Sunday, December 22, 2013

PALERMO, WEEK 6: TRANSFERS!

Salutations! 

Yes, the title is true, we had transfers yesterday. This is why I am replying on a Tuesday instead of Monday. Today is our prep day. Every 6 weeks no matter what we have a Pday on Tuesday. (I just completed my first transfer in Argentina).

Yesterday was a normal day except that we waited for a call in the night to see if we, or one of us, was leaving. Annnnnnnd. Nada! Elder G*and I are still together in Abasto/Palermo. I am relieved and sad at the same time. Let me explain why. 

This past week was incredibly stressful and frustrating. Elder G*, my trainer, let me take the bull by the horns. I did all the planning, the calling, the contacting, the navigating, and talking. When our appointments fell through, and we had time, I would look to him and say "what do you think we should do now?" and he would just shrug his shoulders. It was incredibly frustrating and INCREDIBLY stressful, especially to talk to people on the phone and try to understand what they were saying. Somehow, I made it through. No doubt with the Lords help. The reason Elder G* did this was because he didn´t know if we were going to be together for another transfer or not. So he wanted me to be ready to be the Junior Companion That Leads. Meaning, I would've gotten an older, more experienced Elder to continue training me but who didn't know anything about the area. Again, the most stressed and frustrated I have been in a loooong time. But looking back on it I can see the benefits already. And now, I am pretty sure things are going to be more 50-50% on the weight load, because now I am no longer new and I can contribute. Definitely the way I have been learning my whole life, just go out and do it, hands on, and learn. So that is why the Lord put Elder G* and I together I am pretty sure. He knew that Elder G* would push me to be better, faster. So I am sincerely grateful for that and I told Elder G* that. It was kind of funny because he said that he knew exactly what I was feeling because his trainer did the exact same thing to him and he hated it too, but it helped him and he wanted me to have the same experience. And because of that, when I am blessed with the responsibility to train another Elder I am going to do the EXACT same thing. :) Can't wait. 

Before that whole fiasco and experience,  I went on splits AGAIN! With Elder G* (MTC companion). We have gone on splits every two weeks together; twice in my area, once in his. He is in the Villa. (Veesha) which is very poor. The people live there for free and stack houses on top of each other using concrete and terracotta pipe bricks. It's really cool – dangerous at night, but still cool. It's kind of like legos. The people are really nice.

Kyle couldn't bring his camera to the Villa. Picture obtained here.

Spending time with Elder G* is very relieving. We can talk in English when we are in the apartment (his apartment has air conditioning too) and our Spanish always improves about 10 fold when its only us. I asked some members in the Villa to guess how many months I had on the mission and they guessed 5 or 6 months. But in reality it was 5 weeks at that time. The Gift of Tongues is real! 

I will be getting all mail the 24th because there is a mission wide lunch that the President is hosting. That's about 280 missionaries. Yikes! I am excited to see my friends from the MTC. 

Also, our schedule changed here. We leave our apartments at 11 in the morning and have to be in our apartments  at 8pm. We now do language study from 8 to 9 then planning from 9 to 9:30. Not sure how that's gonna go in the heat but we shall see! All is well! 

That's all I have for now. 

Love you all!

Love, 

Elder Moore


No comments:

Post a Comment