Mission President Change!

The Office Elders

Hey everybody,

Quickly I will answer Mom´s questions: My "broken toe" was actually probably just a sprain. I go running 3 times a week just fine and it doesn´t hurt me. It was just really purple for a couple of days. But the story is WAY more interesting when the toe was broken isn´t it? The drive to the beach is an hour. Yes I went to super P-day and we do those with half the mission every time because it is extremely difficult to get all the mission together. Also, we all work in the same office space and the AP´s are here about half the time and gone about half the time.

Anyways this week was absolutely crazy because of the transition of President´s. It is official I have met President and Sister Brough (Bruff is how it sounds) and they are incredible. They are very young and still have a 14 year old daughter that will be living with them for 3 years here. He is such a contrast to President Baldwin. President Baldwin is an amazing person, but is very stern, which makes sense because he was a pilot for the air force for years. President Brough jokes around and has a great presence. Sister Brough still looks scared out of her mind everytime we see her, but she is fearless as she gave a little talk in the best spanish she could muster in front of half the missionaries in the mission today in change meeting. I was very impressed because that would be terrifying. You can tell she has been working hard to study the language in the last few months. I will be working very closely with her because that is what the secretaries do. President Brough gave some words and while his spanish is rusty (mostly just his accent) it is very good. You can tell he really feels these things, he just seems very sincere. It is cool because he started his mission 20 minutes away from Chimaltenango where I served.

Other than that we have barely had time to work in our area the last few days, which is sad but necessary because the new missionaries (a group of 13) came in on Monday and we had to basically babysit them for 2 days until change meeting along with the AP´s. They seem like a great group of missionaries. We had to deal a lot with getting food, the transportation, etc. but we are finally done with the stressful days because everyone is situated in the area out of our responsibility.

It´s interesting though because tonight we will be hauling the missionaries that are leaving around and we saw all of them (which includes some great friends) at change meeting. After seeing the nervous new missionaries come in and the nervous old missionaries leaving, I have really thought about how short this time is. The Lord asks us to serve for 2 years, 2 years that we will never get back. We need to take full advantage of that time, and try to learn as much as we can, that´s why the He asks us to serve missions. It´s such a personal experience, two years set aside for spiritual growth, the kind of growth that come from serving and helping others. In doing this we obviously are probably the ones who are helped most. I have just really thought about what we need to do as missionaries to leave everything else behind for two years and just give it our all, knowing that we will recieve so much more than we gave. It´s been a really interesting and thought provoking experience.

Anyways next week I will fill you in on the Hernandez Estradad family (Felix) because he has been working a lot and we haven´t been able to visit them. Thank for all the support you all give me, it really helps. I love you!

-Ben