Hola,
Well, another week passes in Argentina. Sorry for getting to you guys so late. I am almost completely broke, so we didn´t have money for internet, so we´re in the chapel right now, writing our families.
Finally, the weather is getting cold! Yeah! Aleluya! Today was quite a cold day, we had to wear coats. I love this time of year.
First off, Dad, you may have to call the High School to ask them what my GPA was. I´m not sure what the final GPA was, I think around 3.75 or something like that. I did take an Honors Chemistry Class and I took part in DECA and two years of Choir as extracurricular activities. Also soccer. I did not take institute because I was working. Thank you so much for doing that for me dad, I really appreciate it.
Mom, is it Elder Jeffrey Abarca from Chile who you´re friends with? If so, he´s home right now, getting a medical problem taken care of. He should be back in a short time, I hope. He was a really cool companion, tell him hi for me and tell him to write me. He speaks English. And yes, I taught him well.
Well, kind of bad news this week. Remember my companion from the MTC, Elder Alkema? So, about a month or two ago, he suddenly had a problem in his knees. He was walking one day and his arches went flat on his feet and he was in incredible pain. He calls me today and fills me in on whats happening. He went to the doctor last week and the x-rays came back. The cartlage (sp?) in his knee is almost completely destroyed, along with the tendon. They´re saying that he needs a surgery really bad. The thing is, is that Elder Alkema almost has 18 months in the mission like me. So, there is a rule in the church that if a missionary has to go home for an injury at or after the 18 month mark, he stays home and doesn´t come back. So, it is very probable that Elder Alkema goes home in about ten days. It makes me so incredibly sad to see him go home early. Of course he goes home with honors but when I talked to him, he was feeling really bad about the whole thing. Its weird, we were a trio when we came from the MTC. Elder Jones went home a long time ago, and now Elder Alkema goes home. I´m going to be the only one who finishes the mission on time from our group. I´m going to be the only American on the plane. Aftter he goes home, if you could find him on facebook and make him feel better, that would be awesome. His name is Nathan Alkema from California.
We had quite an experience this week. So, all of a sudden we have this kid, who is 9, that wants to get baptized that the missionaries had taught before and knew pretty much everything. So, we´re like, "you want to get baptized this Saturday?" and he says yes. Cool. We go to his house and talk with him and his brother who is 10, remember that. We do the pre-interview with them both to see if they have any problems with anything, which is highly doubtful, given their age. We get to the questions about the commandments i.e. Law of Chastity, Tithing, Word of Wisdom. We get to the law of Chastity and the child of 10 years asks if he would be able to do...it...with his girlfriend in the future without being married to her. We say no, and he then decides not to get baptized because he doesn´t agree with that. We talk to him and try to convince him that its not a big deal and that he really shouldn´t really worrying about that right now, given that he´s ten. So, we try to focus on the other kid, who´s nine, and he´s okay with the whole thing. So, we go to the soccer activity the next day and the 10 year old kid is there. He asks if his brother is getting baptized and we say yes. He decides to be a jerk and says "yeah, well I´m not going..", yeah little s---. We call the family the next day to tell them when the nine year old needs to be at the chapel to get his clothes. The Mom tells us that he now doesn´t want to get baptized. What? My companion talks to him on the phone and I can hear both sides of the conversation. A nine year old child is saying that he doesn´t want to get baptized because he doesn´t want to get married in order to have kids in the future. ... WHAT?... Come to find out later that the older brother of ten talked to him and said that the church was going to make him get married before he had kids. Seriously, we just cut the conversation when my companion started to try to reason with a nine year old that he doesn´t need to be worrying about marriage at the delicate age of nine. Seriously the stupidest thing I had every heard. Funny experience though. One for the ages. President called me this morning asking why our baptismal date fell and I told him the whole story. He was probably just at surprised as I was when I found out why he wasn´t getting baptized. He let us off the hook for that one and said that there was nothing that we could possibly do about that.
I think a congratulations is in order for Gavin. CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR EAGLE!!!! Now we are both Eagles Mom. You proud of us? And now our kids in the future have no excuse. To be honest Gavin, I know where I got my tux, but I totally forgot how to get there. I think its just on your side of the river. On one of the roads by the Lyons Hotel. You may have to do some driving, but its around there for sure. Its easy to miss. It has a gravel parking lot. The guy there is really cool and will help you out a lot. Good luck! Thanks Gav, but for now, I don´t need anything. Maybe, you could send me a few emails with some music from gear of war 2 music on it. I can only receive 12MB for your information, so it would have to be a couple of emails. But, that would be so awesome. If not, I´ll just have to patient.
We have been getting rained on like crazy the past few weeks. I sent two pictures of our street after one of the rain storms. Crazy. The street was under a good six inches of water. Good thing we´re on bikes!
Well, I have to let you go. I love you guys so much and have a great week. Don´t worry too much about the job. Somebody can only be out of work for so long until something comes along. I would suggest to bump up the scripture study and really form a personal relationship with the savior through personal scripture study. You´ll find that your worry level will go down and your trust in the Lord will go up. Just a thought, but seriously, you should do it. That goes for all of you. Love you guys!!!!!
Chau!
Élder Garrett Brighton Rook
Misión Argentina Buenos Aires Oeste
"La mejor misión de todo el mundo...."
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