This week went by so much faster. I have been learning so much that it's unreal. In two week, I have learned more Spanish than I did in two years of school and another two years of working with the Hispanics at Chick-fil-A. A usual day at the CCM (which I mistakenly called the "Centro de Captivaciòn Misional" last email; it's actually the Centro de Capacitaciòn Misional, although sometimes it feels more like captivity rather than capacitation...). A usual day is as follows: we wake up at 6:30 am and take showers, get ready, etc. Breakfast is always cold cereal and some sort of pastry. (Lunch and dinner is real food and the food here is amazing.) I'm not sure if this is a CCM thing or an Argentina thing, but the milk is never cold! It's in between warm and cold. This is inexcusable! It might be time for me to break my covenants and put ice milk. Just kidding. They won't break me.
After breakfast is personal study. Before my mission,k I never really understood personal study like I do now. The purpose of personal study is to study for our investigators (as long as we have people to teach) and their needs. If I were teaching a guy named Pablo and he needed to learn about the Atonement, then I would pray for guidance and receive inspiration about which principles he needs to know about the Atonement. Following personal study is companionship study, where we come together and decide how we'll teach our investigator(s), like who will cover which principles and how we are going to convey our message (in Spanish!).
We then have language study, which is usually the time my disrict loses focus (because they are anxiously waiting for lunch). Trying to keep us focused is getting easier. ONe of our teachers, Hermano Antoniette, says that our district is the perfect median between having fun and begin serious about learning. It's great to have a bright and willing district. Two of the Elders are struggling a little bit with the language, one of which is one of my companions, Elder Parker, because of his thick southern accent (Still very entertaining to listen to in any language.) During our studies, we also teach investigators played by the teachers. We have investigators that we visit frequently and also some that we just visit with once. This is to prepare us to teach any principle we want to. Finding the needs of an investigator is like a spiritual puzzle. We seek divine inspiration which takes an ear for the Spirit, a lot of patience, and discussion with my companions. We have lunch, then go back to the classroom for more Spanish study. Everything moves so quickly, I know that without the Spirit none of us would be learning this fast. Following Spanish class is MORE Spanish class (on the computer and the we have Actividad Fìsica (Physical Activity). We are expected to do something active so let me just say that you KNOW I'm being exactly obedient whin I subject myself to basketball ad soccer. Sometimes we play volleyball, which I'm much better at, but seriously, I'm in SOuth America. Everybody wants to play soccer. I will probably be pro by the end of my mission.
We clean oursevles up and then you guessed it! MORE Spanish class! We can never get enought of it. More vocbulary, berbs, tenses, irregulars, an grammar. Spanish grammar is super confusing, buy I'm understand more of it with every passing day. After we've had about as much SPanish as we could take for one day, we have dinner and then doctrinal class. We watch a lot of "the District" movies (documentaries about missionary work) and read a TON of Preach my Gospel and talk about how we listen to the SPirit and meet investiagors' needs. Our evening teacher, hermano Melerio, ust got off his mission in Argentina six weeks ago and he is great at helping us realize what our necesities are as teachers of the Gospel of Jusus Christ. We finish up our day with planning, where we talk as companionships about the needs of our investigators and what we feel they should learn and then we go ack to uor dorms to get ready for bed and go to sleep. Elder Parker, Elder Pointer, and I share a dorm with a Latino companionship: Elder Castro from Columbia and Elder Puruncajas from Ecuador. Both of them are helping us with our Spanish in any way they can. There aren't really any restrictions about where we can't speak English (except in lessons and most of any class), but my district is making several goals to speak as much spanish as possible. Since Elder Puruncajas can understand most of English, he is my human dictionary! I love that guy! Both of them have taken me to new levels of Español.
On Saturdays, we go out and proselyte! From 12-6 we dive into the cities of Argentina and put our limited knowledge and sub-par speaking skills into action! Try to undersatnd an Argentine's Spanish is harder than using a whisk to scoop ice cream. It's no walk in tha park. But somehow we manage to convery our message...long enought for them to say that they're not interesed. It was frustarting (we've only gone out once so far), but then a few people listened to us for five or ten minutes and I had the opportuniy to bear my testimony to a lady in Spanish. This is no easy work, but it definitely has its rewards.
If I had more time to write, I would, but they only give us 30 minutes! Take solace and comfort in the fact that CHRISTMAS is coming!!! Read your scriputres! Look for missionary opportuniteis! If you pray for them, they will come!
LOVE,
Elder Plautz
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