My letter from my NEW area!

Hello family!!

Wow, it has been one of the most crazy weeks of my entire mission. As you all know, transfers were this last week, but first I am going to talk a little it about what we did on Tuesday and then go into what all has happened this past week. Tuesday was a crazy day. In the morning we had to go and get our couple ready to get married. We had to make sure that she had clothes and gave him a shirt and tie and stuff. Then we went and did the actual marriage; it was amazing! I got to be one of the witnesses, sign for it and everything. Then we went back to their house and celebrated a little it and talked to them about their baptism. They are going to be getting baptized between sessions of General Conference. She asked me to baptize her. I`m really excited. Even more excited because in my new area I have baptisms, too.

Well, I guess I just told everyone about it in that email. I got transferred, my new area is called Centenario V, its in the other zone here in Formosa Capital. I was zone leader in Formosa I and now I am just a normal Elder in Formosa II. Elder Mohlman is now my zone leader, haha, something I never would have imagined years ago when we were both talking about going on missions. I also was given two interesting tasks this transfer. That of opening up an area and also training. (He is very excited to train again.) So, on Wednesday morning I had to take all of my stuff and go drop it off in Elder Mohlman`s apartment and I, with another Elder from the zone who is training, had to run to the terminal and go to Resistencia to pick up Elder Walker, my new son and companion. He is a few inches taller than I am, and is from San Diego, California. That`s my fourth gringo companion in a row. Kind of strange I think. But, he is an awesome Elder. He already speaks Spanish really, really well, and doesn`t have any fear of talking in the lessons and stuff like that. So, I picked him up and we went back to Formosa to sleep in Elder Mohlman's apartment, where we have been for a few days.

We are living there because in the apartment where we are going to be staying there isn`t anything yet... Like there wasn`t a fridge or beds or anything. So I had to travel back to my old area in centro to buy all of the stuff and it should be getting delivered tomorrow morning or afternoon if all goes well. Then we can complete the moving process into our new apartment. OH! And so guess who replaced me as zone leader in Formosa I, my second son, Elder Coombs, the redhead from Idaho. My legacy there lives on!!! The other nice thing about being so close is that I can go visit some of my converts from my last area and some of the members on Mondays and stuff like that.

Side note, the weather was really hot the first few days of this week, but then it rained the last couple of days so it has cooled down a lot. In my area there are no paved streets, so I have a couple of really dirty pants and stuff. haha. Hours on end walking through the mud with do that...

So, my area. I`m part of a branch in the stake that is really working at becoming a ward. The branch is really united and really helps out the missionaries, which is really nice. They seem like they are really willing to get people for us to teach and help them to get to church and stuff like that. I think the best part is our branch president, Presidente Miranda. He is awesome, already giving us work to do. He is really excited because now there are four Elders in the branch instead of the two that were there before. My area is a lot of government built and given out housing. The people are all really humble. We did get to have a baptism already this Saturday. (I`d send photos, but the computer won`t let me, so I`ll send them next week). We are going to have another baptism this Saturday as well during General Conference. Missionaries from the whole stake are going to have baptisms, we want to get the photo in the Ensign. :) Haha. Things are all going amazing here in the area!!!

I love you all!!! Sorry it was so short this week, the computer and I have been fighting a bunch,
- Matthew