First Week in My New Home

 

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Mon 11/11/2024 5:03 AM

Oh man! This week has been one of the hardest things I have been through. I clearly misunderstood when my family and friends were talking about how hard the first week would be. It was pretty rough.

Tuesday: woke up at 4:30 to catch a flight at 9:10. It was a 9 hour flight to Buenos Aires. We got 2 meals on the flight breakfast and dinner. They were both mid but I still ate them all. There's not really much to do on an airplane when your a missionary. I downloaded a bunch of conference talks and Church music to listen to. But that only got me through about 3 hours of the flight. My friend started talking to this lady, they started talking about the gospel, she seemed really interested and was asking a bunch if questions. We answered and handed her a BOM. She loved us. When we landed we got our bags and found the mission president of Buenos Aires. They took us to a super nice hotel and we got comfy.

Wednesday: we ate dinner at the hotel at around 1:00 in the morning. We were going to go sleep but right as we left dinner, the leader said that we need to be in the lobby at 2 to catch our flight. Sadly we did not get to sleep in a nice hotel. We got ready and went to the airport again. Got checked in and through security. While we were walking in the airport I found the holy grail of chocolates, MILKA BARS. I bought a few because they are so good.  And hopped on a flight to Córdoba. This plane ride I was out cold, it only felt like a 5 second plane ride. We landed and met our mission president and they took us to the home. We ate a amazing breakfast lunch and dinner. And they told us a few things about Córdoba and answered our questions. Then they gave us 6 hours if nap time plus the normal night hours we get at night.

Thursday: woke up, ate breakfast and it was time to meet our comps. They called each one of us up to the front to announce our companion and area. When it got to me I announced, Bialet Massé, with my companion Elder Maia. First my companion. We is from Brazil and only speaks Spanish, no English whatsoever. He is a super hard worker, he is a convert, he was converted a year and a half ago, and had only been on his mission for 3 months. He is very dirty but is nice. For my Area is Bialet Massè. A small town right outside of Córdoba about an hour away. There's no cement streets, dogs everywhere, and every house has a gate. Not to mention it's on a hill, and we so happen to live at the bottom of it. It's a small town with 15 members. And the Area just opened up 3 months ago. When we got there we had 4 messages we had to give plus a few door to door finding. Nothing to hard but cool.

Friday: first full day in the field, the first 3 hours of the day consisted of house to house preaching. They all have gates here so you have to clap to get then to come outside and talk. We were going house to house, we found this guy walking around his house, we went and talked to him. When we told him we were missionaries sharing a message about Jesus Christ. He fell to his knees crying saying that he needed someone to talk to and we were the people. His wife and just broke up with him and he lost everything his house, children, and a bunch if other things. He is living in his oldest sons house. We shared a message about love and gave him a BOM. He kindly accepted it, we set up another appointment and went back to clapping houses. We got permission to go shopping as well because I don't have any food. We bought the essentials, which is meat. We got so much meat for super cheap.

Saturday: by far the hardest day I have ever had in my life. We got up at 6:30 got ready, studied, and left to go see some contacts, people who were interested but didn't schedule a time to get a lesson. They just told us to come by again. We walked and walked and walked and walked, and you'll never guess, we walked some more. My legs our swelling at this point and it's about as hot as it is in Mexico when I go there every year. At this point I can't tell if I'm gaining pounds, or losing pounds, you could fill buckets with the sweat that we were producing. When it was time to go back for lunch he took me on what they call the walk through hell. It's about 3 miles of highway in the hot sun with no shade and no water. It felt like it took forever to walk it, it was bad. My comp also told me we were having a 24 hour fast. It was rough getting through the first 7. We were walking and you can't have water bottles on you when your walking so we usually ask people after we talk to them for a glass of water. They usually say yes and we chug it. While we were walking up all these hills in the heat, water was a must, but fir everybody that offered some we said no, holding strong to the fast. We also met up with this guy named Esikial who has accepted a baptism date for the 24th.

Sunday: first Sunday. We caught a train to church about a 30 minute ride, and then walked a couple minutes to the church. We went with a few of the members from our Area. Here they do classes first and then sacrament meeting. We got there at the end of class and start of sacrament meeting. They had me bear my testimony and introduce myself. They speak Castellano here, not Spanish. They are to pretty different but somewhat the same languages. So I have to throw about half my knowledge of Spanish away in the trash. I can speak it really well, but I just can not understand it. After church we had a few meetings with other missionaries and small things like that. We caught a bus home and ended our fast. My companion made us stakes. I ate about 3 of them plus a few bowls of cereal. After that we went pit and started preaching again. We had a lesson with the Castillo family. They are super fun and chill to hang with, even though I don't understand them. 

My new P-days are Mondays.  Please don't be afraid to email me at Tiago.fuller@missionary.org If you email me in time I get to respond but if not I have to wait till next Monday to respond. It's really hard and I am not really enjoying the mission, but the work is about the Lord, not me. Keep praying for me, I really need it, we will talk to you next week. ADIOS.