Hola de Argentina!

Hola my amigos y familia!

so... this week has been crazy. Rough, difficult, crazy, confusing, and a whole lot of other things. This letter will be a combination of my journal and my planner, and I´ll start with wednesday! (ps, i´m sorry about capitalization and punctuation, and I´m sorry that i can´t send pictures this week, and I´m sorry that this is so long)

WEDNESDAY

So. I´ve decided that I DO NOT like the ATL airport... at all. why_ because after an almost 5 hour flight, my poor little legs don´t exactly feel like walking 100 trillion miles just to get to my departure gate! haha for reals though--that place is enormous. once I finally got to said departure gate, I realized how starving I was... all i had to eat since morning was cherries, a naked drink, and granola bar. So I loaded up on dinner: beef jerky, trail mix, and life saver gummies. Our flight got delayed til 10:30 m, which was ok because I totally made friends with this adorable lady from el salvador who served her mission in washington dc! so that was nice :) when we finally got on the plane, it wasn´t full, so i snatched the row behind me to lay down on and sleep. the airplane people are really nice to people that have long flights... I got a little rice and chicken dinner, and it would have been good if it stayed in my stomach -_- the second we hit turbulence, I ran to the bathroom and lost all my dinner. So that was lovely :p haha but yeah... I got like 1 hour of sleep. I watched nacho libre and laughed out loud at it all by myself! I probably shouldn´t have done it, because I was set apart, but I kind of didnt realize that until the end... oh well :p I did get to wake up to a sunrise above the clouds though, and it was gorgeous!!

THURSDAY: I got to the airport and somehow my president and his wife missed me, so I was lost all by myself for 10 minutes... it was scary, not gonna lie :( I finally found them and they took me to the temple to walk around, and I got to be outside the argentina mtc too! It was crazy knowing that dallin went there, and now kaitlin hodgson is there too. Haha I seriously felt so weird... anyhoo, after that we went to the mission office, and I met my  new companion from Utah named hermana mickelson. she´s really cool and about 7 or 8 inches taller that me! haha she always calls me hermanita :) after that, our presidente took us out to lunch with his wife, and then we got dropped off at our apartment and took off on bikes. we had a couple visits with people and i literally understood absolutely nothing of what anyone said. Gosh dang Castellano accents. It was rough and I was so happy to get home and go to bed..

FRIDAY: I got to know the area more on friday... and talk about culture shock! part of our area is kinda city ish, but it´s not even considered city compared to the actual argentina cities. Everyone here drives motorcycles more than cars, and the "city" is pretty much more like extremely poor, short building version of brooklyn new york. the other part of our area is ALLLLL shacks and dirt roads. It´s so crazy. We bike through mud all day when it rains, to be honest... and I get so dirty! There are dogs roaming EVERYWHERE and anyone that knows me knows how much I love dogs... but I can´t do anything about it because they all have diseases and are gross and stuff. It breaks my heart :/ it´s freezing here, too, but I´m getting accustomed to that a little bit. The rain goes through everything, even if it is ¨waterproof". Traffic rules barely exist... and our taxi that took us to our apartment from the mission office was an old, beat up car that rocked all by itself. There was a cockroach that I sat on, and it was kinda duck taped together... and the guy was driving at least 50 miles over the speed limit down the middle of the freeway lane. I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE!!! also, EVERYONE KISSES HERE. it´s considered kinda rude of you don´t greet someone with a kiss on the cheek... that´s soooo weird for me to be honest :o we don´t do it to guys but all the women do it and it threw me off the first day when this random lady just grabbed my face and went for it haha. ah man... but yeah... i won´t write much about saturday because it was kind of the same honestly haha :)

SUNDAY:

Sunday was church. I was so excited!!.... and then I got there and I couldn´t understand one word of the lesson, or the sacrament meeting, or relief society. Nothing. I tried so hard to hold back tears, but on the way home I just cried and cried because A) it was raining, and my face was already wet, and B) my companion was ahead of me so she couldn´t see. I wanted so badly to understand Castellano, but I just couldn´t. The only thing that kept me sane was the hymns that we sang... it brought peace, and a lot of it! After church we had lunch with our branch president and his wife. She cooks really well and it was AMAZING!!! I ate ton because dinner doesn´t exist here... so if you don´t eat a good lunch, you are starving by 10:30. the rest of sunday went really well... we taught this woman that grew up in the church but is no longer active. Her best friend is on a mission in bolivia, and that was the only reason she let the sister missionaries into her house about a week before i got here. During the morning planning, I had a feeling that we should share the story of the stripling warriors with her. I had never met this chica before, and I knew nothing about her, but that is what I felt. Hna Mickelson taught her once before, but that´s it. We got there and she was so, so, so cute and happy and energetic! she is one of my favorite people EVER!! I love her so much (fun fact.... uptown funk is playing in english on the radio right now in the computer library. hahahaha oh my gosh I am cracking up). anyhoooo, I started to share with her the story and she just shook her head and chuckled. We asked what was wrong and she said "I don´t believe this... today, someone on facebook talked to me about this story, and then you guys come and teach me about it." She paid attention the entire lesson and almost cried. She even said the closing prayer!! after we left, hna mickelson said "you are inspired. This lesson was different, and it was because we taught that specific lesson that you wanted to this morning. She´s thinking about her life now and it´s because of your prompting." soooo I felt kinda great that even though I can´t really speak very well, the Lord is still using me in some way haha ;)

anyway, that was my week..... a couple other things that are random:

-whenever anyone sees a picture of my dogs, i tell them that blizzards name is Blizzard, and they don´t understand so I have to tell them that her name is "tormenta de nieve" (a storm of snow hahaha)

-my new name is (the triple r´s stand for the rolled sound) "rrr-eh-eh-veh". No one can say reeve so I´ve officially changed my name! hahahaha

-the branch president wants me to train their perrito

-nose goes exists here and it makes me so happy

-minions also exist here and I may or may not have sung the minion song with a little familia on Friday...

-everyone goes nuts over my blonde hair. They don´t believe that it is just from the sun, but they love it

-I tried matte/terere and DALLIN WAS RIGHT!! I love it!!!

-I´m always cold, so when I am at home, I wear sweats, leggins, fuzzy socks, a skirt, a sweater, a jacket, a scarf, and a blanket. and i´m still cold (todd I know you are laughing right now--STOP THAT)

My spiritual thought is short and comes from elder bleak. He said in an email: when you hesitate to stick up for christ, just remember that Christ didn´t hesitate to stick up for you or die for you." I think that´s gonna be my mission motto :)

I miss home, and I miss my family, and I miss my friends... but I love being here, despite the fact that I can barely understand anyone!! I´m so glad I finally made it to Argentina!! I never knew that preaching in some random Castellano language could bring me so much happiness :)

Please keep me in your prayers.

-Love, Hermana Hailey Reeve

PS... a couple more things: we don´t have hot water at the moment, and probably won´t for the next two weeks because the heater is broken. so we boil water and dump it over our heads and try to wash our hair the best we can... also, our hair is always gross because they don´t have a water softener here :p so my hair is just always dirty, not oily, but dirty!! also, I found out I´m in the same zone as elder schoonover, so I´ll get to see one of my CCM amigos at zone conference!!

-i´ve learned that it is just pointless to try and match clothes here, so I wear the most ridiculous outfits. I also always wear leggings because I am always freezing.

-this is the first time I´ve been homesick in my life, but I can´t even explain how much emails helped!! It´s weird--I´m never distracted while working, but when I am laying in bed at night it´s way hard. but this is the happiest I have been since I got here, so thank you all for your emails.. they really do help me :)

-peanut butter doesn´t exist here, and I forgot to bring some so I think I might die before the month is up. Seriously though... I miss peanut butter. And we don´t get packages here, so I don´t think I´ll be tasting it for the next year and a half haha

I think that´s all for now... If i remember anything else, I´ll tell you next week! haha remember.. pray for me. please.

love y´all :)