Transfers

Well, like I mentioned last week, I got transferred.  My new area is Miramonte in San Salvador.  And, like I mentioned last week that might be happening is...we´re opening an area.  I am with Hermana Ramirez from Guatemala. She was with Hermana Cash in Las Palmeras with me and Hermana Woods and we both got transferred together.  It is funny because we come from the same area and we have the same time on the mission so most of the questions people ask us have the same answer.   It really has been an adventure.  I thought my last area was city but I was wrong.  In our area we have malls and a mountain of fast food restaurants.  We really live in the city now.  Our ward is relatively small for a ward.  Wards are supposed to have an attendance of 100 people every sunday but ours is struggling at 75 people every sunday.  So, I had no idea how hard it was to open an area but now I know.  We had transfers on tuesday and a bus picks every one and drops every one off at their stake centers.  But the bus dropped us off at the mission office and then left and Hermana Ramirez and I just stared at each other and said ¨What do we do now?¨ After 5 minutes the zone leaders came with a member from their ward who dropped us off at our house in a car and then they said goodbye and left.  So again we were left with the same question.  So we were flipping through the area book and found the phone number of the bishop and had some interesting calls with members.  Pretty much nobody knew that the Elders were taken out of the area so when we come around it is always a surprise to somebody.  We have gone around part of the area with some members and so little by little we will learn more about the area. Yesterday we planned to go out with a young woman and we waited for her but she never came so we decided to go out and we were just walking around our own neighborhood and we got lost. We walked around and we had to ask a taxi driver how to get out of the area.  But we are fine and we had a good laugh about it.  I am glad that I am with the companion that I am with because she doesn´t care what we do or if we get lost, we can always laugh about something.  So even though we don´t know our members or have any investigators, we can still have a good attitude.  In our district, there are 8 missionaries and only one was here last transfer.  Our ward has been struggling for baptisms and they have only had 1 baptism since May. So, we have a lot of work ahead of us.  So, everything is just great here.  My companion is little but she has a crazy goal to gain weight in the mission.  She has already gained 20 pounds but is thinking she should stop because her stomach was hurting last night.  Our area is huge and none of the buses around our area are reliable so we walked a lot lately which I enjoy.  Before the mission going on walks was not my favorite past time but I think I might like it now if I could go on a walk at a leisurely pace.

Oh, one funny thing.  Before transfers I was asking President Lopez (of the mission) where I was going to go and who was going to be the next assistant.  He said I was very curious and told me to make 3 guesses which we did.  Then I said that he would be sure to tell me.  So on Friday night, President Lopez called and told me who was going to be the next assistant.  It was super funny.  I thought he was just joking about telling me but he is a man of his word.  He told me later on that once he decided who it was going to be he called the assistants, then the elder and then me.  How funny.  At least I know that President likes me, right.  But now I will be out of the loop again since I am not going to be in the office and I won´t see president as much (even though we are now in his stake).

I don´t feel like this email was very informative but I don´t really have anything to say.  We are working hard but still trying to know the area which we don´t know at all.  It is always an adventure leaving the house.
I love this work and I love being here.  Our bishop told us that some missionaries got caught up in the gossip of the world but all we need to do is preach the gospel.  I really know that there are people here waiting to hear our message.  We just have to have the faith to find them and fight for them.

I love you all so much!

Hermana Bush