Trash Fishing, David and Goliath Rock Slinging and Rice Crispies

Dear Family,

How are you guys? I hope everything is going super excellently for all of you.
If I remember correctly all of you are leaving for or getting ready to leave for a cruise. But you all didn`t mention to where your cruise was headed. So where y´all goin´? I`d like to know how the cruise goes/is going and what wholesome activities you have planned.
Okay, so this week...
Well, it`s been kind of a slow week. There`s been lots of days where our appointments have fallen through. But let`s start with the good things: Rice Crispy Treats. That`s right your favorite `stale air` and marshmallow confection! But I know what you´re thinking. ´´BUt, but marshmallows don`t exist in Argentina´´, and you sir/miss would be absolutely correct. If they do exist in the same puffy, round form as we so commonly know them, I have yet to find them. Luckily for me and all of my district we have a beloved Chilean Sister in our district named Hermana Valderas. This blessed sister´s parents happened to take a vacation from Chile to Bariloche, Argentina, and thinking of their daughter they brought a truck-load of goodies and things for her from Chile and sent them to her from Bariloche. Hence, this week Hermana Valderas recieved two gigantic packages. They were huge and filled with clothes and chilean candies and treats of all sorts; including marshmallows. She, knowing that we would apprecitate them, gave us a whole bag of marshmallows.
My companion was ever-so-enthused and started to eat them plain and with whatever other thing, but then the idea came to me: Make Rice Crispy Treats! So I stopped him from consuming the puffy confections and told him that I would make something even better.
Okay, now I wasn`t sure of the recipe, but what I did remember is that they included Marshmallows, and Butter... And that`s it. So, that`s what I did. We took 2/3rds of the bag of marshmallows and 100g of butter and mixed them together and then bought a bag of what pretends to be the other off-brand of rice crispies. The cereal was a little old, but by magic and a little bit of memory they actually turned out! Puro Magia.
So that was the best thing that happened this week. We each had one and then we thought, hmm the Hermanas are sick... Maybe they would like some. So we made them a little card that said Feliz Dìa de Las Enfermas and we gave them the rest. Haha, they`ve been in denial that they are sick for about a week now, saying ``No, we`re not sick... *coughcough*``, but the consistent coughing and sniffling gives them away as the sickos that they are.

Okay, that`s about it. I`m getting better at Chess, and my companion has a bad habit of wanting all my things.

Okay, short story of today. We made Pupusas (Salvadoreño dish) that didn`t turn out, and then later the gringos and I after a few weeks of trying finally got to the river! I don`t know why going to the river is so important or noteworthy, but we did it. I also did another very noteworthy thing, I made a sling (like david and goliath). And I threw some rocks at the river. (See the videos taken by my friend Elder Adcock) We also went fishing... I had hooks and fishing line that I bought at a hardware store, but I forgot about the sinker and bobber, and worms (probably because they don`t exist here). So we made them out of Argentine Trash. A rock between two bottle caps wrapped in a plastic bag sirved as a sinker and for a bobber I used a iodine dropper bottle thing. See the video for the cast. Also after I failed to find any worms and the spider got away from me I got myself a cricket. The videos do it a lot more justice and they`re nice and short.

Okay, that`s all for the week. Please note that I wrote the majority of this email before I read your emails so you might have already answered some questions.

Love,

Elder Bradley Turek

Note for Tyler: Dearest Brother. I know that my birthday is more than a month behind us, but I remember that you said that you wanted to get me something if you could. Have you heard of Mighty Wallet? Google it. They`re really cool, thin, well-designed, wallets. There`re lots of cool designs and maybe one you and I would like in particular. It`s got a whole bunch of different conversions like meters to feet, furlongs to yards, tons to cubic centimenters, a whole bunch of stuff like that, with a bunch of little graphs and the like. Look for it. I`m sure you would like one. If you would be so kind as to send me pictures of it and then I`ll tell you if I really want it. Thanks!

The 25th of May en 25 de Mayo

Dear Family,

How are all of you? is it getting warmer by the day over there in North America? Because it sure is getting colder by the day over here in South America.

Sadly, because of such cold weather and the nationality of my companion, Central American, someone got sick this week, and that same someone got another someone sick... But luckily the other someone didn´t get as sick. Haha, yeah so my companion got sick this week and it sucked because we were inside all day. You´d think that we could´ve gotten some stuff done, but it was a lot of sitting and thinking because it was never announced that him or me that we were going to stay inside, more like silently understood, but anyways we just stayed inside and coughed for a while. But it was good to get a little rest, and to appreciate being healthy most of the time. 

Okay so one thing that happened this week, even though we were sick, was go to a conference with the President. We got on a big collectivo bus, and off we went to Neuquen. This conference was more special because it was a multi zone conference. It was really good to see some amigos that I hadnt seen in a while and realize that we´re all getting way too old way too fast. But anyways since we´re not super close to Neuquen we had to take two days, almost to travel. We left Wednesday in the night and got to a city called cinco saltos, where our zone leaders live and there we slept for the night, well some slept... There wasn´t very many mattresses, and so 3 of us had to sleep on the floor. But I slept almost the whole night, despite the hardness of the floor and boniness of my... everything. We got up early in the morning a, got ready and went out to catch the inter city bus 30 minutes to Neuquen. There was only two problems with all of this. One it was raining, and two it was freakin´cold. Haha, yeah it was pretty miserable  for a little while, but I did utilize like I never before thought I would have my waterproof shoes. I thought I would never ever use them, but they actually came in handy. So we finally caught the bus that thought might never come. It was raining inside the colectivo as well.... We got to Neuquen, got off the colectivo and started to walk towards the capilla, and it was still raining and freakin´cold. We finally got the  capilla, and I thought we were home free, but the people with the keys hadn't shown up, and so we waited. Then the president got there with his wife and they waited too, and then the president dropped cane on the zone leaders who had the keys, came latte, and had their Take note: don´t be late or have your phone off.

Okay so we had the conference and everything went very well, I learned some things got to see  some good friends,had a got lunch, and then finally, the best of all, got a DVD player for our apartment! Ever since I´ve been here in 25 de Mayo, we have been without DVD player. It has been a long famine, but it is finally over. Haha, they actually ran out of DVD players for a long time and had already botten all of the DVD players that existed in Neuquén, but hey now we have one and all is well. It even has a USB port, so we can use it with video files, too. That whole direct usb compatibility is much more common here in Argentina. You just plug your usb stick in and it fins what is music or video and it plays them in order. IT makes it hard when you don't know where your music is, because you have to navigate blindly, but it can make things more easy as well.

So now we have a DVD player, and we´re both happy about it.

Mom, thanks for the Lasagna recipe, they look awesome and we´re excited to try them out

Okay now thee best part of the news this week. The activity of 25 de Mayo (the day) in 25 de Mayo (the city). Turns out that 25 de Mayo is Patriot's day or independence day in all of Argentina. (I had been wondering why they named a city after the random date of 25 de mayo;now I know) The branch planned a big activity 25 de Mayo after some random date; now I know.) The branch planned a big activity and asked us to put on a skit. The activity was great. They had torta frita (basically scones, but not as sweet) and locro (really good bean, corn, sausage stew) a. Okay so the skit. Luckily, because we were sick this week we had plenty of time to plan out the skits . I never thought I would use all of those summers at scout camp, and neither did my dad, but boy they sure did and have come in handy. I thought of the best skits I knew. Old Blue, Crowbar from K-mat, Robin Hood and Bandanna were some of my favorites. But now came the task of remembering all the lines and translating them into Spanish. I was sitting my chair a thinin´when all of a sudden it came to me and I laughed out loud, it was too good. We decided on the Bandanna skit and Robin hood. In the Bandanna skit there is a magician who does some really lame tricks ( my companion) and then afterwards he says he´s going to do another trick, but this time he´s going to need a volunteer. that is where I come in the very excited volunteer. I´m dressed in black tights ( to maintain modesty) shorts way past my waist a a pink futbol jersey, huge glasses and a funny look on my face. I insist that he pick me,making a large commotion and after begging and pleading an he finally picks me and I take my place at his side as ´´his assistant´´. Ever proudly and lispfully, I introduce myself as Venancio,, adjusting my shorts to the ready near-chest-level position. The trick continues as he gives me a bandanna (called a pañuelo in Spanish) and I have a good time with it. He turns his back to me and says they he´s going to make it appear in his pocket, which of course makes venancio squirm with excitement. Readying himself for the trick, venancio extends the bandanna (pañuelo) out in front, when suddenly he has to sneeze and sneezes into the bandanna. This sneeze made him remember how hungry he was and that he had  half of a pomelo in his pocket, so he stashes the  bandanna and takes out the pomelo to try and get in a quick snack. Suddenly the voice of the Magician Re Misterio is heard, assistant are you ready? Do you have the pañuelo.  Surprised, the assistant says How did you know that I had a pomeuelo?? ! He really is magic. Okay the trick must go on, and so venancio is directed to extend the pañuelo (misunderstood as his pomelo) out in front of him and... fold it in half. Stunned by this order venancio asks why he needs to fold his beloved pomeulo, but receiving a stern look and command from Re misterio he mournfully folds his pomelo and juices fly everywhere. Whining, he reports that the pomeulo has been folded and so the magician gives the next order. Okay now you need to take the pañuelo and fold it again in half. The magician with his back still turned doesn´t understand why its so hard for his assistant to follow his orders but the assistant is devastated when he finds that another fold is required of his poor pañuelo., but willingly complies whining about the amount of juice extruded from his poor fruit. Now the magician just wants to get the trick over with and directs venancio to put the pañuelo in his pocket. His pocket? His mother made him that pocket, but again he complies and puts the soggy fruit in his pocket. Now he calls on the crowd to help him with the magic words Abra cadabra pata de cabra (abra cadabra foot of a goat) , they practice once with him, and then  he says that him and his assistant venancio are going to pat their pockets 3 times in unsion and then say the magic words with the crowd. The first pat, the second, and finally the thrid and the magic words... ABRA CADABRA PATA DE CABRA...

 The magician now goes to his pocket expecting to find the pañuelo (bandanna) neatly folded and transported, but instead finds the soggy mess of a pomelo from the pocket of Venancio and he gets mad and chases venancio off stage. The end.

Whew. I`ll have you all know that because of the circumstances I typed all of the above on a computer who`s monitor only turns on for 1 second at a time before turning off, so basically blindly. Thank you keyboarding classes in Jr. High.

​Okay other quick story: My pants couldn`t handle the sweet digs (a sudden squat to save the ball) I made in an un expected game of volleyball... They exploded. That`s the back of my pants your looking at, not the front.

Yeah... I quickly grabbed a jacket, put it around my exploded back side and hurried inside. I just so happened to have a pair of shorts that I would need for the skit, and so it worked out great.

Well that was the adventurous week we had...

Love,

Elder Bradley Turek

Note: The bananda skit is usually done with a ´´banana´´ and a ´´bandanna´´ that´s why it´s funny and even funnier that it just happened to work in spanish with Pañuelo and Pom(u)elo. Just to clear that up.

 

May 19th

Dear Family,

I hope you all enjoyed the letter last week. I did my best to make it exceptionally longer, but it was killing me because I was leaving a flagrant trail of errros and typos because I had to go so fast. Do you like it better?

It was most excellent to hear that Cody gave an absolutley fantastic talk about Choice and Accountability. Way to go, Codester.

Okay, this week was pretty good. It was the second week with my new companion and we´re getting along just fine. The only thing is that sometimes he`s got some lazy habits, like not washing his dishes immediately afterwards and waiting till they all pile up, a habit of mine that I had gotten rid of thanks to a previous companion who always washed my dishes immediately after I used them causing me to begin to wash my dishes immediately so that he couldn`t, but now I`m losing the habit. Things like that.

Okay the major fun thing that happened this week was the farewell of a missionary in our ward. Er... branch. We only have one in the field right now and so this will make two. He`s going off to Brazil, Rio de Janerio, and he`s a stud. His name is Sebastian. 

He baptized Jorgelina and always goes out to visit with us.

Anyways, we had his farewell this week and the guy who was putting it all together asked us to put together a little message to share with everyone. He also asked the sisters to put together a musical number, he just forgot to ask them until the day before. So the day of we got a call from the sisters asking us to help them with said musical number. We went to the church and we started to try and think of hymns that we could sing or mix or sing together or whatever, but nothing seemed to work. So then my rhythmically practised companion started to beat box and he said start singing, and so I sang a few lines of Called to Serve, and he beatboxed to the beat and it sounded really cool!! We thought that it was super great and kept trying and practicing and laughing, but the sisters weren`t so entertained, no I take that back they were entertained they thought it was rediculous (I can`t spell anymore) they just were super not for the idea of actually performing it... We begged and told them that it sounded really good, but they just didn`t say anything... Which was okay, we were just here to help and so I offered, well if you don`t want to do that, what do you want to do, and they had no idea...

SO... we addressed their concerns of it not being appropriate by calling the guy and performing it for him and he said he loved it and so we told the sisters and they finally relented, and we made it nice and organized. We all started singing together and then after the first line Elder Godoy, my companion, went off to the microphone and started the beat and then the next line I cut off and wetted up a good whistle line as the sisters continued singing (which they were fine with, because they could neither whistle nor beatbox, but they could sing). And thus it was! Despite the doubts of the sisters we put it all together and performed it in from of everyone. They seemed to like it and we think it went off well.

I`ll see what I can do about getting it to you....

Anyways, that was the major thing this week. Nothing exciting with investigators...

I really loved hearing about all the things going on at home. You guys are great for letting me know the downlow on the to and fro.

My companion`s blatter is going to explode so we`ve gotta go...

Love you all,

Elder Bradley Turek

P.S. I got some audio of the video, hope that works for ya...

May 12th

Dear Family,

It was wonderful to be able to talk to all of you on Skype. My cheeks were killing me for a significatn time afterwards. Okay the things that happened this past week....

First of all this P-day. This p-day was the day when we clean the house really well. After that we had decided that we would go and try out the Yoga classes that they have here in 25 de Mayuol. WE ound out that they had classes because one day we were in the terminal waiting for a buis like we often do and there was a schedule of activities in the window and we came to findout that these activites are free activities that the city puts on for everyone in the city; they hire a professor and pay them and e3veryone or anyone can come free to the classes. Threre`s bachata, a dance, chocolate classes, sewing, crochet, a bunch of other stuff, but as I`m sure you guessed the activity that fell exactly on Monday our P-day was YOGA. SO I convinced my companion and we went! We were excited and we told the sister missionaries that t they wre sureloy missing out. So we went and it just so ahappened that the teacher had a birthday party to go to and so there wqas no classes that day.... It was kind of sad, but it`s okay, we`ll have another day, and I`ll let you know how it goes.

Okay, also, there was an excellent chain of events that happened the day before I called all of you, that Saturday. I had thought that Saturday was Mother`s Day, and so I had gotten everything ready to call you all and was there right at four o clock, but then I realiezed that it was tomorrow and not today.. I was sad, but I got over it. Okay, next the Sisters came and they were going to call their families, because they really had planned to talk to them the day before mother`s day, unlike me, and it just so happened that while I was hooking them up the computer, because we had to use a little laptop that had a webcam, instead of the old PC that the Church has, that I bumped the monitor and it fell on the floor.... I later came to find out when the sisters were cleaning up and putting everything back to gether that the monitor wastn`t working.... NO!!! Fetch, I had broken the good for nothing monitor. It turns on for a few seconds and you can see the desktop, but then it turns off. We`ll see how it turns out. Then later that night, we couldn`t find any investigators in their houses, and we didn`t have any money, and then we called lunch and they coulnd`t give us lunch so we were a bit discouraged, but later the sisters called us and helped us cheer up a bit, because they knew we were having a rough day. Well, the next tday everything went better because I got to talk to you all!! So it was worth it.

Okay, before I forget, I wanted to ask a few questions.

Lasagna. I`ve heard a few people talk about a Lasagna here and they like it, but I`ve yet to find someone who knows how to make it. Mother dearest, that`s when I thought of you... :) I always tell them that my mom makes the best lasagna that there is... So they all want to know how to make it. Would you happen to have a recipe for lasagna that I can share with them and my companion (it`s his favorite).

Second, collect calls in argentina. On the back of our debit cards if we want to call from outside of the united states to the automated customer service that we need to call collect (to inquire how much we have on our mission card because the ATM`s in this city don`t tell you). But the problem is I don`t know how to do it, especially in Argentina. Can you help me out with that? How does one make a collect call in Argentina?

Okay, so going back a month, when I was with Raul, I had my 9 month birthday in the mission. 9 months... and so I took pregnant pictures for obvious reasons...  Don`t ask, it was funnier at the time....

OKay, I have a recent convert here name is Jorgelina, and she`s 70. Until this point, I have been calling someone to go and get her and bring her to church, for that reason the fact that she really likes church, and the fact that she doesn`t have much else to do, she`s always there on Sunday, but this week our Branch Presidnet wisley counesled us that we help her start walking to chruch and so that`s what we did. We walked with her to church. Me and my companion had to consistently slow our usual very quick missionary pace to her Jorgelina Pace, because if we forgot and started thinking about other things we started to walk faster than her unconciously... But it was a nice walk, and even though she said she was tired afterwards, I think she enjoyed it.

Also, I bought something nice with the birthday money that you sent me! THanks so much for that! I was in the terminal in Neuquèn, waiting for  a bus and there was a store with a bunch of cool hand made stuff, so I went in and took a look a round and I saw this very cool sweater, I had been lacking on a sweater because I gave one of the two that I found to my companion who got whisked off to the south part of the mission becasue he had no sweater. Okay, so I saw this sweater and I thought hey! I could use one of those. When I found out that it was super-soft alpaca fur, the perfect v-neck kind that shows your tie, and just my size I bought it. I also bought myself somehting else that I^ve been missing, that is a tie clip. I`m doing just grand now.

Another day when we were in Cinco Saltos for the Zone Conference, that our Zone Leader randomly asked me to lead, we were waiting for a bus, and my companion who loves Avocados, suggested that we find and eat ourselves some avocados. So we found a fruit and vegetable joint, the which are much more common here, bought some avocados and bread and sat down to have ourselves some avocado and bread, my companions favorite food, but we realized that we had nothing to cut them with.... We thought about it look, looked for sharp objects, opened one with a clean stick, but finally it donned on me.

I took out my debit card and I cut them open, pulled out the pit, cubed them and squeezed it into the bread. It was a stroke of genious and it worked great.

Okay, now I`m out of time, but I love you all!

Elder Bradley Turek

P.S. Your question, ´´ Do families in Argentina have their elderly grandparents and relatives live with them as they grow old and age?´´

Sometimes... Especially here in 25 de Mayo, there is a lot of famililes that live close together, if not on the same property in different little houses. Everyone is family here, or if they aren`t family, they know each other.