Transfers - May 7th

Hey family,
Well as you all sort of know by now, today is transfers. And…I am staying here. Not a surprise no? Anyways, I am getting a new companion as Elder Peterson is leaving to train in Garupá. I am glad he will get the chance to train before ending his mission as it really is a great opportunity. So my new companion will be Elder Barindelli. I am a bit nervous as it has been a long time since I have had a Latin companion. It should be really fun though I think and hopefully I can work on fine tuning my Spanish because I could probably use a little help. Always something more to learn. Anyway, out of the seven companionships in the zone, 5 are changing and everyone is going clear over to Formosa or Resistencia to pick up who they are training. I am left here practically alone. Kind of weird and sad. That will be a huge change for everyone I think. The varias areas of the mission are so different in culture and language and climate just like Ryan mentioned. Hopefully one day I get out of misiones to experience some of that other stuff as well, although I am in the blessed part of the mission with all the color and vegetation and of course LAS Cataratas!
So honestly we have know for several days that Elder Peterson is going to leave because there is a member here that has got her eyes on him and she won’t let it go. So they had to pull him out. It got rather complicated the whole situation. She kept passing notes to him through her kids and found out where we live and left a threat note at our door. Text messages and calls were coming and we had to keep calling pres. Shakespear about the whole situation. One day you will have to ask me about it, but suffice it to say that we had to go on emergency divisions yesterday right before transfers because president Shakespear wanted him out of the area and I had to brave it in our area. It was kind of annoying to me, but oh well what can you do. I just hope the problems stop with transfers, even though I was indirectly involved just for being the companion. All seems to have settled now with transfers.
Transfers will be crazy again because they are going to be cutting some routes off it seems. So maybe we will get short on certain food supplies again up here in the corner of Argentina like last time. Oh well.
So we have had come crazy crazy times in the last few days. It has been very interesting, but hard to concentrate completely in the area and investigators. Yesterday I honestly didn’t even feel like working, but we went out and had three great lessons in the afternoon. Starting up transfers again will also make everything really crazy with meetings, divisions, planning, training meetings, etc. It makes time fly being a zone leader.
About the hair mom, I have considered myself blessed to have people cut my hair well, but here in this area the guy that cut my hair did it way too short. It was nice for the heat and all, but looked terrible. That is what you see in the majority of the pictures at the falls and whatnot. The last time I just had Elder Peterson cut my hair and while not perfect, it went over better than the guy that cut my hair here in Eldorado. I get it cut about once a transfer so we will see if maybe I wait a bit longer than usual since it is getting cold. I went out and bought a fleece “queksilver” jacket to keep me warmer in the winter (there was no spelling error, that is what it says. There are no copy right laws here).
I am getting pumped to talk with everyone on mother’s day as well. There is a 3 hour difference (all of argentina is in the same time zone). So let’s see…I have church at 8 until 11 and then you guys are going to go to church I assume one hour after that, we have to call from the church and will have to wait until it is cleared out so then we will wait for you all to get back from church at 12 (3 o’clock here). That is probably when I will call then, so you will all have to run home or something really quick. If not I could call at night around 6pm your time. Plan on right after church at 12pm your time though. Almost positive that that is when I will call. And I did get the phone info so don’t worry.
As far as investigators go in this area, I feel like we are losing a bit of steam. We have a lot of great people with a lot of really big problems. We did have a new investigator come to church after the 2 time teaching him and with the first invitation to church. Juan Olivero is his name. A great guy (his son also who came with him). He has a lot of addictions, but asked what he needed to do to be baptized and he seems to have the desires to do what is needed. Also the Nuñez family is still doing really great. They didn’t make it to church last week, but they are still willing to do what it takes to be baptized, including getting married and quitting smoking (Gustavo and Sandra). Everyone has a baptismal date for the 24th this month. I think the kids will definitely make it. Rodolfo, the dad, is still sick though and needs to basically be bed ridden for 6 months.
All right, I got to go, but I love you all and look forward to talking with you on Sunday (almost certainly at 12 o’clock your time).
Elder Aaron McDonald