1st Official Letter from Argentina

So August 6th was an exciting day at the Merrill household because it is travel day for Elder Ethan Merrill and he is leaving South Carolina to go to Argentina.  Which means that when he is at the airport, he gets to call home!!! We get to talk with him!!! Hear his sweet voice and chat!!!! Hooray!!!!  In fact, he actually called twice, as he was at a couple of airports. Wow, what a travel day those guys had! Traveling with Elder Merrill were the 4 other Elders from his class/district who had also gone to South Carolina to wait for their visas. We are glad they are all traveling together and get to finally go to their mission.

Then, after an anxious/exciting  week of waiting to hear from our traveling son, Monday rolled around again and we got an email from Elder Merrill. Whew, mom was getting a little antsy as the day kept progressing because when he was in South Carolina, the emails usually came by about 9am, thanks to that 3 hour time difference.  Argentina is actually one more time zone towards the east so it is a 4 hour difference from there to Tucson.  The day was ticking away and then finally in the early afternoon, woohoo!!! There was our email. So here is what Elder Merrill had to say:

How are all of you guys doing? I am fine here. My first week in Argentina is almost over now. Time flies over here. Although it can be a little rough at times, the mission is awesome. I suppose that the one thing that I had to get used to the most is the culture shock. It´s so different here! Sometimes I can hardly believe that this country is a place where people live. Houses are either really nice or really run down. My apartment is somewhere in the middle. We live in a house that in all honesty, feels more like a prison. Everything is made of brick, and the windows all have bars on them. And that just doesn´t mean our house. EVERY house has bars on the windows and they´re pretty much made out of bricks. Everybody speaks Spanish here too. That´s to be expected for sure, but the language is different than the one that the Hispanics used in South Carolina. Well, I know that the one thing that will help me learn the language the most is just getting out there and talking.

Argentina is a little hard at the moment for me. If I hadn´t gone to South Carolina first, I´m not sure I could´ve done this. No worries though, I´m slowly getting more familiar with this place. The area I´m in right now is called Bolivar. I had to go from South Carolina, to Texas, to Florida, to Buenos Aries, to Bahia Blanca. All those were plane rides and the whole trip took about 41 & 1/2 hours. That was a lot of traveling to be sure. I got here and sure enough, it´s winter. We don´t ever get snow though in Bahia Blanca. It´s just cold winds and fast days. The sun begins to set at about 4:00. Walking took awhile to get used to. My legs were so sore for the first 3 days. But I´m fine now. I just remember to drink alot and I´m fine usually. I like the food they have here, so don´t be too worried. I am doing fine with eating. I get fed by the members sometimes, but the branch here is smaller than the one in South Carolina, and the building we use to meet in is smaller than our house in Arizona. I wish I could send you guys some pictures, but the computer I´m using doesn´t seem to have a USB port. I´ll look around and see if there is another place that we can go, but I´m not sure. I´m glad to have heard from you guys. It's good to know that life is pretty much the same. I hope that you guys are doing good as well. I know that this mission is going by fast for me, and although I love being out here, I can´t wait to see you all again. See you all next Monday

So that is his adventures in actually getting to Argentina and his first impressions a bit.  We look forward to hearing more from him next week. You're doing great Elder and we love you dearly!