Called to Serve: Life in Carlos Paz

Hey fam,

A pretty good week! The area has no investigators, and my companion has only been here about a month, so he doesn’t really know the area either, so we went about the week as if we were whitewashing the area. Contacts, contacts, and more contacts. I am pretty sure I knocked more doors (well, here we clap, we don’t knock) this week than the last 6 months combined. A good experience, we found a couple of people that have potential to progress.

Wednesday was our district meeting, the first time I have had sisters in my district. We discussed a talk by Elder Ballard that is about our attitude and mentality here in the mission, if we want to have success, and are willing to work for it, despite of the circumstances that we might be in, we will have success. Then we had a correlation meeting with the ward mission leader. There are members here, and callings! It was a little weird on Sunday, standing up and bearing my testimony in front of 120 people, I am more used to 10 or 15! I am excited to work here, all of the auxiliaries appear to be functioning, and the members give us lunch every day! I am definitely a lot more grateful now for the little things in life.

My companion is different, but we get along well. We are the only Elders in the ward, and there is a companionship of sister missionaries as well, from Peru and Brazil. I am the only gringo in Carlos Paz. The most challenging thing has been having a lack of teaching opportunities. It will take work but it will be good. The best thing that happened this week was having lunch every day, particularly with Familia Salgado. The wife is from Brazil, and the husband is from Carlos Paz. We had tacos truchos, "Fake tacos" and then helped them in their garden for an hour or so. That was probably the highlight of the week. And blessing the sacrament at church. Even though they have lots of members, they still asked us to do it, which is fine by me. I enjoy utilizing the priesthood to bless others!

Sounds like everybody had a good first week of summer. Crazy that Ty is already heading out in a week or two, time definitely flies. Hope everybody is doing well, you are all in my prayers!

Love,

Elder Mangum

Some Pictures from the Cultural Celebration prior to the Temple Dedication