What a beautiful city!

Holad Todos!                                                                                      June 22, 14

It’s been another great week in Adrogué Argentina. It’s been pretty crazy also because this past week was transfer week. Elder Mason and I are staying together another transfer in the office! But with that come all of the responsibilities of being an office elder during transfer week, so there aren’t super exciting stories to tell this week.

My life has been dealing with packages. I can see why they asked us not to let our families send anymore packages.  It is an expensive and annoying process, but because of packages, we get to go see the capital every two weeks! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY. If we as a family ever get a chance to go to Buenos Aires, I fear that we would use the majority of the time in Capital seeing the sites there. My mission has a lot of people, good people, but when it comes to tourist stuff, its not exactly top of the list. The capital is full of beautiful European style buildings, parks and plazas. The train Stations are HUGE! There are two that I know of that have to be the size of Grand Central Station in New York City. It’s a super cool place, and that’s defiantly one of the perks of being an office Elder. We also were able to ride up with a taxi driver who happens to be a member. He was a little crazy as he talked about how in 1956 Hitler was in Argentina and talked with him about patriotic stuff. I’m pretty sure Hitler died a long time before that year, but I just nodded my head and acted interested.

The World Cup is in full swing here so it is fun. At about every other intersection there is someone selling jerseys, flags, vuvuzuelas (those loud plastic trumpets), and crazy blue and white hats. But being completely honest, I wouldn’t say that it is super crazy ---yet.  In fact it is the opposite. Argentina has played two games so far, and it’s super quiet during the games. Nobody is in the streets. There are no cars, no people; there aren’t even any buses (the hermanas in our ward learned that the hard way). We always know what is happening because out of nowhere we hear fireworks, screams, and cheers. So we can just count those bursts of excitement.  And after the game, everybody likes talking about the World Cup. So even though we don’t watch the games, we get details from a lot of people. It actually breaks the ice easily when we talk with others.

As far as teaching goes, we are really pushing to get our recent convert, Andrea to the temple. The Buenos Aires temple is closed for the entire month of June, but we are getting her ready and helping her with her family history so that she can be ready to enter the temple in July. 

When we take a step back and look at the Plan of Salvation in its entirety, it’s amazing how the eternities are linked together, how families are bound together from generation to generation, and how it is all done with extreme simplicity and order. We have a loving Father in Heaven, and while his plan is made for all of his children, it blesses each and every one of us in a very personal way. As we find out more about our ancestors, we can see the perspective of eternity, and the importance of our actions today, and how they we can affect future generations for centuries to come.

Just a little food for thought.

It is fun to hear about the dog Chips. I love the picture of the way he sits. What a corky dog. That’s just weird. Maybe Dad should watch his Yoga videos with him; it looks like Chips would make a good partner.

Chips knows the "downward dog" yoga pose

Anyway, that´s it for this week. Next week should be fun. Its amazing how quckly time passes by. I love you and hope to talk to you soon!

Thanks for all that you do for me. I love you all and hope you are enjoying the summer there! It’s amazing how quickly time passes by here.

Nos Vemos!

Elder Chipman

 PS: I made this guy out of a coat rack and some extra clothes that left by some missionaries. We´ve been using him to scare some of the Senior Missionaries couples in the offices. We got one couple pretty good yesterday, and so in turn, they hid it in another couple's office, and we will see what happens on Monday!