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