Hearts and kisses Argentina style

Well, lots to say! Here goes... first with the questions. Which I am very grateful for:

How was your week? Hard... but good. I’ll let you know more later.

How is your day going? Good, but I'm tired. We played Frisbee (it`s been a long time) and soccer... then we watched part of Harry Potter 5. Good times!

Are you happy? Tired? Both. But everyone knows that this is how I like it. If I'm ever tired, I'm happy. And the only time I'm not tired but happy is when all is done.... so like never.

What have you been eating? Mainly with my hands. Really good food though. Here people feed us like once or twice a day. That is like once or twice a day better then my last area. So I like that... A LOT!

Do you always have to carbonate your own root beer? If we have root beer, yes. It doesn't exist down here.... so if anyone wants to send me extract, I’d love you! It is about the only thing I miss.

How are you shoes? They are good. A lot of people have asked me this... they are wearing down where I walk, but doing pretty good. Re-soling a shoe isn't that hard around here. So I'm good. I take REALLY good care of them. I actually only wear my black ones anyway, so I still have a new pair that is already broken in.

pj's? Um, good? I just wear bottoms... so, they`re holding up. I have 2 pairs of shorts and my scrubs. I like em.

Do you need new sweats? Presents? Anything? I always love packages... letters too. Really anything that gets to me makes me ecstatic! But I'm good.

How's your health? Great. I’ve got exactly 0 problems.

Your spirit? Bumbling around inside me somewhere. I try to keep my ears closed so it doesn't escape, but sometimes little bits fly out and somehow people say they can feel it. That is about when I start stuffing my fingers in my ears again... both for better hearing and to make sure my spirit doesn't get out.

Do you know how much we love you? Thankfully yes. Without that, things are a lot harder.

How are the people you visit/teach? I’ll explain this later. It changes every day.

How is the weather? Hot and humid.

How's the language going, you haven't mentioned it in a while? On a scale of 1 to fluent, how are you? I’d say like 22Piso. I’ve still got a LONG way to go, but things are getting up there a lot faster. My new companion lets me teach a lot more... actually, just about all the lessons. And with all the new people that I get the opportunity to know... things are progressing fast. Also, the new elder in the pinch likes to talk a lot in Spanish. So we practice together some. Overall, I can communicate and anything I don`t understand can be explained to me in Spanish until I understand it. It is all going along great. I'm foreseeing about 40 years more till I'm fluent. Not TOO much!

How are you sleeping? "On mi back Mush"- Newsies. I end up falling asleep really fast. It´s the waking up part that is hard. But don't worry, it happens.

How's your companion doing? Um, good... a bit anxious, but good.

Do you have any scriptures for me? Proverbs... the entire book! I love it. Especially in Spanish. But I’ll look into that. Perhaps I’ll add a good scripture every blog.

Ones that you love/I should read? If anyone can understand honey/Deseret for me... that would be great! I don't understand why it is so important! It`s killing me.

Have you wheeze-laughed in a while? I’ve pretty much stopped it all together. The whole "loud laughter" thing, we try to keep things low key.

FIN!

Well, that said... let`s get back to business.

Villa Zula is really interesting. I love it already. There are about 30 active members. The Branch President and his 2nd councilor are kind of inactive. But we have visited both and they both just have problems coming to church at our church time. They are active in their callings though. I thought that was kind of funny though. The members love us and want to feed us all the time. In return we do service and spiritually enrich their lives. A lot of members are "incomplete families" or the only members in their families. So we work the hardest with these members. We teach them AND their kids/parents at the same time. It is really the best way to invite others into the church. When you have someone close to you... and you love them... and they love God... it kind of rubs off. On that note:

We are teaching a girl named Natalia. She is 17 and just started college TODAY! So every day last week we helped teach her English. She loves the language and wanted to learn it better before her classes started. When I got there she wasn't really interested in us in any other way then language tutors. That doesn't fly with me, so I started bringing up the church every discussion. We`d normally spent 2 hours with her every day. We would go over, teach English... eat lunch... and talk about the gospel. Basically 3 lessons in one house. Her mother got baptized about 2 months ago and needs all the help she can get still. ANYWAY, we left her house one day and I asked why my companion kept on getting mad at her. I didn't understand why. It turns out she had the biggest potty mouth in the world and I don't know any of those words still (and trying hard not to learn them). On the next visit the same thing happened and I asked her to stop. She did. That day we talked about the Book of Mormon again. She had read it and prayed about it and said she hadn't received an answer. We explained how it takes time and reviewed Moroni 10:4 with her. I then challenged her to open up the book. She did and I put a pamphlet in the spot. I then promised her that she could receive her answer from reading that chapter (as the Spirit directed me). It turns out the chapter was PERFECT! After that we talked about how she use to believe in God but now doesn't. The chapter was Alma 30... In that chapter Alma basically drops the hammer on Korihor (an anti-Christ) and he ends up telling Alma that he always knew God existed. Talk about perfect! We`ll see if she agrees with it. She still has a long way to go, but loves us and is still interested in our message. So we will find out this next week.

We have a few other people we are going by, but not many. The area was basically at a full stop when I got there. Records were about 4 months out of date and we had no promising investigators... only acquaintances. Things have really come a long way in one week. I really can’t wait till I can see what is going to happen next.

Well, I`m out of time... I’ll write more later, in like a week or whatever. I hope everyone has a happy Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day. Hearts and kisses Argentina style. Also, congrats to everyone who has had a baby recently or has had something huge happen. I really am happy for you all. I’m working on letters. But to be honest... it is easier to write you when I receive a letter first. That way I have a reminder. If I don’t get a letter... you’ll have to wait.

All my love,

Tommy Steinkuhler