Our Investigators Came!!- June 2, 2010

Hello family,

How goes everything back home? It sounds like fun, everybody preparing for Kortni´s wedding. I sometimes randomly get sad that I can´t come, but I´m happy that I´m here. This week, Hna. Davis and I realized that we love Toay and the people here. There are so many nice people around - the really nice guy who works in the bookstore who gave us a free map of Argentina, the meat guys who get so excited to wave at us when we walk by, all the bus drivers and remiceros (remis=taxi) who honk when they see us walking, the Chinos who own the grocery store, all the people who´ve met with the missionaries a thousand times and won´t get baptized yet but let us come in and talk to them, all the investigators that we are actually teaching and they are excited to see us when we come over, all the solid members who work so hard to keep the ward going and give us food when we visit and during the week for lunch, and Oscar (the recent convert of about a year ago who just got his mission call to Paraguay Norte and is so excited about it). So it´s kinda exciting that I realized that I love my area and the people in it and I´m enjoying being a missionary. My good mood might also be influenced a little bit by the fact that investigators came to church this week! It was the first week that we´ve actually had people in church who were above the age of eleven. All the members were totally welcoming and great! It turns out they are good at missionary work once the investigator gets to the chapel. We´ve been trying to work more with the members lately and I think it´s going pretty well. We brought the stake president´s wife, Moyra, with us to two lessons this week and she is totally great. We brought her to this super awkward house that we always hate going to because their kids are running around everywhere and we can´t ever teach anything and she totally difused the awkwardness. Then that investigator, Betiana, came to church with her two little girls and Moyra showed her around the chapel. Also, Moyra brought her car when she went to the lessons with us. It felt pretty weird to be riding in a car with a seatbelt, even though it hasn´t even been four months yet.

The other investigator that came to church is named Raul Sanchez. He actually found us when we were walking down the street on the holiday last week. He stopped us and asked if he could come to church. Umm....yes. He told us that he used to talk to the missionaries, but then he moved. He goes to casinos and spends all his money, but knows that it´s a bad habit and he needs to stop and that we can help him. We told him when church is and that sometimes we have activities on Fridays or Saturdays. He said that he couldn´t tell us where he lived or his phone number, but that he would see us on Sunday. We were a little less than hopeful that he would come to church. On Friday, we were visiting a member who used to wash the missionaries clothes (she said she´ll wash them again, but it turns out the last missionary who was here was really rude to her and she got offended so she said she was too busy) and the bishop called their house and said that a guy named Raul had just wandered into the church, saying that we told him there was an activity. Good old Raul. Then he showed up to church on Sunday and totally loved it. The bad news is that we have never helped anyone get unaddicted to gambling before and he got super excited that I am from Las Vegas. He wanted to know everything about it.. maybe I should have just said I´m from Nevada (that´s what I usually say because people can never understand the way I say Las Vegas). We had another lesson with Raul last night in the chapel and we invited the bishop to come. He did come, but for some reason decided that Raul needed to know everything about the church in one hour. He talked about Lehi´s dream and baptism and his own conversion and a ton of other stuff while Hna. Davis and I just sat there, helplessly watching while our investigator got more and more confused and our lesson just fell to pieces. We managed to teach him part of the Restoration before the bishop interrupted again by saying "What the hermana is saying is good, but there are three things we need to consider - where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going." Yeah, it was a mess. We usually try to teach just one lesson at a time so they understand something. We´re having another lesson with Raul this Thursday during ward council. The bishop won´t be able to come... what a shame. That probably sounds really bad. He´s a great bishop and a really solid guy. It just turns out that he´s not the one to invite to lessons with new investigators. Now we know. :)

Also, it turns out that I still talk in my sleep. Hna. Davis said she woke up the other night to me saying," Bendigas las flores" (bless the flowers). I can´t even think of any flowers I would be blessing, but I think I´m kinda different when I´m half asleep.

I´m also still totally addicted to bread here. The other day, I was eating some bread and jam when Hna. Davis was in the bathroom and she heard me and said," What are you doing?" I told her I wasn´t doing anything, but she could tell that my mouth was full so she said," What are you eating?" I couldn´t think of anything good to say so I told her "I´m just chewing on a tissue." Then she heard me take the lid off the jar and she said," What´s that noise?" Again, I was lacking something good to say so I said," Oh, it´s the neighbors. They´re playing some game with a jar. I don´t really understand it." She thought it was really funny. I guess I´m not as clever as I think I am sometimes. We ran out of jam last week and I was too lazy to put butter on the bread and toast it so I just dumped some sugar on the bread and ate it like that. I told Hna. Davis," I´ve sunk to a new low... sugar bread." That definitely landed itself on our new quote wall. I might gain some weight when I´m here, which is ridiculous because I walk all the time. My feet are paying the price for all the walking. They are getting hard on all sides and it is gross. I think some kind of foot care kit would help a lot. I´m just not sure they´re going to last all 18 months.

Something else that was fun that we did this week was enter into the house of an old man named Elio. We ran into him in the grocery store the other day and he seemed nice and invited us to come visit him. When we stopped by his house, he let us in and asked us a ton of questions about America. We tried to direct the conversation back to the Book of Mormon, but he just kept asking us about ourselves. He asked us where we were from and our full names and then wrote them down. Luckily, I always tell people my first name is Katarín because they don´t understand Kasidy anyway so now he can´t stalk me on the internet and kill me or something. He turned out to be really creepy. He kept asking us if we were afraid and then taking our hands and rubbing them to see if we were telling the truth. I could tell that Hna. Davis was really nervous because she kept lying to him. She told him that we don´t have a cell phone and that she has a boyfriend. She wanted me to lie about everything too so I told him that Erik Bonn was my boyfriend. It was the first name that came to my head - I hope Erik won´t mind, but Hna. Davis thought he would be creepier if we didn´t have boyfriends. And before we left (at this point, we weren´t sure that we were going to be able to leave), he asked if he could take a picture of us. Yeah, that´s creepy, but whatever. So this guy gets his camera and starts videotaping us, asking if we feel comfortable in his house and asking us to state our names and what we´re doing here... you know, like the kind of video people make right before they kill someone. We were pretty nervous, but then he opened the door and I´m still alive to write this email. Don´t worry... we´re not going to go see him anymore and I convinced Hna. Davis that we would have been able to overpower the old man anyway.

It´s freezing here! It has just gotten colder and colder, which is weird because it´s June. Hna. Davis told me that it doesn´t really feel like Christmas in December because it´s so hot and it totally feels like Christmas time right now, so we figured we might as well go with the weather on this one and have Christmas in June! It´s such a good idea. We´re going to drink hot chocolate all the time, listen to Christmas music, start a paper chain countdown, walk around outside all the time in the cold weather, and get presents from our families and friends ;) ;) Genius, right? Okay, but seriously, I did think of something that would be really awesome if you would send it to me. A Snuggie! We don´t have a heater in our kitchen study room so we´re always freezing when we study for two hours every morning so the idea of a Snuggie came to me the other day. I´m going to be here for two winters and it would totally be worth it. I also need gloves because my hands get really cold in my jacket. Maybe I can find some here, but i would really love to get some. Also, some Sour Patch Kids or Reese´s would be very appreciated. Don´t worry about it getting here - Hna. Davis says she always gets everything her parents send. You just have to send it through regular mail. And an elder got a Snuggie from his mom already so I know it´s doable. You think on that... but it´s going to be a very lonely Christmas in June without presents. Feel free to send anything else that you think would bless the lives of me and Hna. Davis in this freezing cold pueblo way down south. Well, everything is going good and I´m happy here in Argentina. Life is good. I love you all and I hope everything is going well for you. I pray for you every night and am excited for when I get to see you all again.

Love,

Hermana Seegmiller