Misionando

I just wanted to mention that as of today, Lawrence is one-third of the way through his mission! Congratulations, Elder Williams! That year mark isn't far off!

This letter came to us on Saturday.

Dear Family,
Thank you all so much for your e-mails and love!!! It has been yet another crazy week in the offices with the end of the month being coupled with the Zone Conferences. I have to finish with the Aguas de Cuyo by tomorrow even though today is P-day but I'm mostly done already. I'll have to send you a copy as soon as I get it finished (I'm pretty excited). I should get some tips from Julie since she was on Yearbook and my only experience was the Writers' Club newsletter. Photoshop is pretty fun to use though. We've also had half of the missionaries staying in our house for the past couple weeks since there are now 4 asistents to the president and each one will have a companion that goes on splits with the other missionaries. It's a little confusing but it looks like it'll be good. It never gets boring here since things are always changing. Pretty soon both the Financial Secretary (Elder Slater) and the Materials Secretary (Elder Fuentes) will be replaced by couple missionaries so it'll be only 3 normal missionaries in the offices. I guess playing soccer will be harder since there'll only be three of us unless the couple missionaries want to play (oh, if I forgot to mention it, President Lindahl changed it so the missionaries can play sports again). In other P-day news, alfajors were down to 44 cents (that's 15 American cents) each, for triples!!! I...um...bought nine (but I promise not to eat them all at once). Elder Lampreicht bought 20 so I don't feel as bad. Back to the new assistants, they've been working in our area while we've been working in the offices and they've found us some amazing familes. The Carruzzo family asked us about what baptism is and they said they wanted to investigate the church. They're a lot like the Gonzalez family that Elder Peddersen baptized while he was here. Marcos, the dad, is now the mission doctor and Pia, the mom, gave us a bunch of awesome Chilean goods. She always strikes up conversations about how we should plan out the rest of our lives and she offers her wisdom (she's really funny). It's also funny because her and her sons are all naturally blonde and all the neighbors comment about that and how strange it is. All the neighbors know the Gonzalez family there. We also ran into a guy who I first met my second day in Argentina when the offices took us newbies over to the Civil Registry to get our Argentine documents. He's lived in 18 places in the United States and speaks perfect English. You'd think it was his native language if you didn't hear him speak Spanish. When we were all waiting to sign papers it was nice having someone who spoke our language since we all felt really out of place. It was really amazing to run into him again. We talked a good while and he mentioned how he's heard that there's a Starbucks in the church (he said he didn't believe it but he asked us anyways just in case there was). We told him to come this Sunday to see for himself :) . Anyways, this Friday (yesterday) we had lunch with the bishop (as we do every Friday in Godoy Cruz Centro) and he told us of some interesting stories. For example, the youngest daughter (Milagros) used to have a place where she would play in the shade of a building they were building next to their backyard. The mom had an impresion that the daughter needed to come inside and finish her homework. The mom went outside the first time and said "come in and do your homework" the first time but the daughter said "but it's really nice outside, just a few more minutes." So the mom went back inside and didn't think about it too much. Then a little while later she felt the same impresion only stronger and she basically yelled for the girl to get inside the house. She kind of surprised the daughter and the daughter did as she was told and went inside to start her homework. Only a few short moments later the entire second story of the building that was under construction tumbled down and crushed the families backyard turning everything back there to dust. The mom said she sent that story to the Liahona and got a letter back saying they'd print it. It really shows the importance of listening to the Spirit no matter what he says. Well I hope you all have an amazing week and keep up the amazing things you're doing. I love you all so much and I can't wait to hear from you next week. Every time I open my inbox I feel so special to get letters from you. I can feel your love and I feel a part of your activities even if I am over 5000 miles away. It really feels a lot closer. I love you!!! Bye!!!
Love,
Elder Williams
P.S. The offices are about to get a huge honking VW van so I'll even feel like I'm driving the van again :)