Go Cougs!

So all of you who recently started college at the Y have to go to the first cougar football game for me! haha. I can´t believe it has been so long since my last football and basketball game there on campus. For those of you keeping track, today is my 13-month mark. Crazy stuff. I´ve lived in Argentina for almost one full year, and this makes a full month of only speaking Spanish as well. It has been helping me a lot with the small, difficult parts of the language. I still speak some English, like when someone calls the offices from the U.S. or when new missionaries come into the field. Elder Hull and I made a deal that after the mission we will only talk to each other in Spanish too, just to help us not lose the second language.

Also, thanks again to everyone who has been sending mail. Mary and Annie Lyman, thank you so much!!!! Even though you sent the letters and everything on May 30th, nothing arrived until this past week. There have been huge delays in the mailing system, so it wasn´t your fault. But thanks again. I will write you back today or as soon as there´s a small time window. Seriously, that was great! I also have a couple of letters sitting in my desk. When we drive by the post office sometime soon, I will send them. It is great to hear about everything that´s going on up there!

Anyways, here is a quick list of my experiences this past week. It will be a little short since today is transfer week, and we are SUPER busy. But yep, here we go!

Driving the President. Elder Camacho and I are in charge of the two mission home´s vehicles, making sure that they receive inspections and necessary maintenance. Anyways, long story short, the dealership finished working on the president´s SUV, called to inform us, and wanted us to pick it up later that day. The president asked Elder Camacho and I to take him to complete the job. Normally, his wife or one of the assistants would have driven him in the mission van, but all of them had a busy schedule too. Elder Jones, having the new profession as an Argentine taxi driver, took the responsibility and drove the president. Everything went really well, but the whole time I just couldn´t believe it. Never before had I pictured driving the mission president (he sat in shotgun, by the way) to be part of my mission responsibilties and experience. So basically, it was just a crazy experience. On top of everything, we arrived at the dealership and had to park on the main road since the indoor parking facility had already filled up completely. So yes, in a huge VW SUV, with the president watching every move, I had to parallel park on a busy street that had cars constantly passing by!!! haha. This is much more common here in Argentina, and luckily I had already done it many times downtown. Almost all the streets downtown require parallel parking. Plus it gets better. I did it in two smooth moves, which almost never happens! Usually it takes like three or four changes between reverse and drive, but nope, not this time haha. So the president thinks I drive like a beast, even though I just got a little lucky. :)

Sorry for writing so little, but tons of the older missionaries just came back. We have to help set up their special dinner and also get ready for the new missionaries who should arrive tomorrow. I will write more next week when everything quiets down a bit. Everyone is begging me to use my computer to send one last quick email to their family. So I will get on next week. Maybe one more time later tonight too! haha. Alright, I gotta go. I hope you are all doing well.

Elder Jones