Elder Andrew John Moore Argentina Salta Mission: Week 7 11-16-2015 Salta

Hey Fam!!

So I’ll start by answering some questions. We can print our letters. We just copy and paste them to a word doc. and the guy comes and puts it on a hard drive and we print away.

I'm getting along great with my comp. I still don’t know that much about him because I don’t speak Spanish but we are getting along. Spanish is a little difficult to say the least! There are sometimes when I feel I can understand stuff and then other times when I know nothing. I'm working on it!!!

Right now we have a pretty good teaching pool, I think. This is my first area so I don’t know if its good or not to be honest. We have some good investigators with a baptismal date for the 28 of Nov. The ward is bigger than I thought it would be. Everyone is super nice. We always have a member come with us to our lessons because 2 of our investigators are girls. We either have Alvaro who is 14 or Carlos who is 21; he’s not a young man but he’s really cool and working on his mission papers.

I've mostly just been reading the BOM for my studies. I don’t really know our investigators that well so I don’t know what to study to help them. But I'm working on that. I noticed that during personal study and comp study that is when I feel most homesick because we are just in our apartment but once we get out and work then it goes away. This week has been a lot better in the homesickness category. It wasn’t as strong as the first week. Its still comes, but I'm finding new ways to handle it. I know that if I could just speak Spanish better than I could communicate better and get to know people better and form better relationships. Yeah – better, better, better! I think that’s why the MTC was so fun and went by so fast - I could communicate with everyone!

People don’t really drink water here. You have to ask for it specifically, and sometimes its some sketchy looking water. I have definitely said some prayers while drinking the water. But we have a filter in our apartment so ill try to drink more there. My stomach I think is fine now. I just needed some time to adjust.

And about dad’s costumer, I can’t think of anything right now that I need. I know there have been some thing’s I've thought about - I can’t remember now, but I trust your guy’s judgment. (Shelly here…. Tony has a customer who is from Argentina and they plan to visit family in Buenos Aires during the holidays. We’re checking to see if they can take a package down to there and mail it to Andrew for us.)

Katie that’s awesome that you are getting your P. blessing!! If I have any advise for you it is to read it a lot! It will help you with hard times and it will motivate you to work hard and stay worthy to receive those blessings that will be promised to you. I want to hear all about it!

So now I’ll tell you about my week. I’ll start with the small stuff. Like I realized that the apple juice is super good here. Idk what it is but its crazy good! The food is really good to. Even though it’s prepared in some pretty scary kitchens its good! They have the things called facturas, it’s kind of like sweet bread, YUMMMMM. I tried one with dulce de leche and powdered sugar all over it. It was Stupid Good! Mom you should look up the recipes and make ‘em.

I saw Shannon this week at the conference with Elder Cook. I didn’t say hi, but I asked my comp if he knew her. And he said he did. So I said that she is my brother’s ex-girlfriend and he freaked out. Apparently she has talked a significant amount about an ex boyfriend from California. I thought that was pretty funny and interesting…… hmmmmmm!

Oh I forgot to say. On the first day I got here. I forgot about the power difference so I just plugged my clock into the wall with just a normal adaptor and it fried my clock. That was a bummer, but I’m so glad it was my clock and not my shaver or camera battery. That would be way bad!

Now for the highlight of the week, month, year, maybe mission……….. Elder Cook!!! We had to wake up at 5 on Saturday in order to get to the building on time – not complaining… it was well worth the sacrifice!! Once we got there we took a pic with the mission and Elder Cook. I hope they send it to you guys and if so send it to me! There were 2 members of the 70 with him as well. I can’t remember there names and they both spoke in Spanish so I didn’t get much out of their talks. Then Elder Cook spoke, in English and it was awesome! I sware he was speaking directly to me! Then he bore his testimony and he said, “As an apostle I have many spiritual experiences many of which are extremely scared to me, but I will tell you this……… I know the Savior’s voice and I know the Savior’s face.” When he said that the spirit was so strong and I felt it testifying to me that what he was saying was true. I will NEVER FORGET IT and neither will anyone else who was at that conference!!!! CRAZY POWERFUL!!! HE LIVES!!!! On Sunday he came and spoke to our stake. It was another GREAT talk and when the meeting was over he walked down the middle of the aisle and shook hands with the members. My comp and I were sitting on aisle seats. Once he got to us he looked us both in the eyes and he said, “Elders, thank you so much for doing what you’re doing.” Then he shook our hands. It was awesome!! That is something you just don’t forget! I really felt that my sacrifice of leaving my family and struggling to communicate was validated and Elder Cook appreciated it all, everything! And I shook hands with someone who has seen the Savior! We are so blessed to have a prophet and apostles on the earth today! All this definitely made it into the journal!!! I took lots of notes of his talks, but my time is running out. Hopefully I’ll have time next week to touch on more.

Nothing much else really happened this week. Oh I did get my first door slammed in my face!!! That was pretty exciting. I wasn’t mad or upset, actually I was kind of excited because it was my first one! But I can kind of see how that would get old after awhile.

Did you guys get the packages that I sent from the MTC? You should be getting two of them. Oh and can you guys go on my Insta and maybe post a pic and change the bio to something like serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of... in Argentina or something like that. Maybe I can do some missionary work there with the English speaking folk since I’m not hitting it home yet with the Spanish speakers! That’s all I got. I love you guys so much! Keep up the Great work!! Give my puppies some extra lovin for me! Ill talk to you guys soon!

Love,

Elder Moore