Letter from Goya - 31 October 2011

Freckles, Halloween, Baptism

Dear Friends and Family,

The first thing I would like to inform you of this week is that I now have freckles. Lots of them! On my face! I don´t think Hna. Da Silva finds this as remarkable as I do--but I really don´t think I have ever had so many face freckles before. It is all this sunshine! I tried to take a photo to show you but I am not sure how well you can see them.

find the freckles

Second, Happy Halloween! We celebrated with an activity in the church this past Friday. It was a lot of fun and I even got to dress up. This Halloween I was Little Red Riding Hood and I wore my red dress and bought a piece of red fabric to make my little cape/hood. I also managed to find a small wicker basket that I filled with rolls and apples and carried around as an accesory. Hna. Da Silva was going to be the Grandmother but in the end she didn´t find everything she needed in time so she changed her costume and the last minute and went as an Indian instead.  

Last and most importantly, our investigator Marcelo was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ this weekend! We met him a few days before General Conference when we were walking past his house and randomly (or not so randomly) felt impressed to knock on his door. We told him about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and about how there is a Prophet and 12 Apostles today just as there were in the times of old and how he could listen to them speak, if he wanted, if he came with us to watch a session of conference that weekend. (Side note: this is the type of bold thing that I still can´t believe that I do as a missionary--especially when I think about how just a few months ago I was afraid to knock on my neighbors door to ask to borrow a bottle of ketchup. But when I step back and think about it, it is actually, truly, profoundly...cool, for lack of a better word.) I am consistently surprised and gratified that as I invite people to do things--to come to conference, to read the Book of Mormon, to pray, to exercise a little bit of faith, to try something new--that they actually, sometimes, DO IT. They let us in: to their homes, their lives, their hearts. Not everyone. But some people. And it amazes me how one moment I am knocking on someone´s door and the next thing I know I am sitting in widow´s bedroom singing her hymns or at the bedside of a sick child offering prayers of comfort and healing. It is unreal. And that is exactly how I would describe the experience of finding myself, only a few days after first meeting him, sitting beside Marcelo in the Sunday afternoon session of general conference listening to apostles speak and the tabernacle choir sing. And then, only weeks after that watching him enter into the waters of baptism to make covenants with our Heavenly Father and start on the pathway of discipleship.

I am happy. This weekend we travel to Resistencia to meet with Elder Christofferson. I am pretty excited.

That´s all for now.

Love,

Brooke

Letter fro Goya - 24 October 2011

"Familiarity Breeds Love"

Dear Family and Friends,

Transfers have come and gone and Hna. Silva and I are going strong for at least another 6 weeks in Goya just as I hoped. I am happy—we are working with some really great people and it would be a shame to have to leave them. I am starting to realize how 6 weeks is really not very long at all.

I am grateful for this opportunity that I have as a missionary to live in a specific city and really settle into my life here for longer than a passing moment. As a tourist or a traveler, who would ever think to come to Goya? This is not a tourist city—there is nothing particularly noteworthy in that respect. It is a small riverside city in northern Argentina. There is that saying “familiarity breeds contempt,” but that saying makes me mad. I don’t think it is true, or at least it shouldn’t be true if we are doing things right in our relationships with both people and places. I think familiarity should breed love and that for the most part the better we get to know people and places  the more we should love them. That is how I feel about Goya. I love the details. I love the little things I would never know or see if I were just passing through. I even love walking the same streets and seeing the same people and doing a lot of the same things every day, because it’s only then that I start to notice that even in what seems to be routine there is endless and fascinating and lovely variation. Maybe it is only when we have the routine that we can start to appreciate these small things.

We have visited Liliana dozens of times. The walk to her house is familiar. I have started to memorize the graffiti on her front door we have knocked and waited so many times (white-out names and phrases--surely the doing of one or more of her three rascally sons). We always greet each other in the same way, ask the same questions (“how are you? How is your week going?”). We sing, share a scripture, a thought, a prayer. Her son Tommy usually yells and slams doors and has to be wrangled or distracted or calmed. Her second son Agustin, greets us with a handshake and a gap-toothed smile. He usually is eating an apple and watching television, cutting off a single piece at a time with a small kitchen knife and Liliana usually yells at him to be careful and to please put the knife away. 

But then, there are differences. Last night, for example, it was cold and cloudy when we visited and Liliana´s voice was hoarse with a cough and she was rolling out frybread dough on the table with a glass cup and my boots were covered in mud but she told me not to worry about it and to come inside anyway. And then, before we left she disappeared into the kitchen and reemerged with two steaming pieces of fry bread and she smiled and told us “this should be good for a day like today.” And we thanked her and said goodbye, kissing each other’s cheeks. And the fry bread was almost too hot to hold in my bare hands and when we walked outside the streets were all abandoned because it was a Sunday evening and in Goya everyone is afraid of the rain. And I am not sure why something so simple and unremarkable was so wonderful to me, but how i savored that moment: walking through the empty streets, muddy boots, dark gray sky, steaming frybread in hand.

Here are some other precious, funny, quirky little details for you:

-Walking down Madariaga by the hospital we often pass an old man with only 3 or 4 teeth and when we see him he always, without fail, comes to greet us enthusiastically and tries to kiss Hna. Da Silva and she always, without fail, smiles and extends her arm firm and insistent and says “hello! As missionaries we greet with a handshake!” and his attempt to kiss her is foiled once more.

-Ducking under a barbed wire fence next to a horseracing track every time we go to visit Gustavo.

-There is a set of twin boys named Justo and Enrique. They are probably 11 or 12 years old and we run into them EVERYWHERE. Hna. Da Silva always enthusiastically yells out “Hola, Justo!!!” and 9 times out of 10 the boy shakes his head and yells “ENRIQUE!” and we continue on our way. We are starting to be able to tell them apart. Enrique is skinner and more serious. Justo is chubbier and a little warmer when he greets us. Sometimes we say the wrong name anyways just because it’s funny.

-Grido – the Baskin Robbins of Argentina has recently opened a new store half a block from our apartment. Hna. Da Silva and I are very please. Now we can keep relaxing all the time. 

-Hna. Da Silva love Christmas music. We probably sing at least one Christmas song a day. She also hates walking in straight lines because she says she feels like she’s not getting anywhere.  So we are always zigzagging through the streets. She loves to tell jokes. I love to translate her jokes into English because they don’t make as much sense but they sound funnier. Here is one for you:

Q: What do you call a yellow dot on top of a building?

A: A french fry committing suicide.

Well. I will leave you with that. I planned to tell you all about our investigator Marcelo and how he is incredible and he is going to get baptized next week and to share some thoughts from my scripture study but I am running out of time. I will tell you all about it next week.

I love you all! You should all send me a letter. I love getting paper mail.

Love,

Hna. Brooke  M. Parker

Letter from Goya - 17 October 2011

"Dogs and Mothers Day"

Dear family and friends,

Today I celebrate two months in my mission and the last P-day of my first transfer. Hna. Da Silva and I are pretty sure we are going to stay together but just in case we have been taking more pictures and today we decided to celebrate our first transfer together by buying lunch and eating it at this nice, peaceful park by the Parana River (“La Costanera”) and then going to eat ice cream.  It has been a long time since I last ate ice cream and it was delicious!

I was a little disappointed that the bathrooms in this ice cream shop would discriminate against women with 2 legs, but I just pretended I only had one leg like the woman in the sign and no one even noticed my fib.

I will let you know next week whether or not I am still here and whether or not I have a new companion. I´m hoping we will keep going strong here in Goya for at least one more transfer but I am prepared for anything.

Dogs

There are millions of dogs here in Goya. Many stray dogs and just as many not-stray dogs. Earlier this week it seemed that every single dog in the entire city wanted to attack us. At first we thought maybe it was my bright red dress that was inspiring such canine hatred (we were also wary of taking our usual shortcut through a cow pasture on this day, for fear that the bull would also attack me)—but the next day we realized it must be something else because I wore a much more subdued palette and they still pursued us. I am not sure what it was, but it seems to have passed and now we are only barked at and chased after a few times a day rather than constantly. 

With so many dogs we often come across some very interesting mixes. I am thinking about sending you a picture of my “dog of the week.” This week I came across a dog that actually made me laugh out loud because of its haircut. I hope you enjoy it the way i did. (picture pending)

Mother´s Day

This Sunday was mother´s day in Argentina and to celebrate we had a special activity to honor all the mothers this past Friday. It was a lot of work. The Relief Society President of the branch here planned the food but Hna. Da Silva and I planned everything else. We planned a spiritual thought using the scriptures in proverbs about virtuous women and talked about what it means to be a virtuous mother using examples from these scriptures. We also planned games –charades (loosely mother-themed. You knows words like “mother earth” and “Eve” and “Mary mother of Jesus” and “cradle), a game to quiz everyone´s knowledge of their own mother (her most prized possession, her favorite singer, her anniversary, etc) and finally we made a giant scavenger hunt (“the hunt for the lost diaper!” it was Hna. Da Silva´s idea and it ended up being pretty cute). At the beginning we announced that there was a lost diaper somewhere in the chapel and the first team to follow the clues, find it and bring it back to us would win a prize. We also baked a cake. And decorated the chapel. And helped another sister to make cards and little fake flowers to give to every mother.

Then we went to try to pick up investigators and walk with them to the chapel. When we went to look for Lujan, both of her adult daughters and all of the grandchildren were ready to come to the activity. It was quite a sight to see us parading through the streets (it is probably over two miles to the chapel) with an entourage of 9 small children. In the end, although we were exhausted, it was well worth the effort. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves immensely.

Losing Myself

Well, that´s all from me this week. I better go. At the end of my first transfer I am feeling much more comfortable with missionary work and with being a missionary. I have had times of homesickness or times where I have felt overwhelmed, but as I have prayed and studied the scriptures and asked for my Heavenly Father´s help I have been strengthened and I have found a lot of joy and meaning in my work here—even in small moments. I have especially tried to focus on forgetting myself and to focus all my thoughts and energies on the people I am serving here. In my spare time I have been writing people notes or planning creative ways to serve or help the people here (rather than writing letters or thinking about home) It really works!

Mark 8:35 “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.”

Love from Argentina,

 Hna. Brooke Parker

Letter from Goya - 11 October 2011

"Mi Cumpleaños y la Día de la Raza"

Dear family and friends,

Yesterday was a holiday in Argentina (Día De La Raza--I am not quite sure what they are celebrating and neither did anyone I asked) so they switched our P-Day to Tuesday this week. Anytime there is a holiday on a Monday they switch our P-Day to Tuesday, so if you don´t hear from me one week on a Monday this could be why.

Anyways, I don´t have too much time to write this week but thank you to everyone who wrote me and thank you for the birthday greetings! I have lots of photos for you this week.

Vera family

My birthday was great. I really can´t complain. First, we celebrated with a pudding cake that Hermana Da Silva made for me in our district meeting on Tuesday. Then, Wednesday morning I woke up to a little birthday scavenger hunt that my companion made for me. There were 22 pieces of paper hidden around our apartment and after I found them all I put them together to discover a birthday message. I have attached the photo. It is a scripture from the gospel of Luke. All throughout the day Hna Da Silva told people it was my birthday and I got a lot of greetings and even a few cards. That night we went to have dinner with the Vera family and they made me a special meal and we ate cake (AGAIN) together. I definitely felt loved and taken care of. I have attached a photo of dinner at the Vera´s.

Well, I can´t get the pictures from my camera to load for some reason so I will just leave you with the one´s from Hna Da Silva´s camera. Although we work in some very urban areas we also have a lot of more rural areas with dirt roads and a lot of fields and cows and long stretches of country. I love walking out to visit families in the country. On this particular day I decided to join Brisa and Cynthia and take off my shoes as we walked to town. They were on their way to buy some soda for their family--we were on our way to go teach another lesson.

Another family we visit lives out in the country in a little one-room wooden shack. They have 7 small children and, as you can see, two parrots. The nice one is named Pepe and I always like to put him on my shoulder when we go to visit. The kids were SO excited to take pictures with us this day when we brought our cameras.

I have also attached a picture of my Zone outside our chapel after the Sunday sessions of conference. 

Goya Zone

And, to close, the biggest and best news I have this week is that Elder Christofferson is coming to visit my mission on November 5th!!!  ALL the missionaries in the entire mission are traveling to Resistencia to hear him speak! I am very excited.

I love you all. I will have more pictures and stories to tell next week.

Love,

Hna Brooke Parker

Letter from Goya - 3 October 2011

"General Conference and Other Frequently Asked Questions"
Dear Family and Friends,

bfsh

All is well here in Goya! This week we had our first day of real deadly, sticky, sweaty heat. It was very hard. But, thankfully the weather has turned more gentle and spring like once more. Today I bought a big floppy sun hat (bfsh) though so I will be prepared next time. Hna. Da Silva already has one.

My email today will be short but I will respond to a few questions.

1. How was conference?

Conference was hectic but good. On Saturday morning we went to the chapel with one of our less-active members who had never been to conference before and NO ONE was there, except one brother and the zone leaders. It turns out the satellite was broken. Slowly more people trickled in and we ended up cramming everyone into a back room to watch the session streaming from the internet on a small computer monitor. I didn´t get to watch most of this session because there was no room for the missionaries and we were all running around trying to fix the satellite so we could watch the next session on the big screen in the chapel. One elder was on the phone with salt lake for what felt like hours, reading off numbers and pressing buttons and doing all kinds of strange and nonsensical and elusive things to try to fix it. Later a bunch of elders climbed up the satellite tower to remove a bird’s nest and to clean it out in case that was the problem. It didn´t work. Then they piled a bunch of tables one on top of another as a substitute for a ladder and tried fiddling with the projector. Finally, the zone leaders went out and bought the longest ethernet cable I have ever seen in my life and ran the cable all down the hallway of the building and connected the projector in the chapel to the internet in the branch president’s office and by midway through the second session on Saturday we were in business.

Conference is not the same when it is dubbed over in Spanish. It is also not the same when you are worried about your investigators and whether they are bored and whether or not they understand. Although, thankfully, most of them are beautiful, honest souls who seemed to enjoy themselves and feel the spirit despite their boredom and general confusion.

Sadly, I missed President Uchtdorf’s talk. I hear it was excellent. I probably will not be able to watch it for another year and a half, which is sad. But at least I can read it in a few months when we get the Liahona. 

I cannot believe they are turning the Provo Tabernacle into a temple! I was shocked. That is so cool. Did anyone catch wind of that before they announced it? When will it be finished? I am excited to return to Provo and go to that temple. New favorite temple.

2. What do you eat?

milanesa

Good question! We do not have many meals with members here. I am not sure why. We are trying On Sundays we eat with the Vera family and on Wednesdays we eat with the Aranda family. I would say, in general, the food is not very delicious to me--but keep in mind I have not shared meals with very many people. So far I have eaten lots of fried battered meats (they have this thing called milanesa that people eat all the time which is a breaded meat) and fried potato things and empanadas and bland pastas. The milk and yogurt here is not very delicious either. It has a weird chemically taste. I have stopped drinking it. I also don´t really like the desserts here. The cakes are very sugary and moist and covered in caramel and the "alfajores"  (sandwich cookies with caramel in the middle) are crumbly and starchy and bland. Thankfully Sister Heyman makes some of the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever tasted and she gives them to us every time with meet with her.

alfajores

All the days that we do not have meal appointments we cook for ourselves. I actually don´t mind this because I like cooking and it means that I don´t have to eat very much meat and I can eat healthily. The fruits and vegetables here are very good and fresh. Lots of people grow them in their gardens and sell them at little corner markets all over the city. I make for myself pasta and vegetable soup and omelets and fruit smoothies (I found an immersion blender in a pile of old dirty broken stuff in my apartment! I fixed it up and now I use it all the time). I have also made crepes and french toast and hash browns. 

I am hopelessly, endlessly, tragically, desperately missing peanut butter. I would sell my left arm to get some good peanut butter.

Well, that´s all for this week. I will send more pictures and stories next week.

Love,

Hna. Brooke Parker