Hello Family!

How is everybody doing? I hope that everything is going well at home. Here, it has still been pretty cold the whole week, but at least the sun has come out for a couple of days since the last time that we talked. The only really sad thing that happened is that it really didn´t rain from Wednesday to Saturday, but then Sunday morning it started to rain. Which kind of destroyed all of our plans to go and look for investigators. Like I have said lots of times, nobody wants to come out when its raining. We still managed to get a few investigators in the Sacrament Meeting, thanks to a few taxi rides, which also means that I have significantly less money these days. Haha.

But yeah. So as always I have to talk about our PDay plans, :). Today we are doing our Internet, then we are going to eat a lunch as a group, then we are going to play football all afternoon. I´m pretty excited. :) It´s another zone challenge, the other Posadas zone against us, and just like my other transfers here, we are going to destroy them!!!! And like I said the sun is out today, so it´s going to be perfect weather to play soccer! Last week for Pday, we just wandered around Centro for a while and then went back to Garupá to play Monopoly in the apartment. Oh, and Dad, I won!! Board games are a lot easier for me to win when you aren´t around to beat me. ;)

Oh, so Mom was talking about the low temperatures that have been happening around here. It´s true. But don´t worry about the space heater thing; we do have one, but our house has two holes in the wall and the window is really badly placed, so plenty of air goes in and out during the night. And we have a carbon monoxide detector, and keep the door to the rest of the apartment open a little bit. :)

So, this week has definitely been one of the more interesting of my mission. We had an incredible week, finding lots of new investigators, entire families, that might be able to get baptized this coming month. One of them lives right next door to the branch president, so the Lopez family is helping us out alot by always being in contact with them. The missionaries had stopped by before, and they had never let them in; but they have a baby that is 14 days old, and we are thinking that´s why they let us in. Just goes to show that the Lord really is preparing people to hear the gospel, and that He really does have a plan for everyone. :) Haha, Mom would´ve hit me; I, being a stupid 20 yr old, have been kind of sick these last few days, throat, head things, and we were teaching in the same room where the baby was. The branch president´s wife got mad at me and made me go to a different room to teach the parents and she stayed with the baby. I guess I had forgotten newborns shouldn´t be around sick people. Since that day I have kept my distance, don´t worry. :)

So, the week was just going really well. We were planning as best as we could for our baptism Saturday. Then Saturday came, we had been with the man the night before, he seemed really excited to go to his baptism. Then Saturday afternoon when we went to go look for him, he didn´t come out of his house. Someone ran out of the house to lie to us and tell us that he had gone to Iguazu... so we went back to the chapel. I grabbed one of the zone leaders and we went back to the house and tried again. And this time the man opened the door and saw us, shut it, and sent someone else out to tell us that he had gone to Iguazu. So... this Saturday, we didn´t have a baptism... We have no idea what happened to the man... this week we are going to have to hunt him down and figure it out. The worst part is that a bunch of investigators and members came to see the baptism, including our new family.... So as an emergency back up plan, we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration, and ate the refreshments anyway. The movie seemed to have a strong impact on everyone who was watching, including the missionaries. ;) After watching the video some of the investigators seemed a whole lot more excited to come to church and to get baptized. So, in short, we really don´t know why what happened, happened, but everything the Lord does has a purpose, and we just have to accept it. We also have to remember that people will always have agency. Our job is just to give them the opportunity. Wow, is was a crazy day, pretty much all of Saturday.

The rest of the week we also had lots of success, and also got really muddy. It rained enough that pretty much all of my area looked like a giant mudslide. It did give my boots some good usage, though it was kind of rough on the pants. The other nice thing is that I´ve been having to wear my sweater lately, which keeps my white shirts cleaner, which means they last more days. ;) Don´t cringe Mom... :)

My companion, Elder Coombs is doing really well. He speaks better everyday. He is also not nearly as nervous as he was before. He has even gotten to where he stops people in the street. He´s going to be a really good Elder, obedient, and with a really strong testimony which is all you need. The culture shock has gotten to him a little bit, he just thinks that it´s all really different and weird. But we have been working really hard which makes everything else get better.

Dad, you asked what happens to my mini missionary. He´s back at his house. Relaxing there. When he went on the mini mission he wasn´t working, so it was a little bit easier for him to just come. But yeah, now he´s back to just being a normal member again. Kind of strange isn´t it?

The branch is progressing really well. I lost a calling. :( I no longer teach gospel doctrine; a sister that we reactivated got the assignment to teach it. Which does give me a little bit more time in the week. I´m just sad that Dad and I don´t have the same calling anymore.

I forgot to tell everyone how good a chef I am these days! I can cook lots of things now, and have learned how to make full meals with, flour, oil, cheese, water. And a glass of milk on the side, sometimes without the cheese though. Flour pancakes fried in oil, with milk. It´s all lots of people here have to eat.

well, my time is up,
I love you all!!!
- Matthew