Proselytizing in a Tough Neighborhood

Seventh Email from the MTC

Date: Thu Oct 15, 2009 1:15 PM

Hello family,

How’s everything going? I hope well. I’m still here at the MTC in Buenos Aires-Surprise! Ha-ha-ha

Well, my English seems to be getting worse and sometimes I feel that my Spanish isn’t getting any better! Right now I feel like I’m stuck in the middle of a high level stupor (if that makes any sense). I can’t seem to express how I feel very well in English or Spanish! Besides all of that, I’m well.

Last week, they opened a new area for proselytizing that has been closed for years. It’s been closed because it was deemed too dangerous and ghetto for the missionaries to enter. Well, they decided to assign my companion and me to the area. If you can imagine the most ghetto place in America and multiply that by 4, it’s about what it was like. Our day of proselytizing was very tough. Nobody wanted to talk to us. We didn’t have very much time to actually proselytize because it was an hour walk from our drop off point. We spent two hours just trying to walk there and then back. Here in Argentina, at about one o´clock every store, shop and home closes up for two to three hours for nap time. This is called siesta! I’m about 100% sure you already know about this. Well, when siesta hits, it’s very hard to do missionary work. So needless to say, Saturday was very, very hard; full of rejection and all sorts of other things!

A funny story… while we were out, I had to use the bathroom. We were looking for somewhere to go and this was during siesta time. Well, we could only find this bar/saloon like place that was well lit, but the company inside wasn´t so righteous. We decided to try it out. As we entered, the music was turned off, everybody shut up and just stared at these two gringos who could barely speak Spanish ask for the bathroom. Don’t worry, we were just fine and it was kind of a cool experience to have. I realized that we really do stand out.

Well besides that, things have been pretty good and fun. I have a little more than two full weeks until I become a REAL missionary and I’m dying to get out of here.

I love you ALL. I hope things are going well!

Love,
Elder John Sluder