Monday, October 12, 2015

I'm ready for a siesta

Guys... I am TIRED. I've been waiting for the end of this week for like A WEEK. I'm really glad it's P-day now. I'll tell you about my week in a minute though. So what's with so much crap happening to our car? Like driving off a tiny cliff/curb and getting our tire punctured by a five inch spike... I've had better luck driving here in Argentina on one-way streets and roads without lanes and driving stick-shift. My odds aren't great, but yours were less it seems like. šŸ˜› Anyway, the Hamideh's came to Argentina this week! Meaning I got THE COOLEST PACKAGE IN THE WORLD. Mom, you like nailed that package. I can't believe you thought of cookie butter, that surprised me the most. And I'm also probably enjoying that the most :) And the cow shirt and ties and socks were all pretty dope. Thanks a bunches! 

This week really was great. I just got no sleep at all. That's kind of how our life is here in the office. Especially on transfer week. If you don't feel like reading everything just read Tuesday and Friday. They were the best days. I'll start on day 1: 

Monday: The most tranquilo day of the week. I had time to go make a bunch of rent payments that day at least. The rest of the week I didn't. However, Monday is the night when all the dying missionaries get to the office, because they leave the next morning. 

Tuesday: Our day started at 3 in the morning. Oh, and did I mention that we were up until like 1 the night before? We had to get everything ready for the dying missionaries so they could actually get on their planes. Anyway, we were leaving the offices at 3 in the morning to take everyone to the airport. Due to the airport doing maintenance/construction and stuff like that, we had to be there 3 hours early. It was awful. We dropped them off and then came back to the office to sleep. Later that morning the Hamideh's showed up to pick up their son and dropped off that super cool package :) That brightened the day up a little. We continued doing our jobs until about 5 that day when Elder Benedict and I had to go to the airport to help pick up the new missionaries! It was way cool. They seemed like a way cool group. We got all their bags and dropped them off at the hotel where they were staying while they all went to dinner with President. My shoulders were pretty sore after lifting the suitcases of 15 missionaries up the stairs of the hotel. Then we helped all the missionaries get to their hotel after dinner. It was fun. Probably my favorite day of the week actually :)

Wednesday: I spent the whole day with the newbies basically! For every group of new missionaries I do a presentation on Finances work here in the mission. Later we split up into groups and I helped all the newbies learn how to do Abrir la Boca (open the mouth) while the other group went with the assistants to Cerro de la Gloria (that's where I went on my birthday in February, I believe there's pictures) and also the temple grounds? I don't think I've told you guys before but the church has bought grounds for a temple here in Mendoza. Nothing has ever been announced for a temple here yet, but I think they just bought them because it's a really cool spot for a temple and there'll be a temple here someday apparently. It's like up in the mountains and apparently you'd be able to see it for miles around. So that's some cool trivia for you guys. 

Thursday: Transfer day. This was a stressful/not fun morning. My morning was spent with Elder Benedict in the bus terminal making sure missionaries made it on their buses on time and getting them to their new companions. Then after all the newbies got their trainers we had to take them to the terminal as well to get them to their areas. It was an awful day, to be completely honest. 

Friday: Today's the day when all the people who trained last transfer come to Mendoza for another traning/conference thing. In other words, MORE people in the offices. I get stressed out when there's a lot of missionaries here. They all start making demands of things they want me to do and receipts they want me to reimburse and stuff like that, and it's very stressful. Anyway, I had a cool experience though. I WAS WAY STRESSED OUT. I had just gone to the bank to cash a couple checks to make a few payments I had to do. I get back to my office and start to separate the checks out so I can make the payments I need to make. Cash is used a lot here in Argentina, so when I need to make payments I very commonly combine payments into one check. Then when I take it out I just have to separate the cash into where it needs to go. I was so stressed out on Friday that I could literally not count the money in my hands. There were piles of cash all over my desk and I couldn't remember where they went. It had just gotten all jumbled together and I was completely frustrated, confused, and tired. So I decided to pray! I basically said this: "God, I've had a really crappy week. And I'm really stressed. So stressed I don't know how to do my job. Please just help me know how I can get this money where it needs to go." I finished my prayer, got up, and just sat there, listening. It gave me a minute to calm myself down a little bit. Then I was prompted to combine all the cash together, and then just separate the parts that I at least KNEW what to do with. So I started doing that. I don't know how much sense this is making so I'll just skip to the end. I got it done. And I felt just so much LESS stressed afterwards. So moral of the story? God is way cool. And he's always there to help us when we just ask. Even if it's something as simple as counting money. 

So, I'm glad it's p-day now, if you couldn't tell by this point. I really do love my job, just some weeks it's very stressful. Even though I don't get out to proselyte very much, I feel like I'm doing great work here. And it's a good feeling. But I've written a lot already, so I think I'm going to end the letter now. 

-- 
Elder Bingham
Secretario de Finanzas
MisiĆ³n Argentina Mendoza


Hee hee hee :) I have no idea why we waxed our chests... It was a terrible idea. The worst part was that we didn't know how to do it. So we put the hot wax on all of our chests at the same time, put the paper on, and then waited, not knowing that we had to pull it off quickly. So when we pulled off the wax band, none of the wax came off. It was still on our chests. So we spent the next 15 minutes picking off tiny pieces of wax off our chests. It was awful. Anyway, just thought you might want that image in your brain :)

The newbies! QuƩ capos.

We were bored at the bus terminal on thursday, so we got our shoes shined! 

Me getting my shoes shined! I felt like a king. 

This is how the terminal looks on transfer day. Watch out for the missionaries....

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