Argentina Cordoba Mission

It's a very open and happy and just vibrant kind of culture. It took me a while to realize on my mission, but the more direct you are with the people, the farther you're gonna get. And I think that as you adapt that part of their culture, just being unafraid to tell the truth, to tell your testimony to the people, it makes a big difference. So I think that for me is the biggest thing when it comes to culture is embracing it, loving it, be a part of the food, be a part of the people, and love them just like they're gonna love you. Because they will, for sure.

Another interesting thing about culture in Argentina is that the people there, almost everyone, will go to sleep from 1 p.m. to about 5 p.m. and they call that the siesta. And their excuse for doing it is during the summer is that it's too hot, in the winter it's too cold, so they just sleep all the time. And it actually makes it kind of hard to do missionary work in the afternoon because if you knock on someone's door at any time during the siesta they might get really mad at you. So just a tip for that is if you plan on visiting less active members or, you know, lunch appointments, stuff like that, try and do it during the hours of the siesta to be more efficient. And then if you're lucky, your mission president will actually allow you to sleep one hour of the siesta. Mine did, but he was from Argentina, so I think that's why. But we called it in the mission Santa Siesta, meaning the holy nap, and it was amazing.

So one of the big culture tips for Argentina is that you need to get used to the bitter flavor of mate because everyone there drinks it pretty much 24-7. At any hour of the day if you go to someone's house to teach a lesson or a dinner appointment or something they're gonna have mate afterwards and they all share one cup they just pass it around and it's kind of like an herbal tea and actually studies have shown that it stimulates your brain and helps you think better and remember things better but my mission president said something he said if you want to receive inspiration during your personal study then drink mate and I have tried it for myself and I can testify that what my mission president said is true.