Transfers & a New Companion

Hey fam,

I’m still here in Aimogasta.  Elder Muñoz got transferred, and my new companion is Elder Salvatierra from Peru.  His name literally means "earth saver."  He has 21 months in the mission, and I will probably be his last companion.  Which also means I will probably be here in Aimogasta until June!  The week was good, we found some new people to teach that have potential to progress, but none of them showed up to church.  Familia Venites did show up, which is always a good thing.  We had 10 people come to sacrament meeting, including the 2 of us.  It doesn’t sound like much, but if everybody who came would have brought their families, we would have had a solid 30 or 35 there.  That is something we will stress this week.

Nobody recognized me on the radio unfortunately, but Hermano Chumbita does have a few references that we are going to contact during this week with him that have expressed interest in the church.  I gave my talk on Sunday on the principle of obedience, and tied it in with the talk from Elder Holland back in the April conference.  It went fairly well, I had a few comments about it afterwards (and when only 10 people show up, a few comments means the majority of the people there!)  

This transfer will last from today until the 8th of March, which sounds far away seeing as we are still in January, but time will fly by.  It blows my mind at how fast this last transfer went with Elder Muñoz.  Other than the week of Christmas, which was a bit of a drag, it seems to have passed in the blink of an eye.  I’m excited to work with my new comp and "salvar la tierra" of Aimogasta.  

Answers to your ?'s - We do have AC in the room where we do sacrament meeting, so we put our mattresses in there and sleep in the chapel.  We do have ice cream here, there is a chain called Grido, and sells a cone with 2 scoops for 13 pesos, or about a $1.50.  It’s nothing like Blue Bell or even Marble Slab back home, but it something to help us cool off here in the heat of La Rioja!  Popsicles I have not seen yet though.  My favorite part of the week, that is always a hard one.  I would have to say church this week, it was pretty spiritual.  The funnest thing I did this week was try out a new fruit here, I have no idea what it is called, but it’s quite...interesting.  Not quite to the point to where I can say that I like it, but it was interesting.  The grapes here all have big seeds in the middle, that was a surprise when I popped one in my mouth the other week and heard a big "CRUNCH" in between my teeth.  Luckily, nothing broke except the seed.  I have started with greetings so far in the English class.  I teach the basics that people would need if they had to go the US tomorrow.  We have a chalkboard that I use and write all the words on, so they can see and hear them.  

Glad to hear that everyone is doing well. Hope everybody has a fantastic week!

Love you all!

Elder Mangum