"some pretty exciting news"

written Jan 6th

I´ve got some pretty exciting news for you guys today. I´ll get to that in a minute. 

This week we had a nice dinner at President Ávila´s house on New Years Eve. It was a little more laid back than the Christmas Eve dinner. The setting was just as nice but instead of have multiple courses for the meals we just had the table full of appetizer like foods. It was delicious as expected and we finished the night off by playing a game a charades. We acted out stories and figures from the scriptures :) 

I did one exchange this week in Godoy Cruz with the elders I was living with last transfer. It was only for one day because I had to return to the offices on Friday for the leadership meeting of the mission. Friday is when it all went down.. 

One of the zone leaders finished up his mission last week with my companion Elder Sorenson. As of Friday, President Ávila still hadn´t called a new zone leader. The assistants were asking President all day thursday as they were finishing up their planning for the council so they would know whom to welcome.

Finally, friday came around and the council had started. They asked one more time before giving the announcements and President Ávila pointed at me. I didn´t really hear what they had asked so I figured I must be wrong when the thoughts of being a zone leader started going through my head. But sure enough.. they announced for me to go take my place next to my new companion, Elder Burga. He is from Peru and finishes his mission next tuesday... haha! I am sending two missionaries home in one transfer! On top of that I only have a week to get to know my area and learn the responsibilities of a zone leader while not even having been a district leader yet!! Needless to say I am a bit stressed right now but I am definitely looking forward to the new opportunity. I love challenges and opportunities to grow and this will certainly be one. 

Right now I am in Villa Mercedes in the province of San Luis. I am waaaaay out there. The farthest zone away from the mission home. 

My first day we had a baptism of a man named Sergio. He is a great guy and you can tell he has had to make a lot of changes in his life to now be where he is. I had to opportunity to confirm him on sunday. My first two impressions of the ward are outstanding! All of the meetings started on time, the members are fulfilling their callings, members were quick to greet me and any other newcomers, and the testimony meeting was powerful. San Luis is definitely a people ready for a temple. They will be going to the Córdoba temple when it is finished being built since it is the closest one. 

Villa Mercedes is a beautiful place. It is actually green here! And the people are a lot different, I haven´t been able to pick out what it is yet but they are different. 

Right now I have to go finish preparing for our (and my first) zone meeting tomorrow. Hope all is well back home!

- Elder Rainock