I usually write the intro here. But I didn´t this week. I gotta find a better way to do this. Want to hear firsthand about the missionary field, or start a one-on-one conversation of any sort? Want to hear back from me? I want to hear from all my friends back home! Just send an email to [email protected]! And I can receive letters and small yellow envelopes at this address: Elder Chad Flake Misión Argentina Resistencia Entre Rios 435 Resistencia, Chaco 3500 Castilla de Correro #1 Argentina It will take a bit of time (up to 6 weeks) for letters to get here, so remember email is always quicker. Please don´t send me any packages without asking me first. Food... is not at all similar to Houston. We were fed mostly by Mexicans, El Salvadoranians, and other Central Americans. And because we were so close to the border, they ate a lot of jalapeños and habareños. It was pretty spicy. But I learned to like spicy food. Here, there is almost no spicy food. There is a TON of pasta. The area has a very, very Italian influence. Most people wear blue jeans and sweaters this time of year. It looks like Europe. It´s not too hard to pretend that you´re in Italy. I haven´t eaten any crazy cow part stuff yet, but I know it does exist. Odds are I will probably eat cow stomach soup or chicken foot at some point during the mission. The strangest thing I´ve had to eat so far is pig skin. I didn´t like the texture, but it was totally covered in tomatoes and onions so I just ate all that and focused on that. We don´t have a lot of vegatables here. There is a TON of meat. Much much more than I would like. Word of Wisdom says eat lots of fruits of vegtables and little meat, and here we´re living almost the exact opposite. The houses here would be considered by most American standards to be poor or shacks, but they´re actually reasonably well off here. The houses are very small and usually made of bricks, and they don´t have many doors (just curtains between rooms). We have doors in our apartment (or pension, as it´s called here), so that´s not a problem. We don´t have an oven at all, just a gas burning stove. We usually don´t eat here, except for breakfast. We usually have cereal for breakfast, and we eat with members for lunch. And dinner does not exist. Every child in the USA knows that Trix are small, fruit shaped pieces of cereal. They had lemony yellow, orangey orange, and blueberry and watermelon, among others. A few years ago, the makers of Trix forsake the inspired ways of their fathers and changed the Trix recipe. Trix in the USA, as far as I know, currently consists of small, differently colored balls of cereal. It is no longer shaped like little fruit pieces. This is, of course, an example of apostate cereal doctrine. By the way, about cereal here: it comes in bags. Milk comes in bags too. And I saw Trix on the store aisle, and get this. TRIX IS SHAPED LIKE FRUIT HERE!!! Hooray! I´ve been eating fruit shaped Trix pretty much every morning! Also about food: Oreos are different here as well. They come in little sleeves of 12 oreos. The texture is a little bit different, a bit less crunchy and more smooth, like a wafer. They don´t taste different. I like the oreos here a little bit better. Maria is well and excited to be a member. But she´s not doing so well on her health. We visited her Saturday night and she wasn´t able to sit up or get out of bed. We ended up giving her a priesthood blessing. She couldn´t make it to church Sunday. We´ll see if she recovers. We´re praying for her. We´re getting people excited for general conference and the opportunity to hear from a prophet. Conference here is held 3 hours later, because of the time zone difference. We´re in the same time zone as New York and Florida, but we´re still one hour ahead because the States observes Daylight Savings Time and we don´t. (Score one point for Argentina.) Anyways, conference is a great opportunity. One thing I wish I did more before my mission is reread all the talks in the Liahona... er, I mean the Ensign. (They compress all the best parts from Ensign, New Era, and Friend into one magazine for foreign countries. They don´t compress the conference editions, however.) There´s always something new that stands out to me each time I reread one of the talks. The fact that we have a prophet today and the opportunity to hear specific revalation to our day, in my mind, has changed from a routine ¨church in pajamas once every six months¨ to ¨Am I doing that? This is so important, the Lord has asked the prophet to speak specifically on this topic. Am I up to the standard? Am I doing well? How can I possibly do better?¨ It´s great. I encourage you all to listen very carefully! Elder Flake NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. 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Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 21:40:44 +0000