April 27, 2015

this week was pretty crazy. it's still a bit hard to believe what happened. everything was going pretty normal, we were teaching people, inviting people to be baptized, (and Nathanael had his interview to recieve the priesthood - i imagine he recieved it yesterday) and then wednesday evening, the zone leaders called and told us that we were going to have special transfers the following morning! i am now in Yaguarón (look that up on a map!) with Elder Norton (he's from Arizona, and finishes his mission in 7 weeks). my area is pretty big (17 kilometers wide and about twice that tall) and my companion has only been here five weeks, and is only familiar with 3 of the 19 ''companies'' (divisions of suburbs (fields with houses scattered here and there) that are part of Yaguarón) so we'll be doing a bit of trailblazing this transfer. just a few days ago we went and walked down a street for 15 minutes, hoping to find houses and people that wanted to listen to us, and found an abandoned barn and a dead end. my companion doesnt even know where the branch president lives, so we have plans to find his house on wednesday - we have to take a bus and then walk for about an hour. but the people are generally pretty kind here (or at least in the companies - in the main city part there's a bunch of relatively rich people who generally dont want to recieve us). one day we were walking down a street, about a half hour walk from the route where we needed to take a bus, and a truck passed us and asked if we were going to the route. we said yes, and they told us to jump in. also on friday i ate cow foot. that was pretty interesting.

but anyways we dont have a whole lot of investigators cus the other missionaries here weren't working very effectively but our ward mission leader is one of the most capable and knowledgeable leaders that i've met on my mission, so we should be able to start working pretty well. we have plans to work with the active members to be able to find and teach all the less active members to be able to baptize their children, friends, and neighbors, and also to go out with members to get to know a bit better the parts of the area that we dont know.

we do have one investigator, Pedro, who has a lot of potential. his girlfriend is member and he went to church once before. my companion had been teaching him before, but he had never accepted a firm date to be (married and) baptized, but we went and taught him and he accepted a date for this saturday. but then he couldnt go to church yesterday so we're gonna see how we can help him to go to church so he can get baptized.

our house is huge, and we have a tangerine tree. it's pretty great. (Tangerines are in season right now)

I know that Christ is our Saviour, that this is his church, and this is his work. He loves every one of us and gives us commandments and instructions for our benefit. I love him and his work, and hope all of you can grow to love it as well.

Elder Woodfield