#97 El Naranjo

Hey family,

I just got your email, and it sounds like you're all doing pretty well. That’s awesome that you guys were able to go all over central Idaho and now that you're in Lake Tahoe. Cool stuff

Well, it’s all going pretty well here. Sometimes I swear that the time speeds up, and sometimes I think that it slows down. It’s really weird. But I can’t believe that in like two weeks I’ll see you guys. That’s a crazy thought for me.

Well this week passed by really quickly. I had a leader’s training in Leon on Wednesday. It was cool to hear from the President, and there were a ton of new missionaries that I didn’t really know. Everyone seems so young in the mission. Our mission did really well last month in June, and we baptized 102 families (we broke the record), but now in July everyone has their tanks empty and there aren’t a ton of baptisms. The mission has the goal to baptized 100+ families again in August, so we're all preparing for that. 

On Thursday we had interviews with President Collado. It was cool, and my district was from 10am-noon, but they didn’t start until around noon, so we had a lot of time to sit around and hang out. While we were waiting for the interviews, as a district we read the whole mission handbook. I've got a pretty big district of 9 missionaries, so it was fun just to hang around. We read the entire mission handbook, and there were like 10 pages left of "priesthood ordinances." But anyway, we read all of that too. It was funny. When I had my interview with the President, I basically just renewed my temple recommend and that took up most of the time. Did you know that only the mission president needs to sign a recommend for a missionary? Pretty cool. Now I have one in Spanish. Right when I entered the room, the first thing that President asked me was, "How is Brother Rawlings?" Funny stuff. I also asked him about the switch-off, like dad was saying. President Collado just looked at his iPhone and said that he had some meeting with the stake presidents in the morning. He said that I could probably just go with him, and that he'd drop me off at the airport at like 1pm. He didn’t really seem too worried about the switch-off. So yeah, all is good. 

It’s fun working here in the area. It’s really weird now though, because basically all of the people that I’m finding now, won't be baptized until after I leave. Right now I'm basically just getting the area set up for after I leave.

I feel pretty good, and I’m excited to see you guys. It'll be really fun walking around the markets and stuff and buying cool trinkets. Life is great, and its fun to be here. Well, I guess that I’ll see you guys soon! Have a great week on vacation! 

Elder Stark