Arriving at the Mission Home and Week # 7 and Week #8

Dear Murphy  family,

We wanted to inform you that ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Elder Murphy  arrived safely to Mendoza this afternoon.  His mission president, President Panzacchi (joined by his wife), welcomed him at the airport in Mendoza. After a brief meeting tomorrow morning he will be assigned to his first companion and begin his labors in the mission field. I have attached a photo of Elder Murphy  with President Panzacchi and his wife below.

Thank you for supporting Elder Murphy . We are excited to have him in our mission!

Sincerely,

Elder Johnson and Elder Castillo

Argentina Mendoza Mission

LETTER FROM LAST WEEK: (Tuesday, August 22nd) 

Finally after 10 days I am able to update and get everything on the table.

This has been one of the craziest weeks that I have ever experienced. I guess I'll start where I left off on Sunday. Sunday was just an average Sunday in the MTC where you attend the branch and district meetings, then eventually attend the Sunday devotional. This one was a bit more special because Elder Ballard spoke up there. That was cool. I don't really remember what he said to be completely honest but it's always cool to hear an apostle speak.

That Sunday night was a very long one to be honest. It was the last night in the MTC. A lot of people stayed up packing (I was already finished for like 2 days) and there was a mini party upstairs. That was fun. I probably didn't fall asleep until like two in the morning. We woke up at about 6, packed up every last thing we had, then went to the travel office. They picked up our bags and we took a few trains and buses all the way to the Salt Lake airport. We get there and fly to Atlanta. This was my last experience in the United States. I bought a McDonald's burger, knowing I probably wouldn't eat one for a while. One bad thing that happened was that I got sick, probably from being around Elder Flowers who was sick. We took a 10 hour flight to Buenos Aires. It was super long. I felt horrible for the whole entire thing. My stomach hurt from being sick and from being extremely nervous. Eventually I made it, extremely excited that I didn't throw up. We get to Buenos Aires, go to another airport and fly for an hour and a half to Mendoza. Our mission president picks us up, we have dinner and stay a couple nights in a hotel, doing training and such.

We eventually meet our trainers. Mine is Elder Vergaras from Mexico City. He's cool. It's pretty hard for us to communicate because he knows extremely little English and I only know so much Spanish. We take a bus to our area, Valle de Uco and then spend a week there. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was probably one of the hardest weeks of my life. It's pretty painful to only be able to speak in extremely basic Spanish conversations. I feel like I haven't really talked to anyone for a week, and that is really hard. The whole experience is honestly surreal. You see pictures of what life is like in South America and in poor homes, but you really don't know how real it is until you actually visit it. There have been multiple occasions where I walk into a place and don't know if I the things I have slinged on me are worth more than their whole house. They are really humble. We can learn a lot from people that don't have as much of us. They hold things like family very close to them and are very grateful for what they have, which is very little.

If you're wondering about the food, it's honestly pretty nasty. When we were at the mission home we ate some amazing food, but since being in my area I've probably lost a few pounds.

It may not sound like I like it here yet, but whenever I think about the experience of a mission as a whole, I wouldn't trade it for anything. The best things in life you have to earn, and that's a lesson that I have really never learned in my life. I've had it easy. Now, I don't and that is something really good for me. Some may argue what I have now is still having it easy, knowing I get to eventually return to the United States. I will now probably NEVER complain about living in the United States after my mission.

Two last things I wanted to say that surprised me is the amount of spiders and amount of dogs here. I literally have not seen 1 spider in my whole time in Argentina. That's awesome because I absolutely hate spiders. I've probably never seen more dogs in my life, though. I may see more dogs than people. They just walk around, in businesses, neighborhoods, homes, middle of streets.

To anyone who has read to this point, I commend you because it was a lot of random travel information and venting. I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes. There's no English spellcheck on these computers and the keyboards here are whack. There is a key for ñ and you can make léttérs líké thís vérý éásílý.

Thank you for reading,

-Elder Murphy

This is Collin's "Home Away from Home".............

LETTER FROM TODAY: (Monday, August 28th)

I apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes. These keyboards are hard to use and there is no spellcheck in English. From my perspective, every single word that I type has a red underline unless it is also a word in Spanish.

First full week in the mission field is over.

It was definitely a fairly slow week, but I keep getting reminded while walking in the dirty streets of Tupungato, Argentina of the song by Steve Miller "Fly Like an Eagle," where he says "time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, into the future." It's important that I use my time wisely while I am here.

My highlight of the week was probably going to the stake conference in Tunuyàn, which is about 30 or 40 miles away. It was a broadcast to Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay from Salt Lake. Some important people in the church spoke there, the most prominent of which being Elder Rasband from the Quorum of the Twelve apostles. I would love to tell you exactly what was said, but it was totally in Spanish and I only picked up some of what was said. It was quite frustrating during the talks by the last 2 speakers because they spoke in English, but it was translated into Spanish. Some important things that they talked about were the importance of the members in missionary work, and how the work can progress much faster if the members play a role in harmony with the missionaries. That is truly the "Marvelous work" that they talk about in D&C section 4.

On the ride home from that, we rode in a van back to our area. I was sitting in the only seat in the whole van that didn't have a seat belt.  In the front seat. Driving on the highway. I am glad to say that I did not die during that ride.

The Spanish is coming, but slowly. One of the other Elders told me that 8 months in he still was unable to communicate with people and stuff, and that he just got used to not being able to understand people. That's cool that he feels that way, but I don't want to turn out like that. I will do all that is in my power to learn this language and be able to communicate. One of the speakers at the MTC, if I remember correctly Elder Clarke of the Seventy gave an amazing talk to us. By far the best devotional we received at the MTC. In it, he shared a small quote with us, "Happy always, content never." It's hard to learn Spanish, and it's unlikely, if not impossible to learn the language as good as the native speakers. That means that for the duration of my mission, there will always be room to improve. I will try my hardest to never be content with the level that I am at.

I guess to end off my email I'll talk about what it's like to live in Argentina. If you want to Google maps where I live, I live in a small part of Mendoza, Argentina called Tupungato. I assume everyone reading this is from the United states so i will compare it to the United States. Before I say anything that may sound bad about this area, I want to say that living here is one of the coolest and best things that has ever happened to me. That being said, It is extremely dirty here. When you eat food, you just have to pray that the food itself, the plate your eating on or the utensil you are using won't get you sick. It's pretty much all "safe," but from an American perspective it is VERY dirty. The richest people in this area probably are barely above the poverty line in America. The food here is...........interesting to say the least. I really miss the food in America.

Sometimes you have a good sandwich or a good soup. A few days ago the stake president drove by and gave us a pretty delicious chicken. Most of the time though, It is just super plain, and super dry, and kinda just tastes like random vegetables, rice/pasta/bread and chicken (with lots of bones). And lots of mayo and eggs. Like I don't think I would ever bring my mom here, I'm not sure she physically could eat all of the things here without throwing up (sorry mom). The pizza here is really bland and gross too. Like its pretty much just bread, grounded tomato and random cheese. It tastes like nothing, yet you end up eating it quite a bit. Go to your local Little Caesars and that pizza will be about 50x better than any pizza here. I never thought i would say this, but I would kill for a Little Caesars pizza right now.

Thanks for reading my letter. It's an amazing and life changing experience living here in Argentina.

-Elder Murphy