Week 19: Ch Ch Ch Changes...

So not much happened during the week in the last week, we are seeing some good progress with our investigators, which is exciting. On Sunday, we had dinner with this dude we met a few weeks back named Rudy, who worked in the states for a few years (illegally haha). While he was in the states he was living a pretty bad life: drugs, gangs, that kind of stuff. He got caught by immigration and put in jail, where he almost died. He has since quit all of the toxic things in his life, and devoted himself to his family and church. He is super hard core Evangelic. He is really cool, and even though he isn't interested in changing religions, we talked about the similarities and differences between our religions and he was very curious and supported us in what we do for our church, as well as agreed with a lot of things the church teaches. For instance, he doesn't drink coffee, he says it's like a drug and compared it (backed by experiece haha) to cocaine. He also agreee with the way we handle tithing. But yeah, he worked at Cheesecake Factory in Chicago, and told us he would make us dinner the Sunday before changes. He made us fettuccini alfredo and garlic bread... super good! I haven't had that in months, and I don't expect to get it again for a year and few, haha.

So...Changes... Sunday night we were waiting to get a call from the District Leader to tell us if we had changes or not. So the phone rings, and it's President Smith! We both died! Come to find out, Elder Van has shown excellent leadership, so he's been called to be a District Leader in one of the bigger districts in the mission that "needs some help." So yeah, Elder Van is going, which means I'm staying and recieving a new companion. To add to it, long story short, some weird stuff is going on with changes, and he had to leave this morning (Monday) at 10:30, when it would usually be tomorrow (Tuesday). So he didn't really have time to say goodbye to everyone like they usually do on P-days. We were able to visit a few families, and it was really hard for the members here, I didn't expect so much crying haha. But yeah, so he left this morning and I'm now with Elder Abreu, the District Leader here until we go to pick up our new companions tomorrow. I am kind of nervous, potentially no more English for at least the next six weeks if I get a latino comp... But I'm not too worried, I'm pretty confident in my Spanish at this point. I just might have to start pulling my dictionary out every once in a while again. I am really excited about the fact that I'll be staying in Chiantla for another change. So I will be here, in my first area, for at least 4 and 1/2 months; 6 more weeks. But yeah, sad to say 'see ya' to my trainer, he was awesome!

This is the only picture he sent this week...no explanation...trying not to read to much into it!