Monday, March 27, 2017

Can You Pronounce Gualeguaychu?

Hey everyone, it has been a fantastic week. Elder Opazo came on wednesday, and I am excited for what lies ahead this change! It has been a fun few days with him.

Anyways my last day with Elder Raimundo was on Tuesday. Our lunch was cancelled, and so we decided to go out to eat. As we were ordering, some guy behind us asked in english ´Where are you guys from?´  So I got talking to him in english, and let me just say... It was soooo weird to contact in english and talk about church stuff and our beliefs. I can always talk to other gringos in our zone normally and it isn't weird but idk why, maybe I am just more adapted to teaching in spanish. Anyways, his name was [...] and he said he learned english because he lived in New Jersey and Florida for seven years. He was actually a super interesting guy to talk to and said he has talked with the missionaries before. He lives in Gualeguaychu, but gave us his number for the other missionaries there to pass by. Super cool!

I said bye to Elder Raimundo on Tuesday and he left for Artigas, which is the highest baptizing zone in the mission by far, so i think he is going to have fun :) I stayed here in Colon with Elder Castro for a day, and on Wednesday, Elder Opazo came. Like I said last week, he is from Chile, and speaks spanish, portuguese, and is pretty good at english too. I am his first gringo companion, so I have been helping him. He isn't quite fluent but doesn't really have much of an accent because he was born in the states, and lived there in Nevada until he was 5 years old and moved to Chile. He has a little over 10 months in the mission and it is pretty crazy because this is his third area and- his 3rd country he has served! This mission is the only one in the world that has a part of three countries and he has served in each one, which is really rare. He started his mission in Brazil, then went to Montevideo, and now here. Pretty cool. 

That made me laugh so much when you said you heard Chileans don't like people from Argentina, because they always get whooped (in soccer). You know why? Because the first day that Elder Opazo was here, Argentina played Chile and won. Elder Opazo was like NOOOOOOOO NOT AGAIN!!!!! Hahahahahaha. But yeah it has been such a great few days and this will be an awesome change. 

The two new sisters missionaries here in Colon are really cool too. Hermana Rios from Paraguay, and hermana Ortiz, who opposite of Elder Opazo was born and lived in Mexico until she was 8 and then moved to the states. The first day that the three of them all came was kind of crazy, because the sisters are opening an area in the other half of Colon, and so didnt know anything. And they didnt even have a phone, so it wasn't really like they could call us if they needed to know how to get somewhere or needed to know something. So we just gave them ours for a couple days if they needed to call a member or something, but now its all good, they got one.

It was such an awesome weekend. On Saturday, Elder Opazo and I had a few really great lessons. One contact that we went to wasn't there, so we started contacting down the street and the second house we clapped (yeah, we clap houses here in South America instead of knocking haha) turned out to be a really nice and acceptive couple named [...] and [...]. We shared with them the Plan of Salvation because they expressed to us how important the family is to them. They have five kids, all younger, but I am really excited because we found a family! They enjoyed the message, and said we can come back this Friday!

Sunday was great as well. We had about 15-20 more people come than normal in our branch and we up to over 60! Quite a few less actives were able to make it as well as Dora (we call her Dora la exploradora), the older lady who had a baptismal date a few times before, but couldn't really make it to church because she has had problems walking for the last few months. Anyways, super awesome!!

Today for P-Day, we went to Concepcion for our zone conference and after had a zone activity, which was super fun. Elder Castro and Elder Bowler made tons of pizza for everyone which was super good, and we played lots of sports and games. I love this zone, it is a really awesome one :)

All things are good here. I am so excited for this change with Elder Opazo and there are good things to come here in Colon!


Elder Layton

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