HEY FAM!:)

Hello everyone!!

Well, here I am! Still in my same area in Formosa. I managed to move up a little bit in the world and am now the senior zone leader. My companion left and went to Posadas. So, now I have a new companion, Elder Palmer. He is from Arizona, Snowflake to be exact; he has been in the mission for about 14 months now, and is awesome. He´s a really hard worker and really obedient, I like it. We have had a whole lot of success in the first week here, well, not even a full week, just like half of a week. It´s just always different to adapt to a new companion, their teaching style and just how they are. My companion is a singer, and really likes singing. I will have to say, I´m not the biggest fan of singing, I love listening, but me, myself singing, not so much. Apparently when he was in the MTC he sang at one of the devotionals. But he´s a really cool guy, I think we will continue to get along pretty well for the rest of our time together. The zone changed a bunch. A companionship of Elders got taken out, and a companionship of Sisters got put in, because in the ward where they are at, there are a whole lot of single women, and it was starting to cause problems for the Elders - lots of gossip and rumours and stuff like that, and putting sisters in kind of takes care of that problem. That was the biggest change in the zone, now there are 8 Sisters and 6 Elders in my zone. It´s an interesting dynamic, but, good none the less. Transfers otherwise were pretty normal. I wasn´t out as late, I took the day shift in the terminal. I got there really early in the morning and was there 'til about 7 at night with my new companion. He got there expecting to go home and unpack, and instead we got to wait and help other missionaries out. Being senior zone leader is interesting. It means that if something goes wrong in the zone, it´s pretty much all my fault. I hadn´t been senior zone leader 10 minutes before President del Castillo called to get on the zone about a few things - our baptismal dates to be exact. So, that has been something that we have been dealing with these last few days, getting our missionaries to put more baptismal dates...

Random story of the week. My companion and I almost became the first gay marriage in the province of Formosa! Now, after that strange statement, let me explain what happened. So there is this couple that my companion and I have been trying to get married for a few weeks now. We had some last minute paperwork to do, that they had told us that the people we are marrying didn´t have to be present for. So we went to the place to do it, they call us back to sign the paper and ask which of us is Orlando... we tell them they aren´t there and the lady just started laughing...She said that the whole building had thought that my companion and I were the ones who were going to be getting married. They were excited cause it was going to be the first time the signed for a gay marriage. (It´s legal now in Argentina) It was kind of a shot to my pride... I´m not going to lie. The only thing that kind of made it better was when the lady told us it was a good thing we weren´t getting married cause that would have been a waste of men... It was definitely an interesting and embarrassing experience for us. it was kind of obvious that the people didn´t have much experience with the Mormons.

Anyway. Otherwise the week was just a really successful one. I know I have been saying this alot, but starting this Saturday we should have baptisms and then have a whole bunch for the month of December, like almost every week. We even have some people scheduled to get baptized on Christmas day. Crazy! It would be way cool, but we might do it that Thursday, we aren´t sure that as we actually get closer to Christmas how many people will want to get baptized on that holiday. Personally I can´t think of a better way to celebrate Christmas, but that´s just the missionary inside talking. :)

The weather here every week gets a little bit hotter, and a little bit more humid. Everyone here just tells us to wait for December and January when it gets really hot. I´m not excited. I´m healthy and happy! Stressed and tired. But healthy and happy!!! YES!

Another fun story. We got home last night, after a long hard days work, and went in to take our shoes off, and when I turned the air conditioning on, all of the power went out. We went to try and figure out what the problem was. When we looked at the power lines above, they were sparking and flaming, so we cut the power and waited outside with our owners for the power company to come. So we planned sitting outside the apartment in chairs talking to all of our neighbors. Haha.

Well, that´s about all I have time for this week. I tried to make it interesting. The investigators are all going good. We have another leadership training this week, and then we have zone leader´s training next Monday, so I´m not sure if I will be writing Monday or Tuesday... :) But as always, I will write! :) I gotta run! I love you all!!!

con mucho amor,
- Matthew