"I hope he is ready"

Written July 29.

Well... we got transfer calls last night. It was pretty interesting. For the last two transfers I have been living in the same house as Elder Egbert and the zone leaders and we grew pretty close. One of the zone leaders, Elder McBride, got called to be the assistant to the president on Friday so when we got transfer calls he talked to us. 

Elder Egbert is off to be a zone leader in Mendoza (heart of the city). He is pretty "young" in the mission to get called as a zone leader with just 14 1/2 months under his belt. He definitely deserves it; he works really hard. I will miss him but he was an awesome trainer and we had some great times together. 

I will be staying here in Tupungato and will have a Brazilian companion named Elder Quadros. There are only 5 Brazilians in the whole Mendoza mission (of about 180 people) and I will be living with 2 of them. The other one is one of the zone leaders I have lived with the past two transfers who will be staying here as well. So we´ll have two gringos and two Brazileros in our house. 

At the beginning of the week it was very cold and our water pipes froze during the night for about 3 nights in a row. Those mornings we heated water up in pots on the stove, poured it into buckets mixed with cooler water (so it wouldn`t scold us), got in the shower (one at a time... just to be clear :] ) and poured the water on ourselves using the pitcher thing that goes on the blender... good times. We have since figured out that if we leave the water dripping a bit all night then it doesn`t freeze in the pipes. 

I am super excited to be staying here in Tup-Town. Elder Quadros and I will definitely be working hard and baptizing this next transfer so I hope he is ready. We have a lot of great people that we are teaching right now and things are really coming alive for the branch. The family that has been going through all of the trials lately is starting to make a big come back. In-active family members are starting to come back to church and things are looking up for them. I am so blessed to be a part of this. 

Thank you for all of your prayers. I am able to feel of the love and support coming from back home. I am growing so much spiritually and I can`t believe it! I thought my testimony of the restored gospel was immovable before my mission.. now I don`t know what to call it but it`s gotten stronger. 

I`ll be excited to update you guys on my first week with my new companion next monday. Unitl then my prayers are with you.

-Elder Rainock