The Holidays are just beginning.

Family,

 

It was good talking to you!  You all seem to be doing very well.  Since I did just talk to you all, I´ll keep this one short...

 

This week was probably the hottest one yet, in terms of weather.  It´s already hitting around 40ªC...or like 104ªF.  We did have a mini storm that drastically dropped temperatures down like 40 degrees.  I actually wore a sweater for Christmas Eve!  The cold weather was short-lived, unfortunately.  We´re back to sweat coming from all directions.

 

I´m writing to you today because yesterday was a holiday as well. (...Who know they celebrated Boxing Day in Argentina, too?!)  Nobody had any idea what holiday it was, just that it was given to them by the Mrs. President.  (Also, I´ll probably be writing to you on Tuesday next week as well.)  For the holidays, people utilize fireworks.  I think the buying capability of fireworks in Argentina is comparable to that of its counterparts in Tennessee.  Good ole´ Tennessee.  Everyone, including kids, shoots off fireworks.  It adds a little spring to your step when they throw it in the middle of the road--that very same road that you are walking in.  The food is amazing.  People go all out for Christmas and New Years.  At our branch activity, we bought 15 kilos of meat...30+lbs of meat!  Argentines know how to cook their meat.  Asados (look it up) are to die for.

 

A little tid bit... The schedule is different for us, verses other missionaries.  We wake up at 7am, and go to sleep at 11pm.  We also do our studies during the siesta in order to take us out of the sun.  We have this summer schedule until March-ish... just FYI.

 

1 Nephi 4:6.  Take that step.

 

Well, I love you all.

 

Elder McMurray

Regocijad!

I hope everyone has a great Christmas!  I am glad that I am not the only one that will be spending Christmas is a warmer climate.  Though I doubt, as I look through beads of sweat at the monitor, that you are going to have temperatures like we are having here.

 

Like you, I too had the opportunity to go to a Senior Citizen Home, this past week.  We went because the Branch was having a service project there.  For starters, I would`t mind living at this one.  It was ten times nicer than any house I have stepped foot in.  The old people are very well taken care of here.  They were all very friendly to us.  It was a nice addition to my Thursday.

 

The highlight of the week has got to go to last night.  12 missionaries, and about as many members, formed a little choir.  We were invited to an activity that featured preformances from several different churches in the community.  If you ever have the chance to stand on a lighted stage, with more than a thousand people watching in the plaza, as you sing Christmas hymns, take it.  We did have a pretty hard act to follow with a group of kids playing gospel rock; but I think we took `em.  I was lucky enough to have one of the mics stuck RIGHT in front of me.  I hope every Argentine present took advantage of the Gringo accent, because I gave it all I got.

 

Well, this is the week before Christmas. So what better way to celebrate than to read about Christ`s birth in St. Luke?!  Give it a shot.

 

I love you all very much!

 

Elder McMurray

 

Cemetery it up. Argentine Style.

Mom, I got your letter thingy with the hymn book, thanks!  I also got a few letters from all of you, it´s always fun to see a couple of hard letters every once in awhile.  ...I know you said you would like to have some letters from Argentina.  I´m working on it.  The only reason I don´t send tons of letters by mail is that it costs $2 dollars for one sheet of paper.  Not the cheapest thing on the block.  BUT, I definitely need to send something to you guys by mail.

This Sunday, I gave my first talk in the area.  It was about service.  It´s crazy, I can now give a 12 minute talk, with only a few bullet points, and in Spanish. I couldn´t even do that in English before the mission!

To answer some of your questions...

My companion Elder Bustillos, is from Utah.  He´s been out 15 months...the same amount of time as my last companion.  And yes, we get along.  

My areas?  I´ve not been in a area with a branch bigger than 35, if that´s what you are asking.  My first area was small, as in the town was small.  My last and current areas have been a bit bigger.  Like my last area, this area is the outskirts of a big city.  There really are a lot of members here.  I think we have at least 200 or 300 on the records.  We work regularly with members that are less active.  Often times, they help us out a lot.  

The water?  Well, in the MTC they gave us water bottles with filters.  The only problem with my water bottle is that I haven´t seen it in over 3 months.  I pulled a Nathan and left it in my first area.  I´m still waiting for Elder Gillette (the elder in San Vicente) to send it to me...  But, the water isn´t anything to write home about.  I´ve been drinking from the tap for quite a while, now.  I think I´m getting used to it.  I´ve only had diarrhea like 4 times from it, so I think I´m doing pretty good by mission standards.  I´ll have to send a picture of our water from my last area: it was yellow the day we finally had a random dude clean our tank -- that´s how everyone has their water here, in a huge tank above the house.  Your water pressure is a little thing we call gravity.  

I´ve been really lucky by apartment standards.  My current humble home is a two story, house.  Counting the kitchen, bedrooms, etc. we have 4 rooms.  High living, I tell ya.  We live extremely close to a bunch of people, though.  Privacy is a little hard to come by.  At the same time, it´s a lot of fun having like 10 kids, around the age of 7 to 11 yelling, ¨Elder!¨  Yep, we´re pretty tight with the little kids.  (Especially when you have Dulces {sweets} from the US...)

Today, we went to the cemetery, here in Goya.  I´ve come to realize that most cities have one BIG cemetery.  I think I might make it a tradition to go visit each of the cemeteries in my areas.

Well... I did it.  I finished the Book of Mormon.  I love the final chapters from Moroni.  He´s very direct and leaves no room to doubt that the Book of Mormon is true.  It´s simple -- all we have to do is read it, ponder it, and pray to know it´s true.  That´s it.  And what am I going to do now?  Read it Again!

Love you!

Elder McMurray

Chango Más

Another week has come and passed. I´m currently in my new area, Goya, Corrientes. (In the Belgrano Branch)  If you´ve pulled out  your handy dandy, Argentine roadmap, you will see that I crossed the entire province of Corrientes.  Paso de los Libres is on the eastern border, and Goya is on the western.  My companion is Elder Bustillos, and he hails from Utah.  It was a big of enough jump that I can tell that people and things are a little different then they are in Pasos.  It´s fun though, because I get to learn a slightly different vocabulary.

 

Exciting things this week...

 

I had a member remove my stitches from my finger the other night.  Talk about a real Trust Game after only knowing the person for 15 minutes! (Aunt Heather, yes, I was a little anxious of my trip to the hospital.  Luckily, they hit me with it so fast that I didn´t even have time cry...much.)  

 

There´s a member here that catches and sells birds from his house.  I´m seriously considering it for a future profession now.  This brother has to ducks in his backyard.  So what did we do? -- We cornered one with the three of us.  I´ll have to send you a picture sometime of me holding that crazy duck.  It was pretty intense stuff, I tell ya.  

 

But, the most exciting thing of the week is going to have to go to Chango Más.  Chango Más is a partner of Walmart.  Yes, that´s right, Walmart in my area.  I never knew how exciting going to Walmart could be!  Just looking at everything was more than a treat for me.  It´s about 11.5 times bigger than any other building I´ve been in, here in Argentina.  I ate Pringles today. Real, original Pringles.  I must be livin´ right.  We are on the outskirts of Goya, meaning that we don´t really have anything in our area. But, we got lucky, because they built Chango Más on our side of the street.  It opened only a month or so ago.  Can you say perfect timing?

 

In other news, I was called to be the branch secretary on Sunday.  For those of you that are interested...it´s that Tithing Settlement time of year.  What a time to be called as the secretary!  Not only do I get to learn how to do everything, but I get to learn how to do it in Spanish.  What a privilege!  My companion is Second Counselor in the Presidency.  Crazy, right?!

 

Got Faith?  Ether 12 does.  Read it: it basically has every story on faith from the Book of Mormon, crammed pack all into one chapter.  It´s hard to beat.

 

I love you all very very much.  Thanks for writing me,

 

Elder McMurray

When the Weather Outside is Frightful

This past week has definitely been one for the books.  In one word... 

 

Usedamacheteanddidsomeservicevisittothehospitalwhatanexperienceweateagallonofice

creamtocelebratethanksgivingthezoneleaderwasjumpedforthesecondtimeinaweeksotheyareclosingtheirareaandgivingthemour´ssomycompanionandiarebothleavingtomorrow.

 

...Did you get all that?

 

Well, I´ll explain it in more than one breath I guess.

 

Tuesday morning, we did service for the elderly sister that lives across the street from us.  Sister Cordaba is a saint.  She makes us food ALL of the time and even will wash a little of our clothes for us.  Anyways, so she gave us two machetes and set us to work cutting and trimming things in her backyard. (-- I might add that machetes are very fun.  They definitely satisfy a man´s needs for power tools for two years).  Immediately, I remembered the movie ¨The Other Side of Heaven¨ and how the guy cut himself and got lockjaw and then died.  I decided to be careful, Mom.  

 

Well, I have some good news and some bad news.  I didn´t cut myself with the machete -- the bad news -- my finger found a piece of metal (very rusty I might add) in the middle of the objects I had been cutting.  Wonderful.  After calling Sister Heyman, we left for the Public Hospital.  When we entered the facility, I realized that I didn´t have my documents or anything.  And what did the hospital do about it me not having anything --- nothing.  What fun!  They then showed me to a room.  Before I knew what was happening, the nurse was stabbing me with some needle to prep my finger for stitches.  The doctor conveniently took that time to tell me my prescriptions.  (I definitely didn´t get a word of what he said.)  I think 2.5 minutes had elapsed from the time that we walked into the door of the hospital to when the second stitch was completed.  How´s that for service??  But, I think it´s a jinx, because my blood pressure was low so they had my companion escort me to a local room to lay down; I felt fine, but who would deny a free bed?  I thought all was fine and dandy until I figured out that I had to get a shot...if only I had had a brown bag for that panic attack..  But other than that,  the experience was rather lovely.  I felt very comfortable with everything -- including the 1940s, World War 2, decor.  What´s a real mission without a trip to the hospital?

 

Thanksgiving?  A lot of people are aware of it here, but nobody celebrates it.  So... We celebrated with a gallon of ice cream.  It was glorious.

 

Our Zone Leader, Elder Montanares, was doing divisions this week when somebody attempted to jump them.  This makes two times for them in one week.  The result? -- They are closing their area for the time being and giving them ours.  Meaning, my companion and I are leaving at the same time...for the second time in the mission.  Knowing that you are going to leave for several days is awful.  Saying ¨Goodbyes¨ are horrible, I tell ya.  My email next week will be from a different area.  Some elders go an entire mission in just three areas.  I will be in mine after just 4 and half months!

 

Well, like 4 Nephi says, ¨and there were no manner of -ites.¨  The Church was completely unified.  Let´s be unified.  And where does it start? --with ourselves, personally.  We can´t change others, just ourselves.

 

Love you all!

 

Elder McMurray

 

ps Dad, we received 10 Brazilian hot dogs in a package, but only a package of 6 buns.  Some Hot Shot that was...

6 months = 1 week -- That´s how math works these days.

Exciting news of the week... I got your package with candy this last week!  We are going to make the brownies today.  It´s been fun giving candy to people NOT from the US.  The usual response after a just-inserted-candy-into-the-mouth is wide eyes and the want for more.  If they only knew that it was just a sample of what the US has to offer... :)

Mom, your question about if we teach a lot...  Yes, we do teach a lot.  We get into several houses each day.  I know each of the 5 Lessons pretty well in Spanish. (But definitely improving regularly.)  I feel like I know Lesson 1 very well.  It is, after all, what we share first...makes sense.

When I look back from where I started with Spanish, I realized I´ve come a long way.  I like to think of every day life tasks as a test to see where you are at.  For instance, I can ask for pretty much whatever I want at stores.  If I want someone to help me with something, I can tell them what they need to do to help.  And, if I want to tell some kind of story, I can pretty much tell it now.  I´m in the phase where I am learning  local sayings or phrases.  Spanish used to feel more like a chore to use, but now it´s kind of fun learning new words regularly.

Sad news of the week:  my soccer ball was stolen.  We accidentally kicked it over the wall into the neighbor´s yard.  Normally, we have  our ways of retrieving it...but this time, it was right next to the house, away from the fence.  Our neighbor wasn´t home, so we waited until that night to go a knocking.  When we went over, the ball was gone and our neighbor didn´t have it.  Those dirty Gurises...

 

Other exciting new of the week:  We were confronted by a guy from Brazil.  He asked if we spoke Portuguese...conveniently ¨Voce Falla Portugues?¨ (sorry if I spelled it wrong, Austin.) is something we knew in Portuguese.  Unfortunately, it stopped right there with our Portuguese.  He tried to speak in a Portuguese-Spanish blend.  From that, we got that he is a member (his mom, too) and has been a member since 2000.  He said that there are 20ish missionaries across the river from us.(we have four in our city) He was over here visiting a friend.  It was fun trying to understand him.

In my personal studies, I have been finishing 3 Nephi.  Christ is getting ready to leave the inhabitants of the Americas.  And I´m right there with the Nephites; I don´t want Christ to leave.  His visit was filled with so many wonderful things that I just can´t see it end.  This section has helped me realized how essential, yet simple, the gospel truly is.  We are promised so much if we JUST DO IT.

Con Amor,

Elder McMurray

 

Humidad

Thanks for the emails this week!  It´s good to hear from all of you!  I´m sending pictures...hope you like them.

 

I think it´s safe to say that the heat is here to stay.  We now are into sombrero-wearing weather.  It´s a mission rule that we have to wear our sombrero during the summer months.  If you thought that white shirts and ties stuck out, you should see us now.  Let´s just say that we are making straw hats look pretty cool.

 

This has been a fairly standard week.  Nothing out of the ordinary has happened... for the exception of a dog bite.  That little booger.  Ninety-nine percent of dogs put on the act of looking tough and barking at you with no end.  This time was different.  Like last time, before I had any idea what was going on, he´d gotten me.  Don´t worry, I only have a purplie bruise.  It didn´t even break flesh, just my pride.

 

This has been one of my most exciting weeks of scripture study thus far.  3 Nephi.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is put so simply in chapters 11-26, it´s unreal.  It´s a good thing too, I need things simple.  We can spend all of our time worrying about deep doctrine, but when it comes down to it, all we need to know is the first principles of the gospel and we will be set for life.  Elder Bruce R. McConkie, in his final discourse, talked a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  He said that it is our most simple doctrine, and yet, it is the least understood.  Our perspective on life will be different if we only just begin to comprehend the Atonement.

 

Sorry that this email is eternally short, but I´m low on time.  Feel free to ask questions that you want answered!

 

Love you all!

 

Elder McMurray