Week 62: Changes

Hey everyone! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! WHOO! Yesterday was Christmas!
 I hope it went really well for all of you! I loved it here, it was super awesome! We spent the time over here in the pench of the missionaries of the offices, so we were a ton of missionaries all in the same pench, it was crazy! We made an asado with a ton of meat, there was sooooo much we didn't even eat it all, It just fills you up super fast so I was stuffed. Then at midnight when it turned from being the 24th to the 25th everyone everywhere in Argentina started lighting off tons of fireworks, so we went up on the roof and we enjoyed watching all of them for about half an hour. Then afterwards we enjoyed some ice cream and went to bed. It was pretty awesome. 

On Sunday morning we went to church and then we got to talk with our families!! THE BEST! The last times it was a little bit weird, but this time I just enjoyed it, it was so great talking to them! And I got to know my future brother in law (in 4 days!) then we ate estrogonof, a brazilian food super delicious! And we talked for a little bit, then we went back to the pench where we slept for  a little because we were wiped out and then we woke up, planned super fast, ate a quick dinner, and slept again.

This week was a week of lot's of learning, we were with Elder Minshall and Elder Morris, both from the United States, Elder Minshall is from South Jordan Utah, and Elder Morris is from California! Both of them are great missionaries, we were able to work with them and one of the kids that we were teaching this week was baptized this weekend, his name is Walter, he's really awesome, he's a kid that is 14 years old, I only taught him once, but it was awesome to be able to teach him!

We had a very special meeting this week on Saturday. President has been making a lot of changes in the mission, he sent us something last week that said that we can't do the same things that we did 15 or 20 years ago and think that it's good enough, we need to make changes we need to do new things. So he's been making lot's of changes here in the mission. A few months ago he changed some of the rules of the mission like I told you guys. This week he completely changed the structure of the mission. Before in the mission there were 6 zones, one for every stake, and it was a little bit harder to be able to communicate and know how the missionaries were doing with everything. But now, it's all changed, now there are double the amount of zones, we now have 12 zones in the mission, they're all smaller and have less missionaries, there are now less missionaries in the districts as well, before there were districts of 8,10, or 12 missionaries, now they have generally 6 or 8, and there is only 1 that has 10. So now there are 24 Zone Leaders! WHOO! Haha! It's going to be great! With all of the changes president is hoping that there can be more communication between the missionaries, that we can talk one with another and that he can know better how the missionaries are doing individually. It was harder before because the leaders had lots of missionaries to care for and couldn't focus a whole lot on there specific needs, but now they should all be able to work one with another and help out everywhere in the mission to grow.

I'm super excited for the changes that we're seeing, this month is just ending and the assistants informed us that we had an all time record of baptisms this month since the mission split about a year and a half ago, so it looks like things are changing for good!!

It was a great week, I loved working with Elder Minshall and Elder Morris, we learned a lot while working with them. I think I forgot to tell you guys last week, I've got my new companion already, he started working with us this last week even though transfers are today, his name is Elder Escandon! He's from Arizona!!! He's really fun to work with and we've been talking a lot about the changes we are going to make to have a bigger impact with the work that we do, to help more people and change more lives. I love you guys! I hope you enjoy this week and have a happy new years!! Until next week!! Chau!

-Elder Slack