Christmas

Well last week was pretty crazy! Monday we had our Xmas devotional zone meeting which I mentioned last email. Tuesday we had our District meeting when was our time for a zone conference with the President so I got to have an interview with him. He is super funny and amazing! Wednesday there was a meeting for all the new missionaries in the field so we had to take a train to the mission offices again. All three of these days we had to take the train while wearing suits. Because of the approaching Christmas holiday, they were completely jammed full. I literally had to push and shove and fight just to get on. Sometimes I was half way in the door with my bag hanging outside as we zipped by the towns. It was like that on the busses the night before the 24th of December. Everyone getting their Xmas shopping over with. Tomorrow my companion is picking up a pair of shoes he had repaired and I´m getting some more arpargatas. They´re these super cheap shoes that are awesome and comfortable from Argentina. The only hard part is figuring out my foot size in the metric system here. Thursday was maybe our only somewhat normal day of the week. Friday was Xmas eve and all the people were in their houses. When we walked through the streets of the city to get to the suburbs they were all completely abandonded Xmas day. It was quite eerie. Xmas eve we visited a ton of families and Xmas day we had an awesome lunch with a family Martinez. We sang hymns and shared a special Christmas message with everyone called ¨The Christmas Orange¨.
Just yesterday I had my first baptism! His name was Beto and from what I heard he has a girlfriend and a son and they are members of the church. He was an alcoholic so she left him and now he wants to make things right and show her he can change himself. He has made so much progress that it´s so wonderful to see him follow this path and his covenants! Saturday night I got to call home for a bit and hearing all my Aunt´s and Uncles and Grandpa saying ¨Hi¨made me feel a little ¨trunkie¨. But that quickly dissolved because I love this work and every moment I get to spend here is one fantastic experience after another! After the baptism we had to mop up the church because we forgot to turn off the baptismal font water (oops!). But it was still such an amazing day.
Today I just got back from a mall nearby where we met up with other missionaries for lunch. It´s big here but it´s pretty average compared to malls in the States. My spanish is getting so much better! Althought it was kind of annoying when I tried ordering a bagquette with ham and cheese and the lady didn´t understand me so another elder repeats the EXACT same thing I said to her and she gets it loud and clear. Ha, I´m such a gringo. In South America they call people from the United States ¨Yankees¨. Which I thought was pretty funny. But I didn´t figure that out until yesterday because with the accent here in Argentina it always sounds like they call us ¨Junkies¨. Anyway I´m having a blast and seeing the fruits of my labors along the way and absolutely love it! I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday season and look forwarding to seeing you all when I get back!
-Elder Trevor Jones