My Missionary Adventures in Argentina Elder Nate Pendleton: January 2018

I didn´t burn a tie or anything to celebrate my hump day, we actually went to a little town called La Leonesa to work for a zone activity. It is this super cool little town with really nice people and it really reminded me of Curuzú, the first city I was assigned to in my mission. It was nice to get out and work in the muddy streets, again! There were eight of us all in one area and when it came time to sleep we had only 3 mattresses and eight people. I found out what it was like to go camping, again! Haha!

It was really fun! It was also funny, so, on the way there it was raining really hard and we get into this car to take us there and the car is a Peugeot Partner, hahaha! “Top Gear” really hit the nail right on the head with the way that they have described Peugeot drivers, hahahaha! The guy that was driving was getting angry with everyone else on the road and honking at them even when they were doing absolutely nothing wrong. He couldn´t keep the car driving in a straight line. They were also right about Peugeots being the worst cars ever made, I have never seen a worse interior on a car in my life, it had green plaid seats with black and white stripes on the bolsters, Hahaha! It was falling apart!

The entrance to the city of La Leonesa is super awesome. There are like 10-12 statues of Christ and as you progress towards the city you see statues of Jesus as he carries his cross, further and further. Then you see one where he is nailed to the cross and then one where he is up, on the cross and then it shows him in the arms of Mary after the crucifixion. The statues are awesome. It was a nice short trip.

We also got some new washers and dryers for the mission so we will be delivering those to the missionaries. My companion and I received one also, and boy, were we happy!

I got to watch the funeral of President Monson and the broadcast with the new First Presidency, they were both really good. Other than working in the city of La Leonesa, I worked one other time in my area with Elder Peterson, our Zone Leader, but we never got a chance to teach G.

This song that I have listened to out here on my mission about the Savior, is really how I want to try to be, I really want to rededicate myself to the work this coming year.

He was just a carpenter by trade

He learned from his father at a very early age
There was something special in the man
There was much more to his life
Than just working with his hands.

And He'd say there's no home I could design
That would match the one you'd find
When you leave this world behind
If you only took the time.

Chorus:
Love your neighbor like your brother
Treat your brother like a friend
Always turn the other cheek
Help the weary and the weak

Make the time for young and old
And as your life unfolds
Each kindness that you've shown
Will be the nails and hammers
As you build your final ladder
In the manner of the carpenter of old.

You could feel compassion in his eyes
But, Only fools that hurt him did not realize
That he was speaking to us all
The righteous and the mighty
The silent and the small.

And He'd say there's no home I could design
That would match the one you'd find
When you leave this world behind
If you'd only take the time.

Chorus:

Love your neighbor like your brother
Treat your brother like a friend
Always turn the other cheek
Help the weary and the weak
Make the time for young and old
And as your life unfolds
Each kindness that you've shown
Will be the nails and hammers
As you build your final ladder
In the manner of the carpenter of old.

I love you all and miss you!

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

Yeeeet! One whole year down!!! It’s finally here, but that is also the moment when you realize, “oh, I still have a whole year left!” Haha! It is crazy to think that I have been out for a whole year. I still feel like I just barely got to the mission. It has been a very fast and very spiritual year. It has been a very hard year, too. I love all the things I was able to do in my previous areas and I really miss them. Being in the office is hard because you don´t feel like you are a part of the mission. You feel like you are running the mission for all the other missionaries to be a part of the mission. I miss just being out in the middle of nowhere, teaching. The stories and the people you get to meet are just the coolest!

The lesson we had this week with G went well, but it is hard to get together with him because of his schedule. He also lives in Corrientes and only comes here to Resistencia to spend time with his girlfriend, but we are still working with him.

Well, this week we went and got all of the new washing machines and dryers that the mission had purchased for the missionaries. That day we also ate our breakfast and lunch with our mission president, because we had to move all of the washers and dryers into his house until we get ready to deliver them.

I have really been trying lately, to focus on having charity and loving others and not thinking so much about myself. It is hard sometimes.

A funny story about dealing with people down here about our rent contracts, so, we went into this place to talk with this guy who was charging us way more than what the contract had said. He was this super grumpy looking doctor guy. He realized that we had caught him red-handed in this. Anyway, so we talked for a bit longer and then we paid the rent and the light bill that was owed. The light bill was like $158 dollars and 30 pesos (cents) and I said "and 30 cents right?" and the already angry dude had to pull out these tiny little cent coins and give me the exact change down to the cent. Here in Argentina, they don´t worry about giving change. In the supermarkets if they don´t have like 1 peso of change (a penny) they give you a piece of candy for it, Hahaha. But this guy gave us the exact change and we later were joking that we got every last cent that he owed us for him charging us too much in the first place. Haha! We almost left him without a shirt and tie, Hahaha! We have this taxi driver named Hugo that loves the missionaries so we were laughing in the taxi car with him after all that had happened.

I am going to say one thing that sums up life in Argentina. It is a country of waiting in lines. It doesn´t matter what you are doing you have to wait in lines. I waited 3 long hours to pay the light bills only to find out that half of the light bills had to be paid in another place. I hate paying the light bills it is the worst part of my job! We also had an issue with the owner of one of the pensions here in Resistencia, the elders renting the apartment had a gas leak and their oven lit on fire and luckily it didn´t burn the pension down but the owner was super mad and she came here and talked with Elder Afane, my companion for like three hours Haha. His job has been crazy this month. His job, I would say is harder than mine and there is no way that a “gringo” like me could handle his job because there are a lot of people you have to deal with, and also I would have to speak with Spanish words that are really hard to use.

Things have slowed down in the office and so I was able to read more and I finished the Book of Mormon for the second time in my mission, yesterday! I love that book! I really don´t remember what we did on our last P-day, but this p-day, I decided to make fried chicken. I was craving it so bad so we bought all the ingredients and well, they turned out amazing!!!!!!

It was super easy too! I am on the second floor of a 3 story high apartment building now and it is a block from the mission office, so that is good. It is a tan building with these white things over the windows to block the sun from coming in.

This week, I also traded a tie with Elder Slade for this really cool winter hat that he had gotten from Elder Pedernera. The hat is made in Peru out of llama hair and it is going to be sooo cool to wear skiing next year when I get home!!!

It is really cool that you were able to meet the wife of my companion’s cousin who is living up there in Utah. It was so nice of Elder Afane’s mom to arrange for her to bring you some nice things from El Salvador after she visited with them at Christmastime. The temple with the two missionaries inside it was cool. Elder Afane made us some of that Horchata drink mix that she also gave to you. It is really good! Also, my favorite thing that we had that was sent to him by his mom was a drink mix of something called “Rosa de Jamaica”. It is a drink made out of a flower that they drink in El Salvador.

Anyway, that is pretty much what happened this week. I hope we can go out and do something fun today before our p-day ends.

I am glad that Cole gets to go to the temple soon and that he is almost ready for his mission! I am so proud of him!

Anyway, I love you all and miss you a lot!!! I can´t wait until we can all sit and tell stories about the mission and other things as a family! I don´t get as many cool stories working here in the office, but it is what I have to deal with, for now.

I love you!

Chau,

Elder Nate Pendleton

Pictures from this week...

Office elders and the new washers and dryers for the missionaries!

I also got another plant from Elder Slade that he didn´t want to take care of. It is a Palo Borracho tree. It means “drunk stick” in Spanish. They are these huge trees here that are covered in spikes!!! They are super cool. I am bringing home some spines from one of them. Their trunks have this swollen beer-belly shape because they drink up water when it is abundant and store it. I guess that’s why they call it the “drunk stick”. Haha! The younger trees have thick, sharp thorns. When summer comes, big pink flowers bloom on them.