Week 3 in the CCM

Family,

Well, this week has been the most "normal", I guess. Things are kind of getting regular now that I´m used to the schedule. Monotony is setting in, which is better in some ways than constant stress and angst, but it brings a whole other onset of emotions. Yesterday was my half way mark in the CCM, so that´s chill! It feels like I´ve been here 5ever though, and in some ways it´s depressing that I´m only half way done haha. Working on appreciating the moment... #lifegoals.

  The Centro de Capacitacion Misional (CCM) in Buenos Aires

Leaving the CCM!!!: So this past Saturday we went proselyting out in the ACUTAL city of Buenos Aires, which was the greatest thing ever (to actually leave the CCM for an afternoon, that is). I sometimes forget that I´m in South America, so it defs made it more real to actually go out and SEE where I am. The drivers are finsane here! I had heard that before, but it´s true! There are like almost literally no laws, LITERALLY no lanes, and forget about stop signs. It´s kind of like driving in Provo... ¡Chiste! (that means joke in Spanish). But seriously, it´s like driving around south Provo with no stop signs. They REALLY need at least A FEW! It was a good time though, because I wasn´t driving. I probz defs would have crashed if I was.

 Driving in Buenos Aires:  Good luck!

Proselyting: It went SO well! Honestly even better than I could have hoped for. Me and my companions legit just got dropped of on a corner of a street and were just like, ¨"ok, I guess we´re missionaries now..." They hadn´t told us ANYTHING to do, so we were like, ¨"what do missionaries even do on the street?..." We were in a pretty residential area, so we spent like the first 45 minutes just walking around trying to street contact, which was essentially impossible because nobody was out. So we sat down to eat our lunches, and I was feeling pretty discouraged, because I´m not a super bold person, per se, and I wasn´t really feeling super confident about just trying to talk to people randomly (IN SPANISH). So after we ate we realized we´d just have to knock doors (which here means standing outside of a gate like 10 feet from the house and either clapping or ringing a doorbell they have). It was v intimidating, and it was honestly quite scary at first. It was hard when people said no, but it was harder in other ways when people wanted to hear what we had to say, because NONE OF US SPEAK SPANISH hahaha. It was good times though. But anyway, we actually had a LOT more success than I thought. We were actually in a really nice area, so even though all the streets are trashed, the houses were like these HUGE Argentine mansions. It was like Morgan Ranch status. So we´re ringing the doorbells of all these hecka mansions, and the owners respond through the intercom, and we´re just busting out our basic Spanish vocabulary. But honestly we had a pretty solid amount of interactions despite our limited skills. We ran into three teenage girls on the street who were super super great and spoke a little bit of English, and we talked to them for like 20 minutes and gave them all a Book of Mormon! They reminded me of people that could be friends with Colin. 2 chill. And we also met a family from Paraguay! They have four children who have Guarani names, and we talked to them for like 30 minutes as well! We ended up giving away a ton of pass along cards and Book of Mormons (Books of Mormon? #theeternalstruggle), and we made 7 return appointments! Which is a ton for 3 girls walking around smiling and saying "¡¿Como está?! to literally EVERYONE! Hahaha #blessed. It was a really confidence building experience though, and it helped me maintain a little bit of sanity this week.

 An actual neighborhood illustrating the rich vs. the poor in Buenos Aires

Emotional languages: I´m learning the coolest lessons ever about how people communicate differently. And when I say "coolest", I could also say "hardest." My companions and I communicate SOOOOO DIFFERENTLY! We all get along, and we aren´t techincally that different, but our emotional languages are LITERALLY OPPOSITE!!!! When stressful/bad/annoying things happen here (which is essentially all the time), I get sad or discouraged and want/need to talk about it. They BOTH get angry and shut down and DON´T want to talk AT ALL. It´s sooooo difficult for me. There are definitely good moments that we all have together, but I just really don´t know how to truly bond with people that don´t like to talk about feelings. On Sunday I kind of made us all have a heart to heart, and it helped me feel better at least, but it´s just the craziest thing. Haha and I know they don´t understand me either, because like I said, they don´t like to talk about emotion. But I know it´s really good for me to learn how to work with other people on a really personal level. The mission is DEFS helping me to develop the qualities I want in myself (even though it´s doing them in the hardest ways). I´m learning better how to love others unconditionally even when we are really different. In "real life" I probably just woulnd´t get very close to any of these people, but it´s kind of cool that I now have the opportunity to HAVE to work through differences and become friends. Very different than normal life, but definitely a Christ-like attribute. I know these companionships are all inspired though, and I wouldn´t want it any other way.

Latinas: The new group of Latinas is pretty intense haha. We have a CRAY roommate from Peru, and she does some pretty crazy stuff. It doesn´t really bug me as much as my companions, but I totally see where they´re coming from. Good thing I´m a deep sleeper! Also there´s this one super hyper girl who learned english from One Directions songs. We bonded over that for quite a while haha. I honestly miss music pretty hard. Baby Ray told me I wouldn't, but I do. Maybe it´ll get better over time. Probs. Also, Hermana Larsen isn´t a latina (she´s a sister in my district), but I love her a lot. She´s really sweet and easy to be around. Big fan.

I wish I had a million hours to tell you everything that´s been going on (because that´s how long it would take), but alas, that would defeat the point of this mission.

Our district quote of the week is from Harry Potter: "You´re gonna suffer, but you´re gonna be happy about it." TRUTH!

Ok, I love you all V much!!!!! Have a g-rate week. #pray4Holly

-Hermana Ross