First Letter from Argentina

Dear Family!

Wow this week has been quit the experience! Mother, just so you know, I haven't been mugged/robbed yet! ha ha! I am just having so much fun each day experiencing the culture here! It reminds me a lot of Mexico when I would go into town with RJ. So first off, I get letters every three weeks and they actually usually do come. So please encourage everyone to still write me! I have like an hour to write my emails and it's about four in the afternoon here so hopefully it's a good time in the day for you there. I think it's a five hour difference but I lost track through all my travels!

I don't have my journal with me cause we were running late so I won't be able to give you a day by day experience of my week. However, I'm going to share some stories! First, I want to tell you all the funny things happening here in Argentina! So apparently drunk people like me. Elder Vergara, my companion, says that he has never had any problems with drunk people until I was his companion and now it's a daily experience to get an encounter with a drunk guy. My favorite two were at the train station and on the bus. On Thursday we went to the office for some zone conference thing I think and while waiting for our train, this guy came up to me and started telling me how he is an assassin! He was like, 'I've killed more than 17 people in my life!' But he didn't want to kill me because I introduced myself as a representative of Jesus Christ in His church. So the next thing I knew, this drunk crazy guy was mesmerized by my eyes! Ja ja! He said that if he could find a woman with my eyes he would fall in love with her forever. I forgot how different it is to have blue eyes here. The other experience, on the bus, was on Sunday on our way to conference We had about a forty minute bus ride to get to the stake center to watch conference. Anyway, these pack of drunks were on their way to a futbol game! They were singing crazy songs and banging on the bus seats, walls, and ceiling! We were all laughing! The Bishop and some other people in the ward were there too and they couldn't help laughing. When we got up to leave the bus, this guy with a raspy voice said, ' Ellos se van al matrimonio!' Or something like that! He said Hey! They're going to the wedding! ha ha! It was so funny!

Anyway, about conference, I watched the first session on Saturday and the first few talks on Sunday in Spanish and the rest in English. There's like twelve elders in this stake so they have an English room. Although I understood pretty much everything in the Spanish conferencia, it's just not the same experience because you don't get the emotion of the speakers. So don't worry I watched all of conference! Well, except for priesthood session. It started at like nine at night and we wouldn't be back to our pension till about midnight so we're not allowed to go to priesthood! Which is terrible because I didn't get to hear Holland's talk! Well, I guess I did get to listen to him a few weeks ago, so I can wait for the Liahona to come out next month.

Our pension is actually pretty nice compared to others, but definitely a piece of dump compared to any of Trevor's! I was gong to send pictures, but we weren't able to go back to get my camera so I could send them. But I'll tell you some of my favorite parts. First, all the dirt. I swept the floor the other day and there was like three cups worth of dirt on our floors! Can you imagine that! I keep telling Elder Vergara that you would die here, Mom! The walls are a faded white/pink with stains all over. It's such a dump but I love it! It's way better than the villas around here . . . The villas are basically tin houses made from scraps and trash. People live in them and it looks like a concentration camp from the outside. The area we are called to is Tomás Flores. Google it and maybe you'll see my dog infested, poor home for at least the next eleven weeks! Quilmes Oeste is the name of the city so that might work better. We're the farthest north mission area in Buenos Aires South. Yeah, I'll never be in the giant city! ja ja!

Now about Elder Vergara. First off, in my first interview with President Stapley, I couldn't forget the words of Trevor from months ago! Ask your presidente for his best trainer. SO, that's what I did! ja ja! I can't believe I had the nerve to do so but he really took it into thought and consideration with the Lord. Elder Vergara, according to others' opinions, should be the next zone leader and a lot say he'll be an assistant soon. He's our district leader right now. He's an amazing missionary and we work! I am so glad to have him! He's from Chile but assisted a bilingual school for ten years, I think, so he basically knows perfect English! His Spanish is ridiculously fast too! I have a harder time understanding his fast Chilean Spanish for the Castillano accent of the Argentinos here. Oh speaking of which, It is SO weird! It is a whole different form of Spanish. It has different conjugations, saying, words, accents, and even sounds. It's the hardest part of understanding people here other than a lack of vocabulary words. Anyway, Elder Vergara is awesome! He's so paranoid all the time and I do anything possible to tease him. Lovingly of course! We get along so great! We laugh at things all the time!

Now about the work in our area. We have six baptismal dates already! Hopefully they'll all come through! I helped make one of those, though. His name is Juan. We don't know his last name. We stopped by his house and he let us in without a second though. Well, he doesn't really have a house, more like a shack with concrete walls and a dirt floor, anyway, he let us in and we went to the backyardish kind of area. We taught him the Restoration, and YES I actually was speaking to him! Ha ha! He hurt his back from falling on a rock and I think he might have really hurt himself, but he accepted everything we taught. He in scheduled to be baptized on the 29th of this month. I have so much faith in him! When we went to pick him up for conference on Sunday, he couldn't go. Satan doesn't want this man to be baptized. He tried to ride his bike to the health clinic but fell and hurt his back even more! I think we might go give him a blessing when we visit him tomorrow. I hope he's alright.

Other investigators are going really well. Everyone needs to come to church more regularly and remember when we're coming to teach though. Nobody makes a commitment for a date here because they don't have a sense of a time schedule. They just do things however they want whenever they want and when they are supposed to work, they get called in. It's impossible to have a consistent investigator!

Anyway, Trevor, I have a picture for you that is going to make your hair stand on end. It's of our Area Book . . . Oh wow. . . There isn't want. There are two empty folders and a giant stack of crumpled, ripped and even burnt pages! I am trying to organize it and put it together, but there's so much stuff unlabeled and it's almost impossible!

Kevin, I don't have time to write you back, but thank you for your letter! I love hearing from my brothers . . . hint hiNT HINT !!!! Write me please J and Trev. Trevor, you're not off the hook now that I don't live at your work. ja ja! So, the pictures did come through and thank you for them!

The food here is pretty good and everything is relatively cheap! It's just a constant risk of getting robbed. The weather is surprisingly still cold. We've been wearing suits and sweaters a lot. We even had to break the rain jackets because my second day was a complete downpour! That shoe polish is never going to be used again, Mom. My shoes are either muddy, dusty, or some other color than plain black! ja ja! It's a dirty place here. Trash everywhere, wild dogs in the streets that I like to talk to, and crazy people of all kinds! I like the craziness of Argentina! It's really my favorite part. I like going into the villas and into the ghetto parts of our lower class area. There are the most humble and interesting people there. I love everyone! Even if they call me Yankee. They don't say gringo here, they say yankee, but in their accent it's pronouced 'shjan-key' yeah, with all those letters. I didn't misspell it. Dad, isn't that completely different than you would have pronounced it? Anyway, this country is SO different! It's weird kissing guys on the cheek to say hello and even hand shakes are different here!! Sometimes I freak out cause it looks like some guy is going in to kiss another and I think they're homosexual but it's just a different culture here. I can't wait to take you here, Mom. You are going to freak out in the villas, the buses, the regular streets, the random perros and everything! Oh and coins are worth more than paper bills here. Everyone wants moneras (coins) because it's the only way to ride the buses. You can't ask for change here. You have to ask for 93 peso coins and pay 100 so you lose six pesos! The coins are really cool here! I love them! I know the end of my mission is far away, but I can't wait to take you here, Mom, to experience this culture. It's so different than what we're so used to! Our house is big enough to house at least twelve families here! Our back yard alone could fit eleven houses easily. It's so humbling and makes you appreciate everything you have back home. I know I'm going to miss the food here, though. I really like it! Melanisa is the best so far and alfajors! Dulce de leche is like a caramely creamy spread and it is amazing! Go to the World Market and see if they have any. Then put it on just about everything and you'll know some of the things I'm eating. ja ja!

Well, in case the letter I sent on Tuesday never gets to you, I'm supposed to tell you how the mail actually does work and I do still get dear elders! It's just every three weeks when we pick up mail! packages work too! If they are brown small packages under four pounds, they're about 85-90 percent certain to get to me. Don't use flat rate boxes! It'll cost me about 100 American dollars to pick it up! If you send anything important, don't write it on the package slip and hide it in some of the food, like Pringles work really good. You open them and put things like memory cards and important things inside so people can't see it. Always write candy or missionary supplies on the package slips. Put pictures of Mary and Jesus on the seals. Keep it four pounds or under. One elder received like five small brown packages for his birthday from his mom at one time. So mail works! It's just kind of corrupt. . . If you do send anything, send a guitar pick package. I have a guitar in my pench! And anything else food related, just like one liter stir in packages of soup, or like easy-to-make ramen packages or cups of noodles or easy mac. There's no such thing here. And if Kevin wants to, have a bunch of my friends all write on a card or paper and put it in the package or something. I miss my friends a lot!

In fact, it was such a highlight to get pictures of Taylor and Levy. T's mission call is sweet! I loved the Filipino missionaries in the MTC. They're the second largest population of language spoken there, besides Spanish. Tagalog is a SWEET language 'mubooti!' That's about all the Tagalog I know. It means good I think. I think it's spelled horribly wrong too. T, you'll get an English name tag because of fake churches in the Philippines though. The language looks as if you just punched every key on the keyboard and put random space. ha ha! It sounds way cool though. I want to learn it someday maybe. I didn't get to hear Holland's talk, but I but it was great! The mission is definitely very hard mentally, physically, and spiritually, but is a lot of fun! You meet some awesome people out here. Good luck and keep me posted! I will write you as much as possible.

Well family, I thinks it's time for me to go now. I have to write an email to the president and then I need to go get ready to get to work again tonight. P-days are pretty fun! I love you all and miss you! I'll admit, I cried after I hung up with my sweety mother after our last phone call. Elder Neal came over in the airport and gave me one of his famous hugs and helped me out. I miss you all so much. I love my mission, but I still can't wait to see you all again afterward! This work is true. There is no doubt in my mind and heart. I couldn't ever deny this gospel.  I know that my Savior died for me and He now lives to help me bring others unto him. A mission is the best thing that can ever happen to anyone. There is nothing more sweet and satisfying than spreading the gospel of joy and love. I love my Heavenly Father and his Son. Make sure to have a relationship with your Father in Heaven. Love Him as I love you and you love each other and I know that all things will come through in the end in the right way. May God be with you till we meet again.

Con Amor.
Elder Blake Guillermo Cowan

P.S. The people have a hard time pronouncing my name. We need an accent mark on the A in Cowan. Like this, 'Cowán' that would help a lot! Ja ja!