....all that talk about the doughnuts and sweet rolls and burgers
made me hungry! No fast food here! Unless you count empanadas and all
kinds of pizza.....
LOVE YOU ALL!


Very fast overview of this week---lots of walking, learning names, new
streets, district meeting with a companionship on the phone because
they are 5 hours away driving, a BAPTISM and so much help from the
Lord!


I am grateful to be here and am loving it every minute. I sleep the
minute my head hits the pillow except for the nights Hna Salas and I
talk more about the work we need to do the next day. She helps me be
SUPER obedient to the schedule and we are always on task! She´s a
super star! I love her and I love the small branch. About 20-30 active
members and about 80+ inactives! It is very sad but most of them are
inactive because they were offended. Even our previous Ward mission
leader went inactive because of offense taken. New ward mission leader
is a ........hmm. he´s a special case. More next week!


Love your sister missionary
Hna González!

uh a LOT of news!

6 de Febrero, 2011

I´m not in urquiza just so you know. ......I´m with the PENGUINS!
I have a LOT to tell you SOOO MUCH NEWS THIS WEEK!
First off: HNA PEÑA BROKE HER FOOT! Last P-day! We were NOT going to
go and play with the elders (because they wanted to play basketball as
a zone for E Petersen´s last p-day) and Hna Peña was really against
the idea. From the moment they suggested it on the phone, she was
like, no! And then I joined her because as much as I love to play it
just gets awkward and difficult to play with Elders. No touching! No
touching! (Arrested development anyone?)

So Hna Peña didn´t want to but felt obligated since E Petersen was
leaving, we really love him AND it was his birthday. So we went, an
hour late, but hey a sister's got to do what a sister's got to do. We
started to play and all of the sudden, my comp, who is the only one
I´m allowed to guard, was gone. She had hobbled off the court, and I
felt horrible for not noticing and she was saying that it hurt a lot.
I was so confused because I hadn´t seen anything happen. She had shot
the ball, made a basket ( that´s my girl!) and then passed the ball.
When she had passed the ball, she made a step forward to get some
strength in the pass and her foot twisted beneath her. She kept saying
'I think it´s broken, it hurts a lot!' WHAT? I took off her shoe and
moved her ankle and it was fine then we took off her sock and I
noticed where there´s usually a little knob of bone, it was smooth.
And veeeerrry swollen. We called the mission doctor immediately while I
was icing her foot. Lucky for us, we had the doctor in the offices
about a half hour away USUALLY. BUT since they are preparing for EFY
for the first time in Argentina the doc was 2 hours away! Ooops. So we
followed his instructions to care for her foot and we were sent to a
hospital that also treats missionaries in capital to get x-rays.

That was a loooong night. I was stressed that my comp was broken and
what am I going to do? all that jazz. She got the x rays, we went home
reeeeally late. Our dear district leader had stayed up worried about
us because, as we found out a day later, constitucion (where we were)
is a really rough, pretty not nice area. He told us to call him when
we left to go to the hospital in remis, when we got to the hospital, when
we found out anything, when the remis came back to pick us up, when we got
home and before we went to sleep. He showed a lot of love and concern
for us and we´ll never forget that experience.

Ok she didn´t break break her foot but she sprained tendons that
connect her foot to her toes so she has to wear one of those big
black, removable boot things. She was hobbling around with crutches
for a couple days when she was supposed to be resting but we were out
trying to get to the hospital and get medicine for pain that she
wasn´t allergic to etc etc.
Farewell fireside was great. I met 3 more elders from Orem, again,
didn´t know any of them but there are pictures. Maybe poohhead
remembers them from Canyon View because they are, mostly to be
expected, 2 years younger than me. :)

TRANSFERS! I actually moved! It was heart-wrenching at the same time
as really exciting. I received a phone call really late for missionary
standards since I was supposed to be sleeping but no one sleeps the
night before transfers out of nerves. We should be vigilant for the
cell phone until 10 at night and USUALLY if you don´t get a call by
then, both missionaries stay put. That´s what happened to me last
time.....
THIS time...we got a very late call at 10:35. E Castañeda from
Colombia, my zone leader, called us. We were nervous because we thought
we were staying. He calls me to the phone and said I was going to
Belgrano. I was confused because that is an 'elder area' in my same
zone. Oh wait....it´s in the south. I left the apartment in Urquiza at
4:30 am to get on a plane to travel 4 more hours south to Rio
Gallegos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My new comp is Hna Salas from Chile. She is only 1 transfer older than
me! WHAT? we have our work cut out for us!!!

Ok, the south, really fast. Imagine the part of southern Utah between
Manti and St george............now flatter.......THAT´S Rio Gallegos.
:)
Ok sad story, left my CAMERA in the office elders car! GAH! Hopefully
they find it and send it asap!

Love you all, take care, more next week. Took too long telling about
hna Peña but pray for me and my new comp and that the penguins don´t
bite!

love love love
Moroni 7 :33

Hi folks!

Hey hey!                                                                                                         2011/1/31

I am BURNING up here. I want to go home. hahaha NAH! Just kidding! But seriously, you would think that if it’s raining, it’ll be cooler and better to walk around....not. Rain shoots the humidity through the roof so we walk in the rain without umbrellas because even if we weren’t getting wet from above, we are sweating so badly that umbrellas don’t even make a difference. Not carrying the umbrella makes one less thing to worry about. ha-ha So in Celsius, it was 43 degrees when it was raining. Not just the heat but they take into account the humidity. So it was like 40 but 'feels like' 43. Ew.

Oh but check this out, it was raining and the grey rainclouds were darkening the sky when I came to Wal-Mart to shop and print pics. Now, 1 hour and a half later, I can see sun and blue skies. Buenos Aires is crazier than Juneau!

This week we had a zone conference. It was AMAZING! I love learning from President and sister Gulbrandsen. The assistants and my zone and district leader all chipped in too. It was a powerful conference and I learned a lot.

Jan & Feb Birthdays

About zone conference, I had never read 1 Nephi chapter 8 in this way but check it out; there are 3 groups of people in the world. Read these scriptures and figure out where you are and where you WANT to be.

Group 1---1 Ne 8:21-23

Group 2---1 Ne 8:24-28

Group 3---1 Ne 8:30, 33

The third group cared not about the things of the world. Capos, the argentines would say :) or 'de diez' or 'barbaro' haha i'm going to come back saying all these things and I love it. haha

At zone conference, or really ANY gathering of Elders, we get into some kind of discussion about BYU/Utah....puh-leease. It just so happens that the first time I met my current DL, I was wearing my Utah shirt because we were playing soccer. He is from Roy, Utah and actually knows a friend of mine....which is really a friend of his too. Anywho, E Pearson is a VERY VERY big BYU fan and can´t help but share with his fellow BYU cheering Elders that I am a sinner. So at departing missionaries' devotionals, zone conference etc, I get to define the fact that I don´t hate anyone and that Elder Bednar himself said that 'we are all on the same team, we all wear the same jersey' I love that talk. Priesthood session is the bomb!!!

Thanks for the shoes and the candy. Hna Peña and I LOVED the reeses’!

Last week for p-day, we went to Puerto Madero to see battleships. This was the idea of our beloved zone leader who is finishing his mission this week. He gets to choose what we do haha. It started out fine, walking around with the hopes of seeing something cool. But in the heat....after 40 minutes of walking trying to find said battleships....we were not so happy with dear Zone Leader. I got so burned and have a very distinct tan line that I didn’t have before. And a crazy line on my foot that I don’t even know how it happened! i just realized i left the memory from last week’s adventures at home...oops. Next week, eh?

Ok, gots to go but I love you all and I can´t wait until I read all your letters and emails. Love you all

May God bless and Keep you,

Love love love love your faces

Hna Gonzalez