My weekly letter

Hello to everyone!!!

So Wednesday I got to make another fun day of 10 hours traveling to get to and from Resistencia. Elder Dumenes works in the office now, so I was also able to talk to him for a little while. I also got made district leader, which is new, so I guess we shall see where it takes me. I´m happy, more than happy, to stay in my area. :) We even have a baptism coming up this Saturday!!! Yes!!!! My new companion´s name is Elder Coombs and he´s from Idaho Falls, Idaho. So now I´ve trained a Latino and a gringo.

It´s also been really, really cold here these days; freezing actually. And it´s been raining pretty much all week. Which made the first week of training a fun experience. Hahaha. But yeah, I gotta run now, so I´ll write back in a little while.

Well, after running to eat a little bit of lunch we have come back to the Internet cafe to write more stuff. So, here I am!!! I hope everyone is excited to hear more from me. So, to talk a little bit more about the cold. Yeah, I remember that I have my sweater; I haven´t taken it off for a few days straight. The problem is that we really don´t take our suit coats with us, because they´d get destroyed with all the mud. I use my poncho jacket thing alot because it stops alot of the wind, like lots of it, and that makes me feel alot better. That´s most of the problem right now, it´s not that the temperature is actually that cold, it's that the wind makes it incredibly cold.

To answer Dad´s quick question, the zone leaders are part of my district. There are only six elders in the district; it´s small, but, I´m ok with it. One of the zone leaders is new. His name is Elder Hilario; he´s from Peru. The other zone leader from Chile finished his mission and is now sitting at his house enjoying life. To answer another question, my mini missionary is now at his house, enjoying the normal life. He was pretty sad to leave the mission. He loved it and is going to try and do as many mini missions as he can.

Yeah, we didn´t get to go to the jungle this week either. Like I said in the first email, it´s been raining alot, and we can´t really go in the rain, maybe next week. Haha, one day I will get there, that´s the goal anyway. And yes, last week I was able to go and visit my convert family, but it was a sad visit. She´s incredibly sick. She has a cancer of some sort in her back. I´m not really good with understanding medical terminology in Spanish. But she´s not good. The doctors I guess gave her a good prognosis, and she´s really optimistic. But like always with cancer, there is always a chance that it won´t work out for the best. I sure hope and and pray that it does.

To answer another one of mom´s questions, this week I have been American, that´s all. :) Actually nobody has yelled anything at me for a few days. Which does make me happy, especially because I´m training. It wouldn´t be good for him to experience that his first few days here. I may have already said this, but it´s a really different experience training a gringo, having to help someone learn the language as well as how to be a missionary is a big task. The best part is that he is really humble and willing to work, and to do the best that he can to learn all about the mission. He is already losing his fear of talking to people in the street and stuff like that.

Hmm.. what else interesting happened this week. Not a whole lot, just that on the bus trip to get to Resistencia we got stuck in the parade to visit the Virgin of Itati.... again. That makes two consecutive trips to Resistencia that I have been stuck for like an hour and a half waiting for it to go by.

I think that´s all that I´ve got for this week. We are working really hard and are having lots of success. :) I´m trying to do my best and just be obedient. :) I love you all, and thanks to everyone for all of the stuff that you send me.
con mucho amor,
Matthew