Transfers again

Well, transfers came as a surprise this week. I found out at three in the afternoon the day before transfers. Gack. Oh well.

So, now I am in Maipú 1. My third area in the Maipú Stake. It's very city, unlike my last few areas. There are lots of people, and we already have a baptismal date. Things should go well this transfer. There are four of us in this area for three weeks. The other two Elders are going to be assistants to the assistants. Sort of the Dwight Schrute of the mission. We have fun.

My new companion is Elder Linares. He is from Panama. He's fun. We work hard and have a good time.

I got the Jerusalem Center application scanned and sent to the JC peoples, CC'd to you, dad. I hope it wasn't too early. If so, I can send it again, I guess.

Not much else to say. Hope all is well.

Love,
Will

New E-mail

So, as I am sure you have already figured out, I have a new email address. They have updated myldsmail.net so that it runs gmail now as opposed to the old netscape thingy. The old one will die at the end of March. For the record, my new email address is XXXXXX@myldsmail.net. [Editor's note: this email address is for family members only. The mission wants all other correspondence to go snail mail, so I have altered the email address.] There you have it. Complete with handy-dandy hyperlink.

So, other than that not much going on. We went to the planetarium last week and it was really cool. They have a big dinosaur in the gift shop for some reason.

We had three people in Church. One of them, a 12-year-old kid named Fernando, has a baptismal date for the twenty seventh. That's fun stuff.

Transfers news comes in today. Sorry, but I don't know what's happening yet. I'm 99% positive that I'm staying in Malargüe. We're still working on finding more people who will progress.

Love,

Will

P.S. I'm so happy I don't have to type in Word anymore! Woo Hoo!!!

Not much

Hellos.

Not too much new. Sadly the pattern of having six investigators in Church died this week, and we were back to 0 in Church. But that’s what happens. We think that our big investigator family was out of town this week.

Other than that, not much new. We found a place here that will make leather scripture covers with whatever picture you want on them for a 60 pesos (for the most expensive: the English normal quad). I’ll be getting a 40 peso mini-quad case for the one I plan to buy when I get home. If you want one, send me the pictures you want.

Not too much else to say. Transfers are coming up next week. I’m pretty sure I’m staying here. Seems I may finish here. But that’s fine.

Today we’re going to the planetarium. Should be fun.

I can’t remember if I told you, but my area is bigger than Switzerland! Yup, by a whole 42 square KM. Fun stuff.

Love,
Will

The Cave of the Witches!!! Oooooohhhh, scary...

Hellos.

So, they last couple weeks have been very good for us with Church attendance. Both weeks we had six in Church. That’s six each week. Still a challenge finding more people, though. It would also seem that people don’t like me. I did divisions today/last night with Elder Lucas so that we could go to the Caverna de las Brujas, and he was very surprised that every single person I talked to was mean and nasty. He noticed that we both said exactly the same things and in the same ways. People just don’t like me.

But Caverna de las Brujas. It was great fun. When we went to Luray Caverns I thought it was going to be like what this was. It was a blast. I’m sending pictures. We went in the cavern. It was very cool and nice in there, except the rock was very cold and wet on my hands. Then we had lunch at the Cascada Manqui-Malal. I had a pizza. Then we walked up to the waterfall, drank some fresh-out-of-the-mountain water, and chilled in a little cave up behind the waterfall. All in all it was a very fun day.

Kinda funny you should mention world (Latin America) travelers, Mom. One of the guys in the tour group was a guy from near Bristol, England. He was having some language issues, so we hung out with him and helped him be understood and translated the tours for him. It was really fun. So, it is possible that Laura could make it down to Malargüe. It is a very touristy/exciting things to do type place.

Well, that’s about it for this week. Hope you’re all well.

Love,
Will

Zone Conference

Hello all!

So, yesterday was Zone Conference. It was really good. President talked about the nature of Christ and bodies and stuff, one of those “open your minds” type things. My mind was not really further opened, but I did have some things confirmed, which is always nice. An elder who went home a year ago came to the Conference to tell the Latins to learn English. He is now a supervisor working for Microsoft, just because he speaks English. I talked to him later and all he is really doing is supervising people helping people upgrade from Vista to Windows 7.

Things are going well. Seems like I’ll be in Malargüe for a while, possibly until the end of my mission. This is fine. I like the town, but the branch is tugging at my nerves. Nothing I can really do but try to help them. It is really amazing that the end is so near. 3 and a half transfers left. Wow. Just gotta keep on chugging.

The Jerusalem Center application is finally in. Huzzah! I also sent my normal BYU ecclesiastical endorsement in, so now I just have to send in the special Jerusalem Center one and get the rest of the application filled out. Hopefully things will work out.

Hope all is well with you.

Love,
Will

P.S. Next week for P-day we're going spelunkingish in the Caverna de las Brujas (The Cavern of the Witches)

Chivos!!!

Hello again!

Well, it’s been quite the week here in Malargüe. We started off by going to the Chivo festival for P-day. I’m including some pictures. (If you hover the mouse over the pic you’ll find a lovely caption describing the picture) There was some fun dance competition going on. We got to see some Malambo and some Samba. It was very fun to watch some gauchos (or at least people dressed like gauchos) dance. Then we went and ate a chivo. Goat is actually rather good, but if I had to eat it every day I’d get sick of it really fast. It’s very greasy. It was one of the better P-days I’ve had. Sunday was the world record breaking chivo cook-off. They roasted 1011 goats at the same time. We stopped by to take pictures on the way to lunch. I would love to come back some day to go to the whole festival, especially since pretty much everything happens between 9PM and 5AM.

Not too much else going on. We had some investigators at Church, which is very exciting. It’s very pretty in Malargüe, and I’m getting some nice landscapes. Very interesting cloud formations, too.

Still no Jerusalem application available, but all I have left for my BYU reapplication is the ecclesiastical endorsement. Perhaps instead of emailing, I could fax. That may be easier from this side, I’m not sure. I’ll see what I can do once the thing actually becomes available.

Well, that’s all for this week.

Love,
Will

Transfer news

Hello.

Not much to say this week. Still working. Got to send the Branch trimestral report and tithing settlement yesterday. That was exciting. Other than that, a lot of walking around.

This week is the national Chivo festival. They cook a messload of goats. They’re going for a world record of 1011 goats this year. It should be fun.

Transfers news is that I stayed in Malargüe with Elder Tillery. We should have fun this transfer too.

It seems that the Jerusalem application is still not yet available, but BYU has got stuff for my readmission process going. I’m not sure if going to the Jerusalem Center means not going to BYU or not. I’ll try to figure these things out.

Love,
Will