"Well, I am not to sure of what to tell you all this week. It was a very crazy one that is for sure. So I guess I will just start from the begining.
For me one of the hardest parts of being a missionary is how much I get attached to the people. If you get the hint that means that yes I was transferred. I was in Izaguirre for six months and right there at the end we met some of the neastest and most prepared people that I had met in the mission. So it is sad that I can't be there to see them get baptized but that is not what is important... just that they get baptized.
On Tuesday I went to the transfer meeting and was more nervous than ever. I kept thinking what is going to happen. It just did not make sense that my very last six weeks in the mission I was being changed. The meeting started and i found out that I was going to train. I am now training a greengo named Elder Riddle from Orem, Utah. We are in a very small little farming town called Pativilca. The town is super small and is settled in a green little valley a few minutes from the ocean. The cool thing is that my best friend from the MTC (Elder Dunn from Texas) is my zone leader. We have never been in the same zone in the mission since the MTC and we are so excited. We also found out that we will be on the same plane from Lima to Dallas... how cool is that!
My companion is really great. He studied Spanish a lot growing up so he is already pretty good at it but it is wierd not being with a Latino... I realized that it is going to be really hard for me at home. I love the Latino people so much and I am going to just not feel very comfortable speaking in English... good thing that I am getting six weeks of practice so I do not sound like a total idiot when I try to talk.
Anyway we got to our area at 1:00 am Wednesday morning and the first thing we noticed was how dirty our room was. For me it was normal and I knew that we could clean it up but my poor companion asked me right away if this was the worst or best room I had had in the mission. He was a little traumatized I think.
The next day we got up and I went to look in the area book to see what we have to work with in this area.... to my astonishment the area book had not been touched in more than six months. We are opening a new area. As we started to find our way around and meet members they all told us that they felt bad that we were here because it is a hard area and they talked about how much they hated the old missionaries. Well, I just told Elder Riddle that we have to change the way they think. They are going to love us and through all the baptisms we have they are going to see that it is not a hard area it is just a bad way of thinking. The area really does have a ton of potential.
We got to work. We contacted in so many ways. We went to a cementary, we gave out pictures of Christ in the street, we knocked hundreds of doors, basically if it could be done we did it. In all our contacting we had some cool experiances. First, in an area so hard to work in we found 18 new investigators and that includes a family of 7... and yes all seven could be baptized but we also had a very neat experiance with a less active. We found a less active lady in the street who is actually in the middle of a divorce but she told us that her husband needs help. We went to his house and he let us in. He looked so ashamed of himself and finally he told us why. That day he had decided to take his life. Before he killed himself he decided to pray. While praying he for some reason just though of the missionaries. As he finished his prayer and contemplated further his suicide we knocked his door. He told us that he know that that is how the Lord answered his prayer. He sent us to strengthen this sad man.
Sunday we went out to meet all the members that we could not find in the week. By 7:00 pm I had such a migrane and my comp was a little sick to the stomach. I said we had to push through until 9:00 pm. by 8:30 however we could not anymore. It was the worst migrane I have had in a long time. We got to the house and planned for the night when I just started to vomit. Moral of the story... if you have a migrane you need to go to the house to take and excederine. I learned my lesson... I will just try to apply what I learned next time I have a headache.
That really was the week. We are doing some great work. I came to realize though that I am very close to being finished with the mission. While I would love to have a lot of baptisms right before I go home I know that that is not likely going to happen for the situation we are in here. However I know that I can help my companion start off on a good foot and prepare him to have a ton of success here in a few short weeks. We are going to baptize while we are togather but my companion is going to learn how to be successful in any area and love the people as much as he can. It is like the president said on Tuesday. There is something special about a missionary who knows how to change his investigators... but there is something extraordinary about a missionary that knows how to help and change his companions... I want to be a great and extraordinary missionary.
I want you all to know that I am excited to be coming home soon, but that I am very sad at the same time. Today when I saw how close I really am to leaving the mission and could not help but have tears well up in my eyes. I love being a missionary even though it makes you go bald and get fat and even though every day I wake up with a new bug bite on my face it is so rewarding. I have learned so much and changed a lot. I still have a lot to learn and I just fear that I will not be albe to learn all that I want in such the short time that I have left in the mission. I guess that is why we are told to "endure until the end." We are meant to learn our whole life but it is nice to have the little boost that the mission provides.
I will talk to you all soon,"
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