Elder Andrew Stockton: The Last Week of the Transfer

November 19

Hello, dear family!

I'm writing to you still from Bragado, though how much longer I'll be here I'm not sure. Hermana Spinelli had a dream the other night that I had left Bragado, and woke up quite upset that I hadn't gone to say goodbye before going. Imagine her surprise when that same day, Elder Hougaard walked into her store, not with me but with the zone leader, and jokingly told her that I had been sent home! She thought her dream had been made reality!

Apart from that, Elder Hougaard dreamed last night that I had left Bragado and that he had stayed to train a new missionary here. And I've just had this ominous feeling recently that this chapter of my mission is finishing. We'll see whether these presentiments (is that a real English word?) really imply a change or whether they`re nothing. Our leaders will call us tonight to tell us whether we are staying or leaving for this next transfer.

Well, we had a pretty good week this week! It was our turn again for the zone leaders to visit, so we spent the week doing splits with Elder Young and Elder Griggs. It's always fun to go find and teach with another Elder. Everyone has different styles of teaching and contacting, and I can almost always pick up something from them. At the end of our week together, we had interviews to discuss what we learned and what we can improve upon. Elder Griggs told me that I've refined my teaching since the first time we went on divisions (this was my 3rd week of divisions with Elder Griggs). That was nice to hear! I'm almost at the year mark now. Wow. Supposedly now is the time when time starts to fly even faster. Everyone says the second year goes by like the blink of an eye.

We've started listening to Christmas music! Kind of weird since it's so hot outside.

My bike tire went flat again... and we realized that because of the thinness of the back tire, it was just going to keep going flat. So we got permission to get a new cover put on the back tire. It goes a lot faster now! (And no punctures yet.) We also got the seat raised and the handlebars tightened on the wicked witch bike. (The new one. It's the wicked witch bike because the seat was so low - we were sitting straight up when we rode it, and it was really uncomfortable to pedal.) So we are in bidness! The next task is to have brakes put on the old bike.

We had some good banana bread experiences this week! Hermano Coradeghini had requested that I find the recipe for banana bread so that we could bake it in a family home evening. So that's what we did on Monday! (It feels like a long time ago, actually.) It turned out really well! Later, I happened to spy a sign that said that bananas were on sale: 2 kilos for 10 pesos. (15ish bananas for 2 dollars.) Of course they were brown bananas (that's why they were so cheap), but brown bananas were exactly what we were looking for! So the zone leaders made 4 more loaves of banana bread while we did weekly planning, and we shared with some investigators who had a birthday. Now we've got a family home evening this night with one of our investigators, so we bought ingredients to make more banana bread. Quite tasty.

Well - that's all I've got time for today! Things are going well here, and it sounds like they are at home too. I hope you have an awesome week! (Ha - I had to think just now to remember what time of year it was there. I was imagining summer, but I guess it's not so!) Love you so much!