PALERMO, WEEK 3: THE SPLIT, THE TORTA, AND THE FALL

Well hello to every one! I hope everything is going swell in everything you do! This week has been a doozy! 

Well Tuesday was quite a shock but I guess the Lord thought us ready! I went on splits with my (also two weeks into his mission with me) friend Elder G*. We were both surprised that they did that. For those of who you don't know, a split is when the two minor companions go to an area (my area this time) for 24 hours and the two senior companions (also our trainers) go to the other for 24 hours. How crazy! Two minor, fresh off the press gringos. Teaching by themselves. I prayed so so so so hard. We had four lessons that day by ourselves....And... it went great!! The first 5 minutes of each lesson were the hardest but very quickly I found myself able to speak, limited in my vocabulary, but it flowed and some of the members that we brought along recognized that we spoke more and more like Spanish speakers as the lessons went on. It was amazing. After the lesson when we were walking to the next we were so grateful and many prayers of gratitude were given. I definitely have a testimony about the gift of tongues. It was a great day. It was also ironically a great break from Spanish when we got to the apartment. We could talk and discuss things without pauses, dictionary searches. and we never just gave up on our sentences. It was awesome. 

 

Kyle and his MTC companion reunited for "splits"

On the other side of the spectrum. Thursday we had weekly planning. Very hard and long stuff. All in Spanish. With my original companion. It was only my second time and he made me go through it and lead it as though I was the senior companion. It was rough. And I got frustrated with myself. Some of the goal setting and how numbers add up in the daily planner just didn't make sense to me. Especially since I came from 2 plus year background in accounting (which I thought would make it easy but no). Anyway It was a great opportunity and even though I didn´t really know what I was doing and it was hard I learned a lot. 

The language is difficult. I feel like outside of lessons I am learning nothing. I can definitely speak my part in the lessons, but if they ask questions or say anything back. FORGET IT. It's lost on me. Meetings we have every week are incredibly boring and difficult and frustrating because I have no idea what is going on. One time is district meeting. We were talking and then someone asked me. "What did you learn from Elder Holland's talk?" I totally spaced because the whole time I was thinking to myself that we are talking about scripture study and Nephi´s commitment to the Lord! I eventually uttered a somewhat intelligible sentence in Spanish and they all accepted it and moved on. I was so embarrassed. 

Moving on, the food is good. I eat an Alfajor a day. It's kind of like this mini candy bar thing that can be soft or hard. I am collecting the wrappers. And don't any of you say that I will get fat because I won´t. I walk so much and sweat so much that I am sure there is a deficit of calories every day.  I haven´t had much pasta. But I have had rice a lot. I LOVE IT. There is something different. I can eat the rice just plain, it is SO good. The meat is good too. Haven´t had much of it, but the parts we have had are good. Had pig yesterday. REALLY good. Don´t know what part of it but I don´t care. I figure if you don´t tell me what part of the animal it is, I will eat it. WHICH, brings me to my next little fiasco. On Saturday, I get the WONDERFUL opportunity to partake of the delicacy of sopa de ojos. FISH EYE SOUP. And these aren't little salmon trout eyes, these are massive, size of a 50 cent piece eyes. Yeah, my companion loves it but I don´t know. I will for sure try it. 

Today was dia del trabajador or something like that. It is basically Labor Day so everything was closed until later in the day.

Anyways, things are going good. The work is true! The harder it gets the closer I get to my Savior. 

Love you all, 

I pray for you all!

Elder Moore

HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING. THANK THE LORD! PRAY A WEE BIT LONGER TO EXPRESS YOUR GRATITUDE EN SU LIFE!

PALERMO, WEEK 2

Wow, it has already been two weeks. This past week went by a LOT faster. But probably because I had a lot to do, especially in the mornings. 

MONDAY was pretty crazy with soccer. They play fierce! I LOVE it! And on concrete indoors. It's really awesome. 

TUESDAY

PAPERS!!! WOOOHOOO, Me and my companion had to travel to the local mission office on a bus then a train. (which is just a max, not really a train at all but they say it is) for about an hour and some minutes to pick up my passport and documents. I saw all of my MTC district there too so it was really good to reconnect with them and see how they were doing. We went to two different cities to go to two different buildings for my papers. I guess this means that I can stay for a year but I am not entirely sure. They just did their own background check and took my fingerprints and put them into the system. It was a lot like the DMV just for people not cars. We got back and ate a quick lunch with two other elders at the church because we had a meeting. Don´t ask me what it was about because I didn´t understand a thing. Only something about numbers, and preach my gospel, and our planners. That´s all I really know. Then we went out and taught some investigators that are doing REALLY well. I will take pictures today because I forgot this whole week. It has been pretty crazy. 

WEDNESDAY

Not really sure what happened on this day but just the regular. Except, I taught an English class for about 8 people. It went really well I think, some of them know a little bit, others don´t. It also really helped me to translate between ingles and spanish from what I say. Then they asked the dreaded question that I don´t even understand yet. They asked what does ¨got¨¨ and ¨get¨¨ mean. BOOM. That was soooo hard to explain. Because in spanish it doesn´t exist. Unless I am totally wrong and it actually does exist I am just missing that much desired and needed word/verb. Other than that it went well. 

Oh and a cool story. My companion and I went into a COTO (Target/Winco kind of store) to by some drinks and also go to the bathroom. We go to the restroom and as we are washing our hands a guy comes up to us and starts chatting and Elder Garcia was  chatting back but acting wierd, almost, stiff and cold. I had no idea why. Then the guy asked us if we had a Book of Mormon in our bags and Elder Garcia said NO! I was like, What the heck this is incredible of course we do! But I didn´t say anything. Then the guy got really close and then a guard walked into the room to go to the bathroom, and the guy backed off, told us to have a nice day and left. I was so confused. Then when we left Elder Garcia said, "Did you see the knife?" WHAT?! Haha, the knife was in his right sleeve hand and he was trying to hide it until he got close, but then the guard walked in. It made so much sense! The guy was acting really weird and animated with his left hand I guess trying to keep our attention away from his other. And when he asked for a book of Mormon he wanted to see what we had in our bags. But the Gaurd walked in. Coincidence? Of course not. Already I have realized there is no such thing. God looks out for his missionaries and this is but one example. So don´t worry about me. I am totally comfortable here already. 

THURSDAY. 

We had to go back and do PAPERS again because I failed the background check, which has never happened before in the mission so they had no idea what was wrong, and I don´t have a history so I was panicking thinking. "what if they send me back?!" I don´t know what to do. ETC ETC. But it ended up being that my fingerprints didn´t go through well. My companion says it's because I rock climb. But I think it's because they just went really fast through the fingerprints. 

FRIDAY/SATURDAY/SUNDAY

Really slow days. Didn´t have many appointments. We had to go to the chapel to use the phone to call old investigators and stuff. Really boring and difficult. But necessary! Sunday we had 4 investigators come to church and love it with their family. I promise I will tell you more about it in the future. 

Our appointments are going well. In my 12 week programs I am probably already in week 4 or 5 because my companion and I both think that I don´t have to follow the book and I can definitely say a lot more than just the baptism question for my second week. So I am giving scriptures and testimony and questions. It's pretty fun but embarrassing because of my Spanish but slowly and surely its coming. 

The weather is nice-ish here. It is sunny and warm but it's very windy most of the time. December and January and February though are going to be really really hot not looking forward to that but the Savior´s ministry wasn´t easy, so it's a blessing that mine will be too. 

Oh…almost forgot! Elder Holland was here and talked to the Buenos Aires North, South and West Missions. ABOSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. I feel great just thinking about it. I am so blessed. In the MTC we got visited by Elder Oaks and now Elder Holland. When they walk in the room they literally chase darkness away. I could feel it. 

Anyways. That's it. Today we have soccer and I am going to teach an investigator family how to make brownies. I am really excited about it. Oh. I had the meat from the calf of a Cow. (HAHAHA funny pun) (I mean the leg part) TO DIE FOR. SO GOOOOOOOD. Oh my gosh. Succulent. 

I love you all!  Keep Praying! 

Love, 

Elder Moore

PALERMO, WEEK 1

Hi everybody,

Oh boy! It has been a week! 

First off, We left the MTC (about 30 of us going to different missions in Argentina) at 4:00 AM and we got to Atlanta airport at about 5PM their time about an hour late, the left engine wouldn´t start so we pulled back in and the manually started it. I think everybody, regardless of religion, was praying the wing would not spontaneously explode, but there were missionaries on board so I wasn´t worried. No sleep on that flight. Then we got on to our flight to Argentina in Atlanta and then they had a problem with fueling the plane so we had to wait another 1.5 in the plane. It was miserable. I sat next to an Elder in my district, Elder M* and also a Hermana S* who is actually in my mission.

After 10 hours of sitting and standing we finally got to Argentina. My first thought, ¨Lots of trees!¨ Especially around the airport. Getting through security and customs was long but we made it through and I saw my President at around 12PM Tuesday. I slept about 2 hours on the plane. I was EXHUASTED. (Oh by the way, pardon my spelling. I don´t know what's right or wrong. Because I am on a Spanish keyboard the computer marks every English word I type wrong).  Anyway, on our way to the Mission Home (which is really nice) we stopped by the temple. ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. I would even venture to say more beautiful than the Portland Oregon Temple. It is LITERALLY PICTURE PERFECT. The grass. Lots of flowers. Oh man. The granite is different. It was amazing. Don´t worry. We all took pictures. Then we went to the mission home where we had empenadas and pizza. Both really good. Then paper work and interviews and then BOOM. We got pushed into this bajillion hour training session with the Assistants to the President. My whole group was falling asleep sitting. I felt so bad. Me too! I was exhausted. Then we got our companions! 

My companion is awesome. His name is Elder G*. He speaks Spanish. He has been here for about 3 months. It was a surprise that he got called as a trainer so soon, but God wanted it to be that way. And it's perfect. He is from Spain! So you know what that means. Not only do I have to decipher Castellano accents (shh jjjj sounds) I also have to decipher (thsthshsth) sounds. He has the Spain lisp. THAT'S what makes it even more difficult to learn the language. They speak really fast, they speak with different sounds, and my companion doesn't say the S´s and the C´s. Oh well. I will learn it. God will help me. Already is. 

I don´t have much more time. So I have to wrap this up. The food is really good. We get fed lunch every day and sometimes dinner too. It is a lot of chicken rice, and pasta. I had meat the other day that didn´t taste like regular meat. I don´t want to know what part it was. But it was okay. Had a slight fish taste. 

The people here are REALLY nice. Next week I will send pictures. They are really loving and very humble. Oh I am in a part called Palermo in Buenos Aires. Our apartment is humble. It's humid. But apparently it's going to be like death in December. The miembros said that they expect us to die. 

Oh! I teach English classes every Wednesday now. Hopefully it will go well.

That's all for now! 

It is totally awesome here! 

The Lord provides! 

Love, 

Elder Moore

KYLE HAS LANDED IN ARGENTINA!

Kyle left the Provo West MTC at 6am on Monday, November 4th. He flew to Atlanta, had a 3-hour layover, and then took a flight directly to Buenos Aires, leaving at 7pm Georgia time, and arriving at 7am Argentina time on the 5th (they are 5 hours ahead of the west coast). 

This afternoon my mom received the following email and picture. Glad to know Kyle has made it to Argentina safely!

Dear Family,

We are thrilled to report that your son, Elder Moore, has finally arrived safely in his mission this morning here in Buenos Aires. He was picked up at the airport, and after a brief tour of Buenos Aires was brought to the mission home for a luncheon, followed by an interview with the President.  You should expect to hear from your missionary on his next P-day which will be Monday, November 11^th. Thank you for your prayers and support.

President and Sister Ayre

IN THE AIRPORT

These pictures and their accompanying message were sent by a woman who was flying to Argentina to pick up her son from his mission. Some of them are a little blurry but you can see Kyle in all the ones below:

Dear Parents, Sisters & Elders,

I have attached pictures of the missionaries (elders and sisters) that we were fortunate to travel with from Atlanta to Buenos Aires on November 4th.  My husband and I along with our 17 year old son were heading to Rosario to pick up our son Elder Peter Welsh who was completing his mission on November 5th.  It was such a delight to travel with these enthusiastic missionaries as they made their way to Argentina.  I'm sure that you heard from your son/daughter that our plane was delayed for nearly 2 hours while we were all on board.  Those missionaries did not waste any time using their enthusiasm and language skills to share the gospel and their spirit with their neighboring passengers.  It was a beautiful site to see and a wonderful way for us to start our trip.  You should be very proud.

I am happy to have my son home, but I am going to miss his wonderful emails and the blessings that come from having a missionary serving.  Enjoy your next 16-22 months.  They are priceless.

K.W.
Bakersfield, CA

MTC WEEK 6

A really LONG WEEK! 

First off, it started normal but then Tuesday was a long day. We got transferred to West Campus. That was quite the experience, packing everything, moving everything, waiting for a bus that was 20 minutes late in the freezing cold and then getting over here to West Campus. The apartment rooms are nice. In our room there are 3 rooms, 2 beds each and a bathroom. There is a full sized kitchen with table and a little living room with couches, and brand new desks. There is nothing in the kitchen besides a fridge which is nice to have. We went to the creamery for drinks and ice cream and stuff. In the apartment there are only my companions (3) and also another companionship (2) Elders Mason and Jennings. We have spread out our suitcases so its a wee bit messy but we cant do much because we leave in 2 days anyways. I brought another mattress into one room so I could sleep in the same room with my companions even though we got permission to sleep in separate rooms with the doors open. We just decided we would be more comfortable following the rules as it has always been. 

Our district got split for class purposes only. SO there is only 5 in our class. The class rooms are just apartment rooms at RainTree. We did our laundry at RainTree here too because everybody went to WyView. We had the whole laundry room to ourselves. 

On wednesday night my companion got chosen to be the example missionaries for the group lesson new missionary night. The new missionaries come in and view missionaries (us) talking to an investigator and learn how to listen with love from a third person point of view. We don't do the whole conversation, the leader stops us about 5 minutes in and we leave and then the whole group takes over. It was really a great opportunity and the leader pulled us aside and said to us that our teachers nominated us to be there because in our investigators lessons we teach the people, not the lesson. And we listen with love. It was awesome to get feedback like that. Anyway, we nailed those discussions. It was very weird however, because it was supposed to be in English. It almost threw us off our game. The very first thing I said after our "investigator" opened up the door (keep in mind the new missionaries are watching) was "Hola, somos misioneros----. Then I stopped. Realizing my mistake and seeing the puzzled look on the lady who answered the door I started over again in English. "Hello! We are missionaries for..." and on. It was quite embarrassing but I take it as a good sign. We have only taught all our lessons in the past in Spanish and through out the whole english lesson, I kept translating things into Spanish, but had to stop myself and remember to talk in english. Weirdest experience ever. 

Nothing else is much different. I got my haircut. Its pretty short, but I wont have to worry about it for a while. 

Very sad day today. I said goodbye to Elder Gallup who went to Ecuador today. We said our goodbyes last night and then we woke up at 3 this morning to help take his luggage to the bus. 

He will be a great missionary though and we will see him in two years. 

That is all. By this time next week I will be in Argentina! I don't know when my Pday will be but doesn't matter! I will be in Country!

Thank you for all the letters. The mail won't work anymore here, all mail will most likely be returned now. 

With Love, 

Elder Moore