New area called Zaragoza 11-7-2011

HOLA GUYS!

I had Changes! So I arrived at the changes meeting expecting not to have aninterview (you have an interview if you are going to recieve a newcalling). But right before the meeting started President Brough called meinto his office and told me thatt I was also going to be opening and areain Solala (which is the zone in the mountains) My area is called Zaragoza,it is alot bigger than my other area and has a small branch of about 65people. He also told me that a few days ago the house we were going to bestaying in got broken into a few days ago, so he said that we would have toarrive and start looking for a new house immediately and move out the nextday. And then he told me that in this area they have had less then 4baptisms in 2 years and the branch members have been really dissapointedwith the missionaries that have been there, so he told me that I needed tochange that and baptize a bunch of folks. And ontop of all of that I wasgoing to be Training a new missionary! I kind of felt like a secret agentthat was being sent on a mission impossible. My companion is ElderCorrigan, he is from West Jordan Utah, and quite naturally he can not speakspanish at all. The only thing you can do in a situation like this is justput a smile on and put your trust in the lord.Well, we got to our new area alright. The elders that were in the areabefore us left us with absolutly nothing as far as investigadors areconcerned. They only had 2 investigadors. They were preparing them forbaptism, me and my companion just have to marry them. But they are superdoooper poor. There house is a shack that is made ouf of plastic and sheetsof metal, when we got there they told us that they were "fasting" but itwas really becuase they didnt have any food. There 7 seven year olddaughter has a skin disease on her face, there 6 month old baby has abroken arm, and the mom has a walking impediment. I have never been sohumbled in my life. Despite of all of the problems that they have, theystill seem like happy people, and they always have smiles on everytime wevisit them. We teach them outside on the ground because they dont havechairs. They came to church last sunday. There is a member in our branchthat comes with us to visit them, and she helps us bring them to church.We found a new apartment to live in as well, but the only thing is that isdoesnt have electricity, so we have ben living with candles for the pastfew days.We have ben working very closely with the members which has helped us alot.I have been able to see how much the lord has been able to help us. Ourfirst day, we just went out and starting walking and talking with peopleand asking them questions, and we found a ton of members in the process. Wetook our young mens president to knock the door of his Neighboor and itturns out that they are a golden family. In the first lesson they asked usif we baptized, and they wanted to know what a person has to do in order tobe baptized in our church! What a blessing.Let me just say that in these past 2 days my trust in the lord hasincreased soo much! I have so much to tell you guys but I ran out of time.I love you guys!Elder West