Hello Family,
I have had a very busy but exciting week. I am alive and well and ready for a busy working week ahead. I have my work cut out for me!
Monday
We
had transfer calls and I got my first transfer to Terrada, which is a suburb of Bahia Blanca! It’s on the outskirts of Bahia Blanca and it’s
going to be quite an adventure! I packed
in the morning and visited families all day, in preparation to leave.
Tuesday
I
got on a bus at 12:30am, so I guess that counts as Tuesday morning. I was
in a bus for 8 hours until I got to the Bahia Blanca terminal. Then I
waited there until 7:00 pm for my new companion’s bus to arrive. Then we took a taxi to our new apartment. The
travel was a little hard because of the weight of my 2 bags. I acquired some barbells,
which added to the weight of all my stuff so needless to say my bags were very
heavy. Never the less, my bags and I
made it! Ha-ha My new companion is Elder Firmo who is from
Brazil. I am training him because he needs two
transfers with a trainer to be a ready for senior comp status. He has
one with his mission papa (first trainer) and I will be number two. We have a
bit of a language barrier as he only speaks Portuguese and not much
Spanish. He doesn’t like to study or
speak Spanish. So my adventure has just begun!
Wednesday
In
the morning, I went to do some paper work in the mission office. Then I went to
another building to get a bus pass for the city, apparently that is how we get
around in the big city. I’m looking
forward to not walking everywhere, which is what I’ve been doing for the past 7
months. The bus pass line was about 3 ½
hours long; it was so long! After the
wait, we went to our apartment and unpacked and cleaned our house. The apartment is all right, the washer is
broken, and the house was a big mess! We
learned they have a really bad RAT problem (Mom would love this place). No rattraps to be found, only rat poison. Apparently the rats are in the pipes. SO we are using the old boot & broom control
method! It may be the local sporting
event?
Later, because the previous
elders left no information about the area, map, investigators, nothing, and it
had been white washed (2 elders move out & 2 elders move in), so we start
from scratch. So I decided to begin by
walking the area with pen and paper to create a map and become familiar with our
new area. The town reminds
me of Mexico because of all the street venders and people trying to sell you
stuff on the streets. Everything looks like it needs to be torn down
and rebuilt for safety. We have nothing to go off, at my new
town, but it’s going to be a great fresh start. I guess?
Thursday
We had 2 lessons with current and menos activos. It lessons were pretty good in spite of a
difficult time finding their houses. The
map I drew of our area helped a little.
Friday
We passed for a less active and it was super cool. It was really far from our lunch appointment and
when we passed she said she was praying
for elders to come by because she thought that the only ones that could
help her were the elders. She didn’t have our number or any phone, and she
lives super far away. When we arrived at
her house she was like, “elders I was
praying so hard that you would find me.”
It was so wonderful because I was
planning to work near our lunch appointment but decided last minute that we
should head out farther to that area. I
wasn’t sure why just felt like we should.
It goes to show you, we should always listen to that still small voice
& just DO IT!
Saturday
The bishop gave us a list of menos activos and old
investigators, so we tried to pass by those on list the entire day. We had some people talk to us but it was some
sort of a celebration day here so we didn’t have much success but that’s ok. We got to know the area better so that was
something good for the day!
Sunday
We had church and we greeted all the members at the door. We also had the opportunity to give our testimonies
in sacrament. It was super great. Apparently our ward is like a retirement
community because most of the members are grandparents and great grandparents! It’s so funny, about 90 percent of the ward
put their walkers on the side of the benches in the isle. When it was time for us to walk to the front
to talk, we had to dodge and high-step it through and old-person obstacle
course just to make it to the pulpit! Ha-ha. But it was super great!
Love Elder Vance
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| Birthday Box.. Thank you for sending it! |
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| My new Kitchen |
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| My washer but... it doesn't work. |
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| My desk |
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| My laundry room. |
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| My work out room |
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| Map of my new area |
