The blog of me: February 4, 2011

Alrighty, so about the updates on my end of things:

At about 4 o´clock on Saturday, President Swenson called me up and asked, ''Elder Vincent, how long have you been in Maquehue?'' ''About 3 months.'' I replied. ''You haven't been there nearly long enough,'' (YES! I'm staying! I thought) ''but the Lord wants you to be in a different spot for now. You're going to go to Hualpencillo 2 with Elder Moreno.'' ''Wait a minute...'' I thought to myself. ''That's the...assistants sector...'' So here I am working in the office now as one of President Swenson's assistants. It's a lot of work, but I'm loving it. I get to drive a stick-shift truck, hehe, so that's a bit of a plus. Our apartment is awesome - it has real carpet, two bathrooms (there are four elders living there - all the office elders) and a Chilean bunk-bed. Why would I say Chilean bunk-bed, you might ask? It has an exceptionally small space for the bottom bunk, which just happens to be where I sleep. And for some reason I have woken up in the middle of the night each night and sat up a little to get more comfortable, and smacked my head on the boards above me. Haha, so my head has got some stylish bumps on it for now.

Missionaries of Maquehue (Jensen, Noxon, Lusk, Vincent, Laurito, Sanchez

Dad, you won't have to ever worry about me scratching a car again - the parking garage where we park the truck is like driving through a small cave. Well, there are two places we park, one smaller than the other. There is one below the office building, which is a maze of pillars - and our parking spot is on the second level below, so you have to go down twice. Other elders have scratched the mission van, but the mission truck hasn't been touched yet. *Knocks on wood* The other place is a normal parking garage, but it's a little tight, so you've gotta be really careful while parking.

My companion's name is Elder Moreno - he's from Vahia Blanca, Argentina. I've known him since I got to the mission (he was in my district my first cambio in Cabrero, and then we lived in the same house for a cambio when I was in Lican Ray) so we're already friends. I'm really enjoying being his companion - every elder that calls me thinks they're talking to Elder Moreno, haha, so I think his accent might be sticking to me a little bit. That's ok, though. I was also with Elder Laurito, and the Argentinians and Uruguayans speak very similarly, so that could have something to do with it as well.

I've finally been put in a sector that is ''dangerous'' haha. It's in the rural area of Talcahuano (the city north of Concepción on the peninsula) and there's some delinquency there. But I'm not worried about it - on top of being one of the Lord's missionaries, someone told us that whenever we drive through the neighborhoods (we leave the office around 6-6:30 so we need to drive to be able to get things done; it takes about 20 minutes to get from the office to our sector) people get scared because the truck looks like it's from the PDI (Policia de Investigaciones) so they don't do anything. Pretty cool how everything works out, huh?

I feel really blessed - when I was a zone leader I noticed that the Lord blesses the leaders in the mission in their sectors because they dedicate a lot of time helping the other missionaries. Now I spend even less time in my sector (maybe 3-3 1/2 hours a day) but Elder Moreno have been able to find great people in that little window of time. In the next two weeks, however, Elder Moreno and I probably won't be able to be in our sector at all. Starting Tuesday of next week we're going to be traveling through the mission with President Swenson so that he can do interviews with all the missionaries. Those meetings usually go from 9 am to about 3 pm, but after that we've planned to work with certain companionships from each zone to check up on their progress. Road trip! Haha.

Temuco Cautín January 2011

Well, I think that's about all I've got time for this week. My p-days are Saturday while I'm in the office, so don't forget to write me! I think you can still write on Sundays, I just won't respond until Saturday - that is, if I have time on Saturday, haha. If not, it'll probably be some day during the week. I love you very much and love hearing about the family. I wish I could hear regularly from all of the family, but I'll be happy with what I do get. Take care, be good, and don't sit on your sandwich.

Love,

Trevor