May 2, 2011  Salta Argentina

So today was transfer day! I am still in my area - Salta (La Loma - that's the county, I guess, but they are way smaller here. So the wards are divided up by those boundaries which might be on google but I'm not sure).

I am still with my trainer but this is his last transfer in the area for sure because they have recently made it a rule that missionaries can´t be in an area more than 4 transfers(6 months). So that means I will probably stay in this area for at least three transfers maybe 4. I love it here though! I didn't want to go and neither did my trainer because of the baptisms we have lined up. About 7 months before I got here the misionaries were not doing anything in this area. They were going to less actives and spending all day with them. Not the best use of time. Anyways, they left the area. The next missionaries and then my trainer have been working hard here to find people since the others didn't leave them anything. About that time is when I really started praying hard for Heavenly Father to prepare the people and put me with a good trainer. I feel both of those prayers have been answered! We have lost some of our investigators but we have one couple who is getting married the 27th and the other on the 1st of June and both will be baptized after that. We are still working with a girl who has some friends serving missions and decided to go to church once and liked it. She is reading the Book of Mormon like crazy and loves the people at church and even stays late and hangs out with them! She has found family outside of her family which is what she needed because her family, I guess, isn't very close. Makes me feel so blessed to have the family and friends I have!

It has been pretty cold here lately (like 50F). They said it was going to be about 10C though the next few days at least at night. I think the days will be a little warmer.

I saw 2 people and a dog in clothes on a motorcycle the other day! That's a new one! haha

I got asked what my day to day schedule was here.

I wake up at 7. We go play soccer at the church nearby sometimes in the morning which I like but would rather do the regular exercising. Soccer usually takes us into our prep time which goes into our study time. We study for an hour alone and an hour with our companion and  have a half hour for language. We leave by 11am and usually go knocking doors till lunch unless we have an appointment, but that's rare at that time of the day. We go to a member's house at about 1 to 1:30 and leave at 2:30, sometimes later if they didn't have lunch ready. From about 1 till 4 people are eating lunch so its a bad time for knocking doors. Then till about 5, people take naps but there is always someone. We just try to find doors that are open and people are standing inside so we know we will talk to someone, haha. This week we had 11 lessons with members present which is really good! But we had alot more lessons without them too. We had enough appointments this week so we hardly had to go find people. We usually find new people while teaching other lessons because family or friends happen to be there when we go back. At 9:30 we are supposed to be in our apartment unless we are teaching. We seem to always be there at 10 because of appointments. Then we have to be in bed at 11.

With 4 people in the apartment there is alot going on and so the evening planning gets drug out through the whole time till we go to bed. We are trying to do better at this routine.

Anyways, I have to go! Love to you all!

Elder O