I spoke too soon.

Can you believe I´ve been in Argentina for a whole month, this week?!  What have I done with my life?!  Remember last week how I said that I thought the cold weather was behind us?  Yeah, well I lied.  Starting around Thursday or Friday, it started to rain; and boy did it rain.  Remember how I also mentioned the large amounts of orange mud?  Well put those two together and you have quite a sight to behold.  Streams and rivers were popping up everywhere!  I took a picture of this street that, I kid you not, had 2 to 3 inches of water covering nearly all of it, as well as raging rapids on the sides in the ditches.  

 

You begin to develop a different feeling towards cleanliness here.  It´s hard to describe, but in essence, you don´t really worry about the three pounds of mud attached to your once-beautiful-looking Rockports.

 

Along with that rain came the cold.  Who knew the Pulsiphers' basement would prepare me so well? :)  I was a little more prepared for it this time.  I even whipped out dad´s old coat from his mission that he gave me.  AND yes, I made 1980 look stylish.  My companion and I laughed the entire way down the street after a couple of teenage girls tried to suppress laughs as they passed my amazing coat.  I´m not exactly sure why.. :)  Needless to say, that bad boy kept me nice and toasty.

 

Speaking of toasty,  I made French Toast this morning.  I had been waiting all week to do so.  It went perfectly with our freezing apartment.  With a little dulce de leche, they were a big success with my companion.  I might have just started a new food trend in Chile..

I´ve developed an addiction since arriving in San Vicente.  Panaderías.  The bread and pastries here are amazing!  And extremely accessible.  So... I have to attempt to control myself from time to time.

 

I feel I must address the issue of maté.(make sure you pronounce that one right.. :) )  What is maté, you ask?  Maté is more common in Argentine households than Santa Claus is on the night of Christmas Eve.  It usually consists of yerba (an herb...which is grown in my area.) and hot water.  They throw the yerba in their maté cup and, with their straw that has a filter on the bottom, they sit around and relax.  This herb is not caffeinated, but due to the large amount of time that people waste when sitting around drinking it, missionaries are not allowed to drink it.  This always raises eyebrows when we say ¨no¨ to their maté.

 

 

The language.  I´m beginning to hear every word, more or less, fairly clearly, now.  But I´m still having issues processing it in the right order.  This provides me with a little bit of entertainment, though.  Certain phrases just kind of jump out at me at random times.  For example,  we were teaching this man and his family (but mainly he did all the talking).  He was a chatter box, and always moving during the conversation.  We´d be talking, and out of no where he´d do stuff like read my companion´s name out loud, ¨Elder Escobedo.¨  But my personal favorite, random phrase that I got from him was, ¨well then God lied.¨ Excuse me?  Did I just hear him correctly?  Yep, I did.  Not sure what happened there.  Halfway through the lesson I noticed a big machete next to the door.(you´d think I would have caught a hint..)  Needless to say he wasn´t the most receptive person, but he did calm down a bit when he lit up his cigarette. :)

 

In my personal studies I finished reading ¨Our Heritage.¨  It´s an exciting read that will get you pumped up about missionary work.  It does a really good job on briefly summarizing the entire history of our Church.  I´ve also been reading most of Mosiah, in the Book of Mormon, this week.  It´s amazing to see a people like King Limhi´s(son of the wicked King Noah) turn from wickedness to a realization of the truth.  And when the people were united in the cause, the Lord heard their pleas to be released from bondage from the Lamanites.  If we put our trust in the Lord, he can help us with our challenges in our life.

 

 

From ¨all things considered¨ in San Vicente, Misiones,

 

Elder McMurray

Spring is coming to an end.

Another week has come and gone, and I think Spring has, too.  We are already experiencing heat and much humidity.  One day will be in the 80s, while the next day is in the 60s.  Strange.  But the humidity is always there.  I´m just thankful that I grew up with humidity.  I never payed close enough attention to the weather before now.  But as missionaries, we live and die by the weather.  Speaking of weather, due to the high intense heat that comes here in the summers, missionaries are required to wear sombreros.  Yep, sombreros.  Isn´t that wild?!  I´m pumped.

 

San Vicente has two things; friendly people, and orange dirt.  When it rains that orange dirt becomes...yep you guessed it.. orange mud.  Just what every white shirt needs!  I´m already finding dirt that I have no idea how it got there.  I´m determined to find a more innovative way around this.  I´ll keep you posted...

 

Another interesting thing about life as a missionary here is that we do not knock on doors -- not once have I knocked on a door. (So much for living that childhood dream...)  Instead, we clap.  We stand in front of the person´s house, and clap.  I found this rather strange when I first started doing it, but I´ve adjusted quickly.

 

The language is continuing to come along.  I´m still having issues understanding people, but I can hear all of the words fairly clearly, now.  I just have the slight problem of processing all of it a little too slowly.  They say you are truly fluent when you dream in the other language. Well.. Elder Escobedo says that I talk, both English AND Spanish, in my sleep.  Is that close enough?

 

Tuesday, during lunch, I died and went to heaven. twice.  One of our eternal investigators found out that it was my companion´s birthday on Tuesday.  So.. she proceeded to make us the greatest thing known to man -- a calzone.  It was HUGE.  She also threw in delicious meat and homemade bread covered in sauce and cheese.  What topped it off was that she let us have the leftovers.  A missionary´s dream.  Also as a side note:  Her mother is 105 years old.  Yep, I shook the hand of something that was alive during both World Wars.  She doesn´t look a day over 85.

 

Today was a monumental day for me.  I bought my first pair of Alpargatas.  Everyone here owns at least one pair.  I´ve already determined this will become a scattered tradition over my mission; to buy different colors.  It is a small shoe that is known in the U.S. as TOMS.  I paid a grand total of 13 pesos (basically just over 3 American dollars.).  Definitely beats the prices in the US... like $60, right?

 

In my personal studies I´ve been reading the first few chapters in Mosiah.  It is most definitely true that ¨When we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God.¨  I´ve only just begun to see the effect that missionary work does with our fellow man; and I love it.  Lately, we´ve really been pushing the members of the church to share the gospel and serve their friends and co-workers.  What better way to serve others then helping them come unto Christ?  I can´t think of many others.. :)  So... Serve others!

 

Smiling and nodding when appropriate,

 

Elder McMurray

 

ps Thanks for the recipes mom!  Argentina has very nearly the same food products as the US.  The challenge for me is translating. :)  So basically we cook simple things with rice, potatoes or some kind of meat.  But there are many more things to use out there.

I understand. Sort of.

Another week?  Clearly, the clocks in Argentina aren´t working correctly...  I have now experienced my first full week in the Mission Field!  Today has been nice.  We got ice cream during siesta.  I washed my clothes by hand.  And we played some Padle: a combination between tennis and raquetball, played with a pickleball-like paddle. Aka tons of fun.

My address, again.

Elder Ryan McMurray

Entre Rios 435

Resistencia, Chaco CP 3500

ARGENTINA

Crazy things that have happened...

The beginning of this week was cold.  Since there are no AC or Heating Units in the apartment, that meant it was even colder.  So cold, that in the mornings I woke up to a runny nose and could see my breath.  See my breath!  I had no idea it could get this cold down here.  And what makes it worse, (or fun, in my opinion, depends on how you look at it) is that the colder the temperature outside, the colder the shower is.  For those of you that have been in the water of the Colorado River, after Lake Powell,  I would have welcomed that temperature (47ºF).

Needless to say, it was a little chilly.  But, I will have you know that the weather is now amazing.  This is peak time for weather in Argentina, before the death of summer.

Though San Vicente is small, they still have a bus system.  So,  in order to visit a few members in the Branch, we have to take a Colectivo (bus).  It costs a sum of 2 pesos, or about 50 cents.  They´re fun, because I´ve never really used buses much growing up.

This week, we had our semi-monthly District Meeting.  The reason we only have it every other week is because we (the San Vicente elders) are a 3 hour bus ride away from the rest of the district.  Meaning, basically our entire Tuesday was taken up by the meeting and our travels.

Remember how I mentioned that we had 12 people attend church last week?  Well, this week we had about 40.  It was awesome!  It made me laugh how much the weather can effect your faithfulness in church attendance.  With that being said, I already love these people.  So friendly!  Though I am thousands of miles from home,  people are still very similar.  Crazy enough, we ran into a guy that was wearing a Tennessee hat; how did that get here??

The church building

The children gathered for a church activity

 

Yes, I have discovered Dulce de Leche -- and yes it has changed my life -- and no I have not called Jenny20, yet.

Siesta is a very real thing, here.  From 12 to 4, everyday.  I thought it was strange last week when they shut off the lights at the Supermarket while we were in the checkout line.  Clearly, they mean serious business.

The language?  Oh, the language.  Yes. It is still here.  It´s very difficult, but now that I´ve adjusted more to my new surroundings,  I am learning more and more Spanish everyday.  Luckily, Elder Escobedo is patient with me.  It does get a little tricky when I have no idea what the person just said to me and they are expecting a response.  We were at someone´s house and my companion went to the bathroom.  These are my least favorite moments thus far.  I had the total deer-in-headlights look going on after she asked me a question.  I was traumatized!

Ryan and his companion

In my personal scripture studies, this week, I read Alma 40.  All about the Resurrection.  Of late, I´ve used a notebook when I read.  It´s amazing how much more you can learn with a pen and paper next to you.  If you´ve never tried it before, do it!

With a churro, filled with ducle de leche, in one hand, and a desire to serve in the other,

Elder McMurray

Here is a picture of the Buenos Aires temple, which is being worked on:

Argentina. Been there, doing that.

Family!

 

For starters, I miss you and I love you!  ...Secondly, I miss English.  This week has been a VERY BIG week.

 

My new address is

 

Misión Argentina Resistencia

Entre Rios 435

Resistencia, Chaco CP 3500

ARGENTINA

 

I will begin...

 

Monday morning, at 3am, I left the MTC, for good.  I cried a little.  I loved place so very much.  Yes, it is small, but I learned and grew so much there.  It will always have a place in my heart.   My trip then commenced with my 6am flight out of Salt Lake City.  We then went via Dallas/Fort Worth, New York, and finally Buenos Aires.  When we arrived to Buenos Aires, we took a 2 hour bus ride to the other side of the city, to their Domestic Airport.   When we got there, there wasn´t much activity going on.  Weird.  We found out that due to a mini volcanic issue in Chile, all flights had been canceled.  Meaning,  we now had a 13 hour bus ride to Resistencia on our hands.  We were lucky, though, this bus was to be extremely comfortable.  It was an event just getting to the Bus Station.  15 of us ran to a local bus stop (with all of our suitcases. Oh, and don´t let's forget to mention that one of my wheels was broken off in flight.  I had to carry that 50lb sucker everywhere!)  We then found the brother that was helping us (who spoke little English--aka none).  But in order to get the rest of our things we had to ¨literally¨ sprint to his car to retrieve the other things.  Man, we were sweating badly!  Luck was with us, due to a demonstration in the city, our bus arrived a little late.  We made it.

 

We arrived at the Bus Station in Resistencia at approx. 11am.  I was SO excited to see President and Sister Heyman and the APs.  Our trip to Resistencia took nearly 53 hours!  Wednesday and Thursday morning were very nice.  We were able to eat and even pair up with another Elder in the mission to go out and teach.  Kind of scary.  Luckily, the Elder I went with knows English, naturally, considering he hails from Salt Lake.

 

Now to Thursday... Meeting our Trainer.

Like many of you know, we sat on opposite sides of the chapel.  They started with Elder G, I think.  It would happen that I was the last Elder called.  Oh well, that made it easy for me to see who was going to be my trainer.

Drum roll please......  Elder Escobedo! From the great nation of Chile.  His Spanish is very fast and his English is nearly non-existent.  Can you say FUN??  haha It´s interesting I can tell you that.  Needless to say, he is very spunky and very new at training.  I am his first.  He has been out since January, I think.  It´s a little difficult communicating, but we manage.

We left the Mission Office around 5pm.  We arrived in Posadas, the capitol of Misiónes at 10:30pm.  Unfortunately, our bus didn´t leave until 3:30am.  More FUN.  We finally made it to..... San Vicente! (in the Province of Misiónes) at 8 in the morning, Friday.  Making it a grand total of 4 days from the time I left the MTC, to when I made it to my final destination.  Crazy, huh? Just like the old days, I guess.

 

San Vicente is fairly small.  Lots of poverty.  But really friendly people.  The people speak a language I´ve never heard before.  I´m told it´s Spanish. :)  Some people, when they find out I am new, like to throw in Portuguese; to help me out, of course.  The branch has around 25 or 30 members that come; when it doesn´t rain.  Sunday? It rained.  We had a total of 12 counting us, missionaries.  The Branch President is amazing.  President Talquenca.  Apparently, he served in the Resistencia Mission like 5 or 6 years ago.  I guess he liked it enough to live here.  Surprisingly, it does get a little cold here.  Lots of rain, too.  Other than that and the language, who could complain?!

 

It´s interesting to note that we do our laundry by hand.  Yep, that´s right, no machines.  I´m excited!!!  Also, to get hot water in the shower, it´s basically a trickle.  I love it!

 

If you are having a hard time with something, read D&C 98:1-3.  It will help, a lot.  Trust me.

 

I love you all!

 

Elder McMurray

Ryan is in Argentina!

Ryan left the Missionary Training Center on Monday and is now in Argentina!  We got to talk to him for a few minutes via airport payphone, and he sounds great.  He says he is SO excited and really nervous.  He would love to hear from you, so get those letters to Argentina shipped!

Last Email from the MTC!

Hola mi Familia!

This week, unlike the rest thus far, has actually gone somewhat slow. Time began to stand still once we received our Travel Plans. By the way, I'm assuming the times that I am available to call you all will work, right? I sure hope so. Thank you for all of the letters and packages! Don't feel bad if you don't write me as much in Argentina. It's more expensive and word has it that it will take at least two weeks to get to me. With that being said, letters are still encouraged. :)
 
Our current investigators, Carlos and Javier, have both accepted baptism of late. Pretty exciting considering they are only our second and third in our tenure here at the MTC. Javier was fun due to the fact that he was 12. It's a different style of teaching when they are twelve. It's fun! And for all of you Spanish Buffs, it gave me a chance to practice my VOZ before I go to Argentina. Voz is basically a similar (but different) to the Tu form in Spanish everywhere else in the world. As missionaries, we are only allowed to use voz with children. Other than that, we have to use usted form, as many of you probably know.

Many great things have happened during my stay here at the MTC. But the pinnacle of them all might have come this week. For those of you that have been to the MTC, you probably know very well the Legend of the Pillow Room. For some of you, it may have been a reality. But this is my story...

Each week, our district preforms service at the same residence hall. For an hour every Wednesday morning, we clean/stock whatever is needed by the staff of that building. Over the 9 weeks that we've been here, we've gotten to know our superiors pretty. We even had a surprise birthday celebration for one of them. While, stocking rooms with new blankets and pillows, we have often times, run out of pillows. This leads to the question: where do pillows come from? (No, not the Pillow Stork) For weeks we've heard whisperings of the infamous, Pillow Room. We hadn't received exact, first hand confirmation that it existed, just stories of elders getting there. In our hearts, we knew that Legend told of a legendary room, who's pillows were stuff of legends. So... we decided to ask our service commanders to take us there. ....And they accepted. On Wednesday, at approximately 9:06am, our dreams came true. We were allowed admitance. Pillows filled this room at high as 6 or 7 feet in areas. You know what happened next. The pillow fights of all pillow fights began (with the exception of the Pillow Fight of '86, Brother P. :) ). Have you ever tried to get out of a pit full of pillows before? My guess is no. It is near impossible. You have NOTHING to grab onto. I think we all got a taste of what Heaven will be like.

In my scripture reading this week, I've been reading in 2 Nephi and the Doctrine and Covenants. Chapter 33 of 2 Nephi, Nephi give some amazing counsel. My new life motto comes out of verse 6. Look it up! Also, section 93 is amazing. If you don't know what it is off of the top of you head, please read it. You'll be glad you did.

You guys are awesome, last thing I'm gonna say,

Elder McMurray

An MTC 4th of July

Hola Familia y amigos!

 

It is hard to believe that we have been here for a month and a half now!  That means that we leave in exactly two and a half weeks!!  We receive our travel plans at the end of next week!  Am I really ready to be thrown into Argentina?  I sure hope so.  With that in mind, I feel I have an even greater desire to stay focused and not get distracted.

 

It's good to hear from you all!  It sounds like life during the Fourth of July was phenomenal.  Speaking of the Fourth of July, we (the MTC) had our own celebration, of sorts.  On Saturday, we had a special devotional that began at 9pm.  Kind of late, considering that we have to be in our rooms at 10:15.  Don't worry -- we can do the math.  We added it up, and knew that this was going to be a great night.  In the wise words of my brother, when he was in the MTC in July, it was the "Greatest night of his MTC life."  I couldn't have put it better myself.  During the Fireside, we heard from an MTC Branch President who has served with multiple presidents of the United States.  His stories were powerful.  The peak might have been when a Scottish Band came in (bag pipes...oh yeah.) playing Praise to the Man.  Everyone was definitely pumped.  And it only got better.  After the Fireside, we were then told that we could stay up later than usual and watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks.  Can I hear a woot woot??  Not only that but we were given Haagen Daaz; not just your average ice cream....HAAGEN DAAZ.  If this isn't paradise then I don't know what is.  The Fireworks were amazing, as usual.

 

Gym has been ever increasingly crazy.  Especially now that the gym is closed for 10 days.  Who knew that I'd ever experience something crazier than playing Marion (at Marion) on a field that can't be more than 80 yards long?  Try playing on a field with 35 to 40 elders.  80 yards: no more no less.  Wild.  That's the only way to put it. I never would have guessed that I would be working on patience even during gym time!

 

My time is short, but guess what; I still love you all.

 

Elder McMurray