The Field

Um, wow.  Things here are CRAZY.  And very, very unsanitary.  But I love it. 

I´ve changed a lot.  Basically I´m a white gaint. Seriously, I have a good almost head taller than any of the girls here.  Some of the guys are my height.  It´s fabulous.  The people always comment on how tall I am, and how light my eyes are. Apparently I talk very beautifully, even though its 12x slower than them.  I had to speak on Sunday and everyone commented on how much they love to hear me. All the kids and teenagers ask me to tell them what certain words are in English, and how I feel about Obama.  And if I personally know Will Smith.  One of our investigators name is Benjamin.  And he said, "Like your president.  Benhamin Frankin."

No one here can say my name, and whenever I say it they giggle.  The bishop couldn´t either when he was reading my name over the pulpit!  My companion (Hermana Lopez of Honduras) says it almost right if I´ve recently said it.  Most people can say shoom-waiy.  They don´t have a lot of u´s or w´s in their words.  Hermana Lopez is fantastic.  She doesn´t know too much english, but for the most part we communicate fine. 

Everyone here sounds like that grizzled old chicken farmer from Napolean Dynamite that is impossible to understand.  They don´t open their mouths, a lot of them are missing teeth, and there are a ton of shah and jhuh´s. I love them.  The people here are so humble and willing to hear our message.  We never wander long before finding someone to teach.

We left at 6 on monday morning. And it was a long journey.  The flight here was crazy!  When we landed in Buenos Aires (tuesday), the weather was bad and we had to wait in the plane an hour because there wasn´t a portal to deboard.  Luckily, Mark Ruffalo´s Argentinian look alike got us out, and we were on our way- or so we thought.  We waited at baggage claim for not 1, 2, or 3 hours, but 4.  4 HOURS!!! The workers were on strike.  The worst part was that we could see our bags from where we were waiting, 10 feet away outside.  After 3 hours some of the Elders asked if we could move the bags ourselves, but they would not let us. Because of this delay, we missed our flight to Salta and needed to wait for a later one.

We then were quickly whisked to the Buenos Aires temple for a few minutes, lunch, then back to the airport.  Our flight was delayed and we had to wait an extra 3 hours.  There´s something about 60ish well dressed american teenagers talking about God, that sorta freaked everyone out. 

When we finally got to Salta, it was midnight (Wednesday)- and I had been up for nearly 48 hours.  Instead of sleeping, we went to the President´s house for dinner!  It was amazing- but I was so tired.  We went to bed at 3 am , and had to get up at 7. 

Wednesday night we took a 2 hour bus ride to our area Jujuy, Perico.  (huhuey).  We went to bed at 2am and got up at 7.  I was sooo tired on Thursday, it was really hard to try to focus on understanding spanish.

Our apartment reminds me of Venice.  Run down, dumpy, and sad.  It photographs beautiful though!  It really grossed me out at first, but I´m used to it now.  It´s 100X times nicer than any house we´ve visited. The toilet doesn´t flush, so you just throw a bucket of water in after you are done and hope everything goes down.  Toilet paper can´t go in there so their is a rank bag next to the toilet for disposal.  And their is no light- so I try to only go in the day time.

It´s hard, but I´m really happy.  Its nothing like I expected.  Dirt roads, shack houses, wild dogs- EVERYWHERE.  If we could convert them, it would take a year alone to baptize all of them. 

Love you all!  More next week about everything, I´m doing great!

- Hermana Shumway

Courtney and her Mission President Ariel Chaparro and his wife Ana.  This was taken atleast 42 hours after she left the MTC just after arriving at the mission home.

Last look at Hermana Herrera and Shumway together

The Buenos Aries Temple

Selfie

She looks good for traveling so long it was about 30 hours into her trip and still not to Salta

Last look at her MTC district before they  separated to their missions.