Eighty Three Weeks

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for not writing on Saturday, but biggest news of the week is that I am now out of the mission offices, so my P-day is back on Monday (and that´s why I didn´t write). I was given the notices that I would be training somebody early in the week, but I was expecting to be able to train them up until transfers (one week from today). Well, President thought that he could have him just come in and replace me without any training (not realizing that it was necessary to be trained) but ended up calling him in on about Thursday to the offices and telling me that I had until Monday to train him and then I'd be going to a different area. Well, because of that I didn't get to get out all that much this last week to work, but I got Elder McLaughlin trained (hopefully) and now I am back to being in the field full time. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to the mission truck, but it´ll be a lot of fun being able to spend all my time visiting and teaching without having to worry about office stuff quite so much.

There was one last fun adventure though - since I was going to have P-day on Monday anyway, I got to drive Elder Suarez (AP - another Elder I was able to spend a lot of time with these last months since I have been in the offices) to a surgery for an ingrown toenail on Saturday, along with the mission nurse and her companion so that she could see what the treatment was like. It was a fun last little hurrah.

Other than that though, there wasn't really all that much new for this last week to tell you all about. Our investigator Serefina is really warming up to the idea of baptism, stating "one of these days I´m just going to surprise the missionaries and tell them that I want to be baptized." Her 8 year old son has really been loving going to church too every Sunday and asked her if they could keep doing so forever. On his second sunday he even sang with the rest of the Primary in Sacrament meeting. I hope that they will be able to be baptized here in the near future, but I´ll have to leave that up to Elder Cespedes who is still there.

My new area though is Hurlingham - only about 20 minutes from my old area in car, but supposedly it has lots of potential. It is a pretty good sized area too though, and has two trains that cross through the center of it in an X that we sometimes have to use to go from one point to another. It ought to be a really good time though, so I'll keep you all up to date in the coming weeks. Also, I´m going to be district leader for the first time (which basically entails helping to give a small training once a week to another companionship or so of missionaries, going on divisions with them and helping them to improve, and performing baptismal interviews for those they are teaching for baptism) so I am pretty nervous for that. It ought to be a very interesting learning experience for sure.

Other than that though, there really isn't all that much else new, so I´ll talk to you all next week!

Love,

Elder McCollum

Photos: 

1946 - One day for lunch this week, we recieved an entire rotissery chicken from a member to split between me and my companion. It was awesome (and delicious). :)

1955 - Elder Suarez and I waiting for his medical appointment.

1958 - The whole group of us that went to Elder Suarez´ surgery. (Last office adventure for me).

1959 - Goodbye to the mission truck - I got to drive it for the last time this morning. I liked it. (If it wasn't already obvious).