June 20, 2011 with Elder Lopez in Durazno

Hey all,

You are now getting my first email from Durazno, and life is peachy (durazno means peach in Spanish). I realize I forgot to tell you some stuff about the change day last week. My new comp is Elder Lopez. He's fairly new in the mission. I'm his third comp. He's in his fourth change and second area. He's been here one change, so he knows (more or less) the area. Other news: I'm still district leader, but this time for the hermanas that live in Maria del Carmen and Sarandi del Yi so I get the new challenge of figuring out what to do for them and how to manage district meeting for people who live in 3 different cities. I'm also dl for my zl´s, both of whom are good friends of mine, so that's nice. We live in a 4 elder house(really nice house.. I'll send pictures some day.) I live with Elder Dinkel from Nephi and Elder Camargo from Colombia (and who is really hilarious). Also, the biggest news of all.........We have a washing machine and lunch every day from members again. I heard that and knew that our Heavenly Father hears my mothers prayers. haha. The area's in pretty good shape. The ward loves to help us. I feel like I'm back in 33. The town is somewhat similar, except we're in a stake. (Is there a highway between here and 33? Whenever we travel we have to go to Montevideo first anyways, but it'd be nice to know for the visit at the end of the mission.)

Re: volcano. No idea. People tell us about it and to be careful about the ash but....there isn't really anything we can do. it did interfere with the oros coming over from Argentina. (Bush is training if you haven't already read about it!)


Wow. I can't believe folks are getting home from missions already. It doesn't feel like Spencer left that much before me. Opa. I guess that means I'm somewhat close to finishing too. I probably still have 1 or 2 areas after Durazno, but i'm starting to feel old in the mission because Dinkel and Lopez are both really young. Oh, forgot to mention: Elder Lopez is from Bolivia and is really cool. He's a nice hard worker. Sometimes he's kinda....i dunno. Kinda weird. Really cool kid though. I'm liking him as a comp. I'm really quite happy about everything. We've got a couple that's getting baptized this saturday. They're getting married on Friday, so it's gonna be an awesome week. Also, I have to run around doing interviews for the rest of the district. 4 others! It's gonna be a really busy week. I'm excited.
We live near a different Plaza, called Artigas, in a really nice apartment on the third floor. Our area is where the chapel is and...basically extends away from the central plaza you mentioned.
My comp is familiar enough with stuff. He's still pretty oro, so it's kinda hard for him to remember everything but we haven't had any problems.
Bikes are banned for the whole mission. We were the only mission with bikes i think in south america, so I kinda saw it coming. Elder Larenas took a reallllly nasty fall, so yeah. It's all over.


Well, nothing much else. Life is great. I'm really liking it here and liking my comp and loving my house, especially the washing machine. YES!