Happy One Year w/o Me In Your Presence

Happy One Year without me in your presence. Can you handle another?
I did not expect it to go so quickly. I think I am half done and it makes me want to work even harder. I only have 370ish days to devote all my time to this work and there is soo much work to do!

Well Elder Flaherty and I had a super good week. We found some people, three investigators came to church and there was just good things going on all week! I saw President and Hermana Olsen for the last time. Saturday evening the Villa Dolores branch had an activity filled with ping pong, empanadas, monkey in the middle, coca (coke), do you love your neighbor, and a surprise song from our branch president and a member for our departing president and wife. President Salas, Hermana Salas, and their fourteen year old son arrive the 29th and President and Hermana Olsen leave the 30th. It is really weird to think they are gone. They have helped me learn and grow in these nine months together, and seeing them for the last time was sad, but President Olsen gave Elder Flaherty and I some really good advice towards the mission and one of our investigators who came to the party, but I took it more as life advice. They are two awesome people. However, I am also anxious for President Salas to come. He has the same authority and same calling and same objective and same Spirit, so it shouldn't be too different. It's sad and exciting at the same time, this change.

Also, Elder Flaherty and I are German. Everyone yells things at us all day long, all of them are negative comments about us and Germany. They say Germany sucks and go back to Germany and stuff all day long (especially on soccer game days). However, the funniest thing about it all is that they yell things in English at us. For example "Yay Argentina, boo Alemania (Germany in Spanish), we win you". It´s fun..sometimes haha. When Argentina wins a game the country goes crazy. They shoot fireworks, they place a brick on their car horn so they can make noise to let all the other Argentines know they won. Every store closes (grocery, tire, appliance, whatever) and we get yelled at by everyone. Every town is centered around a plaza and everyone goes there after games. Elder Flaherty and I had to pass through the plaza to get to our appointment yesterday and people starting swearing at us and threatening us because we weren't from Argentina, and telling us we weren't worthy to walk across their plaza. It's fun.

I love you all! This work is amazing and it's weird thinking I only have a year left to do it (in this way). Thank you for the love and support. Have a super week,


ELMX