Week 10 (2/22/10) Email to Dad

Hey Dad! It was great talking to you in the airport. After I got off the phone I found out our flight was delayed an hour and wished I had another calling card. Oh well. This keyboard is funky. The ? is at the top and I can spell cool names like Pierre Garçon haha. Puedo hacer acentos también. Anyway the weather here is pretty hot and humid but I would rather walk around in this summer weather than the St. George weather. It has rained really hard twice in the last three or so days and the streets turn to rivers. One day it started raining while we were in our pensión (apartment) just finishing language study-I have some videos on my memory card I'll be sending soon- and it had been raining for over an hour and a half really hard and the street in front of our pench was like a foot deep all the way across so Elder Sobré y yo put on our sandals, rolled up our pants, grabbed our umbrellas and got to work. It was pretty fun! When we went to the Silvas, Robert-25-told us in Buenos Aires, the city-we are still in the state- had water up to his chest and they were having problems, I'm not really sure though. We missionaries are pretty oblivious to what is going on in the outside world. We didn't find out about Haiti in the MTC until over a week later. Same with all the snow storms in the D.C. area.
The hardest part about being here is not being able to fluently communicate with anybody. I can say whatever I want in Spanish--sorry I mean Castellano-nobody calls it Spanish here, its all Castellano. There are quite a few differences though. A lot of the vocab is different and they pronounce y and ll different. For example bus in Spanish is autobus and in Castellano it is colectivo. Money-dinero-plata. There are other words too but you get it--but I have a REALLY hard time understanding what they say back. Elder Sobré is from Uruguay and doesn't know how to speak English fluently so it can be pretty frustrating sometimes. Elder Sobré reminds me of a three way mix of Bryan, cousin Greg, and Mike Andrus-Pete's buddy. His dad isn't a member either. We both would like more than anything in the world to see our fathers come to know this gospel is true for themselves. I love you Dad. Mom and Pete and Sam too. You guys are the greatest treasure I have. We can be together forever, even after our lives here on earth-how awesome is that? But that is only possible through Jesus Christ and his gospel that I am sharing here in Argentina.
My mission actually doesn't cover any of the city of Buenos Aires. It starts just south of the city. One of the Assistants to the President said this mission has the highest missionary-to-area of all the missions. My area is pretty poor. There are a lot of tiny houses. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go to Bolivia, because that really prepared me for this. It wasn't much of a shock for me coming here. The other new missionaries were pretty surprised. The food here is better than Bolivia and its not as poor. There are SO many dogs. Dogs everywhere. Elder Sobré and I saw the ugliest dog in the world if you can call it a dog. It looked like it came right out of the Lion King. It looked just like a hideous hyena that just came out of a fight. Anyway, I think the work in this area isn't doing so well. Once I get accustomed to the area and the language I will do my best to change that. Elder Sobre will have been here for almost 6 months at the end of this transfer so the area will become mine. He has been here for a long time and I think he is getting burned out in the area. It seems like here in Argentina women out number men by almost double. Maybe its because all the men work or something. Who knows? Its a really poor area though. The sleep schedule is hard for me in the mornings but I bought a jumprope at the store today so I'll start doing that in the morning to get some exercise and start feeling better. If we ever want to go anywhere somewhat close, we walk and any further we take the colectivos and that takes moneda (change). Moneda is somewhat hard to come by so we don't spend moneda on anything else. The food so far has been a major let down. All anybody ever talked about before was how great the food is, you're going to love the food, the food is awesome. Its good but overhyped. Of course, I am still adjusting so by the end of my mission I will probably love it too but still. They do have Gatorade here though, which is pretty cool. The only flavor the same though is Lemon-Lime. Then they have Manzana, Pomelo, Frutas Tropicales, Green Mango, and Berry. The people are really great though. There is one family we visit often named Silva. Hermana Silva and her family moved here from Paraguay 2 years ago and her husband passed away from heart problems about 6 months ago. She has like ten kids-there are always so many people at there house that there are a couple I'm not sure are hers or not. She has 6 boys and like 4 or five girls. The oldest is 25 and the youngest is probably 5. 4 or 5 of her kids are inactive. They are really nice and a lot of fun. Hermana Silva is a great woman-kinda reminds me of my mom. Church on Sunday was business as usual and they had me go up and introduce myself. The ward is pretty small, but I enjoyed it. I sat between Richard Silva,18-19, and Maxi, a new investigator that we actually met on Sunday at church. He has already been meeting with missionaries but just moved into our area so we'll be meeting with him tomorrow. Well I better get going. I'm going to be working my tail off trying to understand Castellano for the next while. I feel like I know nothing but everybody is really impressed with how good I speak and understand for being so new. I am satisfied for now with my speaking but that is worthless if I can't understand people. It is tiring straining to understand all the time, but I'll catch on, I'm not worried about it. The Lord is on my side. I'm excited to learn so I can be more effective and get to work. The other missionaries complain about the weather but I like it. I sure miss you guys but it will be a short 22 months and we'll be together again. Until next Lunes, chao chao.

Week 9 (2/16/2010) Email from Matt's Mission President

Dear Woodside Family,

It is a great pleasure to notify you that your son has arrived safely to the great mission Argentina Buenos Aires South. He is in a very good area with an excellent Trainer, Elder Sobré. Although we have known him for a very short time we love him already. He will be great!

Sincerely,

President and Sister Asay

Week 8 (2/9/10) Email from the MTC

My time is coming to an end here at the MTC. I have less than six days left so the next time you hear from me, I will be in Argentina. I have had a great experience here in the training center, but it will be great to get to Argentina. As I think of it, all along it has kind of felt like once I get done here at the MTC then that's it, but there are still 22 months left in the tank. I am really excited to be doing this work for the Lord and I am excited to meet some Argentine people. My Spanish is greatly improved since I arrived here 8 short weeks ago and it will only improve more when I get to the field. My testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been strengthened every day I have been here. I have seen hard work and faith in the Lord pay off and I know that as I keep striving to do my best and show my faith and love the people, the rewards will be amazing. I know as I serve the Lord all of you my family will be blessed as well. I want you guys all to know how much I love you and I will continue to stay in contact from Argentina. I look forward to the future with great excitement. I fear not because I am doing and will be doing the work of the Savior. I know that God loves each of you and he is always there for you if you are willing to show your faith and let him help you in your life. Faith is a principle of action and I know from experience that there is great power in this. I want you to know I love you and keep you in my prayers. Six more days and Argentina here I come! Love you all. Love, Elder Matt Woodside

Week 7 (2/2/10) Email from the MTC

It's good hearing from you. I'm looking forward to getting the packages and letter.:) I really wish we were in Brianhead today tearing it up that sounds like a LOT of fun right now. I love the outdoors and that is probably the hardest thing for me here is being inside ALL THE TIME. I wish I could go on a hike on P-day or something. Oh well I'll get over it. There are only 13 days left in my winter so I'll be okay. I realized a week or so ago that I told a bunch of people my wrong adress (the one I'll have in Argentina) and posted it on my Facebook before I came. I wonder how much stuff is just chillin down there waiting for me. We had a musical fireside on Sunday where we just sang hymns the whole time and the missionaries got to choose. One missionary said he wanted to sing God Be With You Til We Meet Again because he heard news from home that his best friend passed away the day before. It was really sad. It made me think of Jake and how awful it would be to hear about that being him. Or anyone else for that matter. The Plan of Salvation is amazing and a comfort, but death is still a bad deal. No fun. I had a really cool experience in the RC (Referral Center-where we make calls) this week. We set a goal to get 5 sets of missionaries placed in one hour. I won't lie, I wasn't too excited at first. I'm not much of a phone guy as you know. The instructor told us if we had faith and worked accordingly it would happen. I decided I was going to work my hardest and show my faith for the whole hour. A little ways in, our District Leader got a chat-which wouldn't help our goal at all-and all the other missionaries gathered around to watch except for Hermana Kinghorn. I was kind of frustrating since the whole DISTRICT wasn't working hard at all to achieve our DISTRICT goal. It kind of bummed me out to see their lack of care, their lack of faith. I decided that I wouldn't let it bother me and that I would show the Lord my faith by keeping on working. So Hermana Kinghorn and I kept working at it. About ten minutes later, Elder Paxman's chat ended and they all got back to making calls. I called a lady to see if she got the DVD Finding Faith in Christ. Her grandson answered and I testified to him of the DVD-I have seen it in the last couple weeks- and of Christ. He accepted my referral to the missionaries. His name was Antwon and he was 17 years old. It was exciting! I kept making calls and a name came up Tyrone Tutt. I thought to myself this is going to be an awesome black guy. The man answered the phone and I introduced myself. I asked him about the DVD and he said he got it like five years ago and that he had watched it within the past year. I said that was great. I testified to him about the DVD and about how it teaches of Christ. I testified of Christ and how Christ can help people in their lives. How he can bring peace and comfort into people's lives. He said it's one of his main collection of DVDs because he loves how everytime he watches it he learns something new. He was awesome! He was a really nice guy. I asked him if he would like to have some representatives-missionaries come teach him a message about Jesus Christ and his restored gospel. He asked me what my name was and said you know Matt I would really like that but I'm pretty busy with my life right now, but I've really enjoyed talking with you. I would love it if you could call me back and come over and we could talk again and you could teach me. I told him I wouldn't be able to come to his house and he said over the phone would be just fine. He told me he had his calendar out and couldn't tell me which day he would be open for sure, but to just try a few times and he could work it out. He thanked me and I thanked him, I told him I enjoyed talking with him and looked forward to speaking with him again. He agreed and told me to have a wonderful day. He was an amazing guy. I'm really excited to call him back and get to know him some more and teach him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He seemed so ready. At the end of the hour we confirmed our goal and Hna. Kinghorn had placed 3 and I had two. Its hard having people be rude and hang up and not answer. It's tough work, but its worth it for Antwon and Tyrone. I love doing this work and I'm only in the MTC. 13 days and I'll be in Argentina. I didn't get cauterized the ENT said it wasn't necessary. I can't believe I have already been out 7 weeks! I love you Mom and Dad. I hope everything is going well. I have less than a minute so I better go. You guys are the best! Hopefully I can talk to both of you in two weeks! Bye!