Hi!

Time here flies!! I can't believe I've been here for 6 weeks and only have 3 left! I'm actually to the point where I can wear every single tie I have and not have any repeats.

This week was, of course, awesome, but it kinda starts to get old so you have to be creative to keep yourself from getting burned out and going crazy. My companion and I keep things interesting by reading Revelations and trying to make sense out of it. We also try to look for language training books from other languages that people have left. Last week we found a whole stack of Portuguese stuff and a Chinese dictionary, so that's been pretty fun. One of the other lifesavers has been the natives. In my zone there are only advanced and intermediate districts, so there are a ton of natives. We hang out with them all the time during meals and at night and exchange jokes and such. I've tried to translate a few of my jokes to Spanish, but most of them are puns and don't translate too well. Here's a joke I heard, you Spanish speakers should enjoy it: "Cual es la diferencia entre una pera y la novia de un misionero? La pera es pera, pero la novia no espera!" I heard that from one of the sisters in our district and proceeded to tell it to all my native friends, resulting in lots of groans and punches in the arm. The coolest native I've met so far, and I've met some cool ones, is Elder Zayas from Argentina, and he lives in the province right next to my mission. We talked for about an hour one night before going to bed and I got to know him pretty well. He is actually here learning English (but he can't hardly speak a lick of it other than salutations, so we ended up having the whole conversation in Spanish) and he has a very thick Argentine accent. The problem is, I can understand Mexican Spanish fine, but his Spanish sounds so different that I only got about half of what he was talking about. I showed him the soccer bracket that Kevin sent me for Argentina and he was super excited and told me how all the kids will teach me soccer. I taught him about ultimate frisbee which he thought was really cool. It's fun to see him at meals and hear him try to talk in English to me. He'll be here for nine weeks so it'll be fun having him around.

The visas for Argentina are kinda half and half on who gets them. We've in the last week had about 6 elders get theirs and leave and we have 4 visa waiters who should get it in the next week or so, so not bad. On a completely unrelated note, I thought I might tell you all what a curse it is to be musically inclined among Latinos. They have a really good sense of beat, but they are all completely tone deaf. This will be a problem over the next couple years for me... Also, being one who is technologically informed is also a problem around my district. Last night I overheard a very funny conversation on lasers and ElectroMagnetic pulse emitters and how all the "crazy future technology stuff" works. It was a good night.

I'm excited for general conference! This week we had mission conference, which was amazing, and also really good devotionals and firesides. One thing that stuck with me from the fireside was this: "Multiply your habits of reading scriptures and personal prayer by 50 years and look at the person you might become." If you don't like what you see, probably time to change things up. The best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago, the second best time is now.

Love you all! Elder Spencer