November 13, 2009
Hey hey hey:
Alright. Well, I guess I gotta cover the last 10 days or so, but I don’t really remember…again. So let’s see. Last week we pretty much jumped right into transfers. My replacement showed up to the office a week ago yesterday– and that’s when our little training session began. We really didn’t have much time and I felt kinda bad, because the whole week we had to take care of transfer stuff and I didn’t really have time to relax and train him, and he has just been completely lost. Such is the life of the mission financial secretary. His name is Elder Ibarra, by the way, and he is from Lima. He has about four months in the mission. A youngin.
Transfers actually went pretty well. They were much smoother than usual. Maybe it’s just because I have been through them so many times now. Elder Ibarra came around with me the whole time and watched everything go down pretty much. Early Wednesday morning we went to the airport to send the old guys home. A 4:00 a.m. trip to the airport is always fun. But this time we did get to sleep a little bit afterward, a power nap from about 6;00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. A big group of new missionaries arrived, too, about 15 or so, which included eight Americans. Two of them already speak Spanish pretty much perfectly – which is lame because they show up and speak better than those of us that have been here 16 months. (Speaking of which – happy 16 months Elder Royal!) But good for them that they don’t have to go through that amazing struggle of picking up the language. It’s a pretty good looking group of new missionaries.
Normally I would have gone to my area Tuesday afternoon to get rolling with everything, but I stayed in the office with Elder Ibarra until Thursday morning. I think I finally left to my area Thursday afternoon. Being a zone leader has been interesting so far. Nothing too spectacular or interesting yet, but it has been good. My new companion is Elder Guerra, also from Lima. I am excited to be his comp because he has been a zone leader for a really long time and I should be able to learn a lot from him. Our zone is very new right now – I think 10 of the 14 missionaries in our zone just arrived here. It was kind of a slow week as everyone was trying to get settled in and get to know their areas. We also opened a new area, and that took up a lot of our time trying to find a room, a pension, and a laundry place. We are so spoiled here in the Southern Hemisphere. Well as luck would have it, I reported last night to the president for the first time with a not so great zone report of 0 baptisms and 0 confirmaciones, which is a big slap in the face here in this mission. That was kinda sad. Hopefully, we will be able to really get things going this week and help the zone out a lot. We are teaching some good people in our area. One of them is named Brenda, who is 32 years old and has a daughter named Brendy. They recently accepted a date to be baptized this Sunday. Hopefully all goes well.
My new room is pretty nice, comparably. It’s like a cave, which is nice because it’s not as hot. But things are going just swell out here…no problems whatsoever. I sent a letter to Cuz Cody this week for his birthday. Woo hoo! And for my wonderful little Cuz Becca Payton…I haven’t forgotten about your postcard. That will get to you. I hope. That’s it for this week. I’m outta here. I love you guys like crazy. Have fun. I’m healthy and happy. Hopefully next week I have something cool to report. The Church is true!
Elder DRoy Royal
Posts
