Elder Mark Yates, Jr.: 18/7/16

One week farther from when I started, and one week closer to the end. Of interesting note this week, we got to meet the new mission president, Presidente Cabezas, and his family. They are from Sucre, Bolivia, and have spent many years serving in church callings and even working for the Church. They have 5 children, but only 1 is young enough to be in house still, so only one came to the mission with them. Will send pictures later.

Since Pdte Cabezas arrived Tuesday, we were told Monday to use the day cleaning the house. So we did quickly, and then spent the rest of the day doing other things to kill time until we left to visit some people in the evening. Tuesday morning we went to a little 'get-to-know' conference with the Pdte where he introduced himself and his expectations for the mission. He seems like a good guy and has a big plan for the future. Too bad I won't be here to see much of it...

After the little conference and a small lunch, we had our first interviews with Pdte Cabezas. The interviews where a little strange, as they were different from how Pdte Zambrano did them. While one Elder had his interview, the rest of us played games with the Flia Cabezas and we got to know each other better. I guess the interviews ran long, as several Elders with dismissed to work with the condition that they returned the next morning to have their interviews. My companion and I had ours the first day, so we didn't have to worry about that.

Wednesday morning we found a service to do, so we went out to serve. We went to help a family build a fence out of chuchillo, and wound up spendin most if the time cutting the chuchillo to be ready to be used in the fence.

Working hard cutting those chuchillos

The 4 of us Elderes of the house had left to help, but we got a call informing us that the Pdte was going to do house inspections, so we sent the others back home to that someone would be there. I think we passed.

After the well-done work Wednesday, we returned to the house to change and go eat lunch with the Pdte Cabezas in a nice steak-place called La Estancia. I'm not sure how much meat I ate, but I do know that it was a lot. Yum.

Selfie with the Flia Cabezas! (even if they didn't know)

My first plate in the restaurant. I think about 3 more followed.

Thursday passed along pretty normally, only a little birthday celebration after the district meetings and proselyting and the like. We did try having another activity night in the chapel, and more people showed up this time. I guess it's just like a sandball rolling down a sand dune that grows as it goes.

We decided to do an intercambio Friday with the Elders of the other branch of our district, so we changed companions after we finished our weekly planning. I went to work with the E' Elder Cochran in his area and we had a good time. We had to walk a very good amount to cover their area. but oh well. A little more exercise never killed me. Since the E' Cochran will also be ending in September, we had plenty of things to talk about.

Bright and early Saturday morning means game time, even if I was sleeping in a different house. We went and played and returned to the other house until it was time to end the intercambio. When we returned back to my house, we found that the house was hosting a funeral service since the grandmother of the family had died. It was awkward trying squeeze our way through.Somehow we did it and returned to our normal working pace. In our travels, we found the family we had helped Wednesday still working on their fence, so we stopped a while to help them build a little more before continuing on. Always a better week with service.

And so that's just about it for this week. The weather was pretty nice almost the entire week, until it cold cold Saturday night. Luckily it went away by Sunday afternoon. Glory to the sun.

Several fotos should be coming.

Much love,

Elder Yates

There are a whole lot of motos in Trinidad, if I hadn't mentioned that before.