Weekly Dec. 22, 2014

Hola Everyone,

Elder Bartlett & Elder Eakle

near El Calafate

Just to clarify, I moved areas from Ushuaia to El Calafate and my companion is now Elder Eakle! It's weird because we were just with each other in Ushuaia, and now we're companions! He got really excited when he saw that I was writing about him, so I'll write a little bit about how cool he is. Elder Tyler Eakle is from Parker, Colorado, and is birthday twins with my brother, Ivan. He really loves to sing and play guitar, and likes country music. He went to BYU for a year and will return there after the mission. He is super cool. He is senior companion, but only has one more transfer than me! We're trying to figure out what exactly we're doing out here in the middle of nowhere.

Even though I missed two days traveling, we did some great work this week! I beat my record for the most contacts I have ever done in one day! Plus, they were mostly really good, promising future investigators!

I have already seen so many miracles it's crazy! We decided one day to walk way out to one of the points of our area to see if we could find some people to teach. We walked, and walked, and walked, and forget trek there was so much wind and dust and walking! My companion said he just wanted to get into a house. After about 2 hours we arrived at a very large house, and a young mother met us at the door, and invited us in! She was super nice, but I'm not sure how interested she was... Then we began the long walk back. We were about 15 minutes in, and my companion asked for a car. Literally seconds after, a tourist truck pulled up and gave us a ride all the way back! Cool, or what?

nice dirt roads

I definitely miss the landscape of Ushuaia... El Calafate is dirt and wind. The only nice place is centro (downtown) because it has trees and buildings and paved roads. There is one paved road in our area, and we hardly ever use it. So far the people are really nice, so that's a plus.

I spilled more juice yesterday... and dropped the guys pen-drive. I don't know if he'll invite us back to teach, but we're going back to do service on Saturday! Might giganticness doesn't mix well with the homes of Argentina. I feel like Gandolf in a hobbit home. For whatever reason, these people had a wire on the top of their fence posts, and I got clothes-lined in the face.

wire on entrance, got clothes lined in the face

landscape around El Calafate

The work is difficult here, but we are working to get the ball rolling. The Christmas cards we've been using have been really helpful. I'm sure all of you have seen it all over anything church related, it's called "He is the Gift." Just a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas. Look it up, and write me back what you think of the video.

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!

Love, Elder Bartlett