Elder Mark Yates, Jr.: ¡Feliz Navidad!

Woo it's Christmas week! This past week did feel a bit more like the Christmas season. I think it's because it cooled down this week, and it rained a bunch. There were also more lights in the houses, and especially in the main square of Montero. We also went caroling as a zone, but more on that later.

Decorations people put on our house

Decorations in our area

A plaza close to our house

A little stream in our area

We had a pretty relaxed Monday this past week, using the majority of the day washing clothes and cleaning around the house. We had a small FHE with a family watching the Restoration and eating some snacks. Tuesday we had some more fun as a family finally let us cut their lawn, so we jumped at the opportunity to practice the machete. We invited some other Elders and the 4 of us spent the morning cleaning up a bit. And, as normal, we got invited a giant plate of lunch for our efforts. We always say that we already have a lunch planned, but it seems that people want to see fat missionaries.

We were planning on doing even more service Wednesday morning, but the rain decided to start and cancelled those plans. The rain didn't, however, cancel the plans we had to do an intercambio, (exchange) so we moved right long with that. This time I went with an Elder Lucero to Minero, a small town about 30min north of Montero. It's a small and peaceful place, and there is only 1 compañerismo (companionship) for the place out in the jungle. It's kind of how I imagined the mission to be, only with more paved roads and development. Then, as we were proselyting, E' Lucero told me that we were going to go to another place: Pueblo Nuevo. It's a village by a river, about 15min away from Minero. It was a very calm experience, but the wait to find a way back to Minero was long. We stopped by the main square in the night to see the lights, and they were nice. (see photos... quizá) (maybe - but he did send them. These are of the plaza in Minero)

As we returned from the intercambio to have the Zone Meeting, we realized that E' Cubillos and I were supposed to give the classes. Woops. With a little phone planning we got things ready and had a good meeting. And, since the Elder that was with E' Cubillos (E' Yorgason, from the CCM Mexico) had servied before in Floresta, we had several new people to visit over the next few days. Unfortunately most of them failed, but at least we now know where they live, so there's no escape >:).

About our investigators with baptismal dates, one of them disappeared. Not sure what happened with him. The good news is that the other one, named Blanca Carrillo, will be baptized this Saturday. Woo!

Sunday we had a pretty good time in the night as we went as a zone to sing in the main square of Montero. We thought it would be a good idea to see if we needed permiso (permission) to do so, but never found info about it, so we went right on with the plans. Then, Saturday night, we get a call from other Elders asking us if we got permiso, since evidently it's kind of important, and gave us a number to call. When we called, we were told that it would be impossible to get said permiso before when we wanted to sing, but basically told us to go ahead and sing anyway. So we did. One of the wards from Montero also decided to join us, and we had a considerable gathering of children, youth, and missionaries singing in the middle of the square. The good thing is nothing bad happened.

Decorations in the plaza de Montero