Jordan's April 12, 2010 letter

Dear Family,

Good morning! How are you all doing? Yay! I´m 20 years old now! And I´m 8 months into my mission! I had a great Birthday! My companion made me a flan for breakfast :) And the President called me to tell me happy birthday and sing to me with the whole "Mission Presidency", which was cool. My zone leader and district leader also called. For something yummy, I bought ice cream in the night that was very yummy. My companion and I got a half a kilo each, so there was lots of yummy ice cream to eat! Yay! It was a really good Birthday!!! And guess what else? With the rest of my birthday money, I bought some new speakers for my mp5 player :) and I bought a harmonica, so I can practice playing hymns in the apartment! I want to become a harmonica master in the mission field. I like it a lot!

My mp5 is still in the mission office, but they’ll send it to me tomorrow. I sure hope it´s completely loaded! And I put in a receipt for a fan I bought for our last apartment so I can get the money back :) It was a hundred pesos.

Yeah I got the birthday card - thanks Mom! I got my birthday package alright, with the Bible inside and the whoopie-cushion and stuff like that. I know for sure I haven´t gotten the Easter package yet, ...I have an idea though. Maybe the next time (whenever it is) you can try putting the Jesus stickers all over it the package? That´s what I´ve seen a lot of here, and usually nothing happens to the package if it´s got that all over it. It´s just an idea.

Thanks for your great letters, and also for the picture of Andrew and his band - that´s rocking! I wish I could do something like that, but unfortunately there´s not a "rock" portion of vibraphone playing (unless I buy one of the cool ones that you can basically make it sound like an electric guitar :).

I still don´t know which way is north. I´m going to buy a compass (a cheap one) maybe, so I can at least know that information. Besides that, I´m knowing my area little by little - I finally got a map so I can color it and study up a little better.

I´m just eating up the mission and really enjoying myself out here, especially with all of the people I´m meeting and the great opportunities I have here to serve the people! Man...the mission rocks!

This Sunday was my first time having meetings in the chapel here - it was great! As a ward, Luján 2 seems to be a lot stronger than Libertad. What´s funny is that Luján 2 is a branch, not even a ward, but that the Mel. Priesthood holders here are way stronger and more active...and the members seem to be pretty good too. It´s a good branch! I´m excited to help them grow and hopefully they can become a ward with the time that I have with them. That´d be the coolest!

I don´t get to play the piano here because there´s already people who play pretty good. I´ve found families who I know are way nice people. Want to know something else cool? There´s a guitar professor in our ward! And he´s young too - like 28 or something, and he teaches at a University. He was way interested to hear that I want to do the same as what he´s doing someday (teaching music.) It was really fun talking with him. We eat lunch with him every Saturday- yay!

My week was great! We had divisions with Luján 1, and I got to spend some time with Elder Fuentealba from that area. We had a great time and had some really good teaching situations, and I think he´s a really rocking Elder. It was a fun time!

This next week I think we´re going to head to the giant church Basilica. It is huge!!! It´s got huge gargoyles too. I´ll send you pictures when I end up going there!

I´m going to start trying to go to bed early and waking up at 6:00am so I can get more studies done in the morning. I want to become a better master of the doctrine, because I feel like I know some things right now but that I should know a lot more. I´m going to try and push myself a little more so I can teach more with the scriptures and with more power.

Speaking of teaching, it´s a lot different here in Argentina that what I though it´d be. I thought lessons would be like fixed appointments, going into their house, using lots of scriptures, etc., but I´ve found that here it´s mostly streetwork and contacting people and stuff like that. We still get appointments at times, but many times it´s just using pamphlets and talking to people in the streets. I thought that was interesting.

I need to do more with exercises, too- I was much better this last week because I used my stretchy band a lot, and I ordered the mission health guide which comes with the band so I can do more exercises to work out my whole body. I switched to using bands for my exercising, because I can get a pretty good workout with those things.

The Walmart here is a full-sized Walmart, but needs some American stuff (like peanut butter, hot cocoa...man, I want to buy more of that! It´s cold in the mornings so hot cocoa is good :). The Walmart is really good though, because you can see that the stuff there is high-quality - there´s not the risk of buying junk like in the other stores, because it´s all well-made there.

Dad! I liked your picture with your frosted shredded wheat. Guess what?...that doesn´t exist out here! Man, there´s so much stuff that were simple pleasures back home. I was thinking about Calvin and Hobbes this morning as I sipped my hot cocoa, and I sure wanted to read those!!

Other than that, all is well! I had a great birthday and now I´ve got 8 months in the mission! I love the mission and I love the Lord, and I´m grateful for all He has done for me and has done for my family as well! I pray for you all daily and ask Him to give you all happiness and peace in your lives. I sure love you all! Thanks for all that you do for me and I´ll be looking forward to writing you again in a week! I love you!

Love,
Elder Nuttall