Another Week, Another E-mail

Well, now I've had another week to acclimatize myself to Villa Mercedes. As of last night we have officially ventured to every part of our Area. At least I think so. I'm not positive, but it's close. Still not used to these Spanish keyboards.

The Spanish that people speak here is kinda different from what I grew up hearing. That probably has to do with the fact that I grew up hearing Mexican Spanish from the teachers and El Salvadorian Spanish from the kids. This is Argentine Spanish, or Castellano as they call it. It's slightly different. The "ll" and "y" make a "sh" or "jh" sound. It's hard to describe in writing. They also use quite a few Italian words. The ones that I have noticed the most are "ciao" and "basta."

The people here are really great. In my ward, Hipolito Yrigoyen, there are some new members, a father and a son named Moyano. They are really cool and both love music. Jorge, the father, plays the accordion extremely well. So well that it´s to the point where I want to learn how to play the accordion. Marco, the son (age:24), plays guitar, bass guitar, and some piano. Dad, I think that you would really like them. They're both very strong in the church, and know more about some of the deeper, cooler stuff of the Gospel than many who have been in the Church for their whole lives. Every time we go over to their house they always keep us there a little longer than we should be because we always end up singing hymns with them and they always ask for one more. Mostly we go over to their house to talk with Marco's friend Bruno. Except that we've only seen him there once...

We have two other investigators with baptism dates. Both related (genetically and not) to another new member named Gabriela. First is Alexis. He is Gabriela's 13-year-old nephew. He was actually supposed to get baptized this coming up weekend. Then he was sick and missed a week of Church. Then he missed this week too. It's sad. I hope he keeps coming and gets baptized.

The other is Ramiro. He's Gabriela's on-again-off-again boyfriend. But he came to Church this week and really likes it. He's very smart. I'm not used to having someone pay so much attention to me when I'm talking. Granted, I'm still not talking all that much. It would seem that the new language has brought about a return of shyness that I have overcome in English.

My companion is Elder Neibaur. He's from somewhere in Idaho. Near Boise, I think. He's pretty cool. He sure knows what he's doing. I don't know if there's ever been a companionship with both names that are very hard for the locals to pronounce like ours are. Yesterday we were talking with a couple older men, and one of them stopped a couple of girls who were walking down the street just to see if they could read our names.

Well, there are lots of dogs here. They're everywhere. Some are pets, most are not. They just hang around. Follow you sometimes.

Please send me mail. I get my first batch of mail on Wednesday, we have a conference with Elder Aidukaitis and then we have Zone Conference. I would love to get mail then. Remember, you can send mail through USPS, through Pouch, or through Dear Elder.com.

Oh! Yesterday, being the fifth Sunday, there was a combined Priesthood/Relief Society. They gave us a tour of www.new.familysearch.org, but the Spanish page. It looks really cool. I can hardly wait two years before I can play with it myself.

Well, I have attached a video giving a wonderful tour of where I live. [The clip he attached actually was two seconds of MTC footage. I don't know what happened to the attachment he intended to include - JRB]

So, until next week,
Elder Budge