"Argentina is awesome and crazy at the same time..."

The market a few blocks from "home"

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!

Como anda? I hope all is well with each one of you. Its is funny how random things down here will remind me of times with friends and family. It has been two months since i said goodbye to all of you! Crazy stuff. sometimes it feels like nothing and sometimes it feels like an eternity! Well Argentina is awesome and crazy at the same time!

A little about my daily life...

This is "La Plata".  I am on the outskirts of this city.

So I am on a bike so thats kinda fun and I get to see a lot of awesome things that i would never see in the states. The little kids here are awesome! They just run around and do whatever they want and are so funny (except when they throw rocks at me). They just throw fireworks around and blow stuff up and I can´t help but think thats what me and my buddies would be doing if we lived down here hahaha. There are wild dogs everywhere! some of them are kinda cute and some look like zombies from wouunds and mutations from drinking from the sankas (open sewage ducts). I was going to try to keep count of how many times i got chased but i lost track like the third day because it happens all the time. One of my buddies got his pants ripped open the first day here! I kicked my first dog yesterday. There was a particularly persistant one chasing me so while I was riding I donkey kicked it in the face and it stopped. I felt pretty legit after. For all you people out there that think that that was mean. Lo siento Its either that or get bitten hahaha. Its always either super hot or raining too so thats always fun. There was a big storm and it took out water and power for a couple days so that was a fiesta!

We have been working this area super hard! We went from having 2 people we were teaching my first day here to over 10 now which is pretty good! we had another baptism on saturday which was a super good experience and another either this saturday or next saturday. The next one chose me to baptize him so that is super cool! We have also been bringing some families back to church that weren't going. We have had some super spiritual lessons with some people. Yesterday one of them asked for a blessing and my comp looked at me and said, "Elder Whitaker can" ( for those of you who read my blog that aren´t LDS, one of the fundemental beliefs of our church is that, just as in past times and in the church Christ established on the earth, we have a living prophet and the power and authority of God just as they did in the bible. Because of this, I have the authority to give blessings). So here i am just barely grasping the language and trying to speak the words she needs to hear. At first it was shaky and I even gave a little bit in english because she said I could because she would still be blessed whether it was in english or spanish, but then the spirit started working through me and for me it was a miracle. From that point on it was in perfect spanish and I was blessing her to understand and expirience certain things that I hadn´t even thought that she needed in her life. I recieved revelation for what she needed and it was amazing to me.

As a missionary I am here to serve. A lot of people think when they see the shirts, ties, and name badge, that we are just preachers but we are here to serve. Everything we do is motivated by our desire to help and bless the lives of the people around us. We teach and share our unique message to the world under that umbrella of service. I know personally that is why I am here, because I and my family have been greatly blessed by this message that families can be together forever, God speaks to the world today through prophets, and having knowledge of "where we came from?" "why we are here on earth?" and "where we are going?". I want all to be able to recieve these blessing into their home. Sorry I got sidetracked but anyway we have been going around offering service to people who look like they need it. My favorite thin i have done so far is dig a well! its going to be 5 meters deep and I´m pretty sure around 6ft is like 2 meters but don´t quote me on that. Its pretty legit. When I go back I´ll take a picture! 

Well my castellano gets better everyday. Its so awesome to go back and visit somebody that I didnt understand last week and be able to talk with them. I am getting the hang of it with the Lord´s help. Keep praying though because I´m not fluent yet!  Everybody talks in their own way so some people i can understand perfect and others i walk out of the house saying "I have no idea what they were trying to tell me".  But it gets better every day. I cant wait till im fluent though! I need a Latino comp! we had splits the other day and I had a latino all day and I got through the day fine but I really see how much that would help me learn faster. I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting the other day and the members who didn´t know me thought i had been out a couple months so thats good!

Well I think that about covers my adventures for the week down here! write me dear elders and stuff because I miss hearing from all of you! Nos vemos!

Elder Tyler Whitaker