Twenty Seven Weeks

Hello everyone, so this has potentially been one of the most interesting weeks for me in the mission. First of all, it has been raining. A lot. Soooo, all the streets in Parque San Martin turned into mud, a lot of them pretty deep and I have been walking around in rubber muck boots for a few days because regular shoes don't cut it haha. It's been pretty interesting though, and at the end of the day walking in boots like that (nice and heavy as well) you get to be pretty tired - the one day we probably walked around 18 miles (30 kilometers) because we didn't teach a single lesson or enter a single house, despite the fact we had 6 appointments set. It was all in good spirits though, something about walking around in boots and not having a care in the world where you step, even if it's inches of mud or a foot of water because you know your feet are going to stay nice and clean and dry is very entertaining and fun. 

Also, the Familia Suarez, who were teaching in my last area got married this last Friday and baptized the next day (Saturday) and even though I wasn't there, it makes me super happy. They are super awesome. All the photos that I have of them are more or less blurry, but I'll throw up what I've got.

Lastly, I am no longer in Parque San Martin. I am now in Libertad. This Saturday right after we were finishing our language study time at 10:30 in the morning, we got a call from our mission president (a big deal, you never get calls from him so you always now something is going on) and I didn't believe it was actually him at first (I thought it was a fake call on the phone or something, which they have) but when I answered it was him. He asked us how our area was doing and if we had anybody in specific that we were teaching frequently and when we said no he said more or less, "Okay, good - you and your companion are going to go to Libertad and re-open that area - it has been closed without missionaries for a couple weeks but we're going to re-open it. You need to pack your bags and you'll go there tonight, and the other elders close to you will work in their area still and Parque San Martin, so you will need to show them around today s well." And so it was - we showed them around Parque and then packed our bags and at 8:00pm we were in our new pench, in our new area. It is pretty interesting though, because normally when there are transfers, one missionary stays in the area and recieves a new companion, and the other goes to a different area so that there is always someone there that knows their way around. With two new missionaries in a new area though that hasn't had missionaries for a time, you have to start everything from scratch so Elder McDonald and I are working on that right now haha. This week should be pretty interesting as well, because I have to more or less memorize the map so that I can get my way around without getting to lost and find adresses and such (even though I will be carrying a map with me). The other fun thing about Libertad as well is that all the street numbers are messed up and so all the directions are more or less like this: Street A, number xxxx, between streets B and C (the cross streets at the end of the block), yellow house. I'll let you all know how it goes next week haha, but that's about it for this week. Love you all and hope that everyone is diong well!

Love,

Elder McCollum

p.s. In our new pench, there is a window in the kitchen door that opens up into a passageway between us and our neighbor's house, and if you open it up, her dog (named manchita - little spot) comes running. It's a very bizarre looking dog but it makes me happy because it's the closest to having a pet on the mission that it gets haha.

Photos: Flia Suarez (only the mom and dad in the back got baptized this last weekend), Two of Manchita, one of my boots (clean in the photo), and the picture of the map has my old area and my new one marked so you can see what they're like. They're relatively close together.

Also, Happy 4th of July to everyone!