Week #19 in Argentina

 We made it through another "every six week" transfer period in which we say goodbye to missionaries who are returning home as we attend the temple with them on Tuesday mornings and then welcome a whole new set of missionaries coming from the MTC's in Brazil and Mexico City who arrive on late Tuesday night flights.   I suppose we have been here long enough and gotten to know the missionaries well enough we are very sad to see some of them leave.   They have worked so hard for 18 months or 2 years and now they have worries about what comes next in their young lives.   These missions have prepared them well for what comes next, we look forward to seeing what they will do.

Transfers also means we have new missionaries in our district, both Elder Martins and Elder Luke were transferred to other areas so we are now officially the longest serving missionaries in Pilar which was bound to happen and will likely continue.  We already love the new missionaries as we met them at our first district meeting last Tuesday. 

We have been meeting with a family the past few Wednesday nights and shared messages, played games and had fun with them.  They have a younger son that I call my "Pokemon" friend because on our first visit he showed me his pack of Pokemon cards that he was so proud of and I have shared packs of cards with him in our subsequent visits.   We had a "Noche de Hogar" last Sunday night before we said goodbye to missionaries from our district and he went around and collected tags from all the missionaries (see foto below).   Its always surprising to me how quickly you become close to missionaries and families that we visit on a regular basis.   We love you Emmanuel!

Weather has turned very cold in the evenings and we shiver alot as we walk to various houses on our visit.   It's only in the 40's but that combined with very high humidity makes it feel very cold.   Many heat their houses with small wood fires in fireplaces which creates a pall of woodsmoke over the streets as we are in them.    Lives can be so different than what we are used to but the families we meet are happy and hopeful the gospel will bring greater blessings in their lives.   

Buenos Aires is a very modern city but you don't have to get to far away from the City to begin to see humble farmers or workers on the horsedrawn carts or what I call handcart men who pull handcarts from place to place collecting cardboard and other recyclables for money.  Sometimes the piles can be quite large as they pull these handcarts down busy roads.   Our mission has 4 zones in downtown Buenos Aires and 6 zones in the "Provincias" and the work can be quite different between the two.   We have some missionaries in our district that have told us this is their first transfer in the Provincias and how much they love being out of the city.  

We love living in San Fernando which makes it easy to go into downtown but we have tree lined streets and a more suburban feel from the high rise apartment buildings all over downtown Buenos Aires.  We learned the mission will be receiving a new senior office couple in August along with a single senior sister who will also work in the office so we will likely be moving out of our current apartment which in only a block from the office.   We have learned early in this mission to be prepared for anything on any given day since we don't know what the day will bring.  We just need to continue to be prepared to serve in whatever way we are called upon to serve.   We love it.