Double the Work and Double the Appliances in Grenada

So the big news this past week is that we had cambios and I got my last companion. His name is Elder Contreras and he just finished his training in Managua. He is from Guatemala and a pretty cool guy. However, the bigger news is that they combined our area with another one in the district named Sabaneta. They had to combine some areas in the mission this change because about 20 missionaries finished their missions and went home, but only about 8 came in. So now I am in charge of two areas, and to make things even busier, each area belongs to a different branch of the church, so we have two Sacrament Meetings to attend, two correlation meetings, and two branch counsels each Sunday. Needless to say, we are a couple of pretty busy missionaries and my companion has a lot of pressure to learn the areas well so that he will be familiar with them when I leave in a few weeks.

My new companion, Elder Contreras.

Also as a result of cambios, my district has only half as many missionaries now because not only of combining my area with Sabaneta, but also because the Zone Leaders do not have separate companions, but there are just the two zone leaders, Elder Nave, who goes home with me, and then Elder Medrano, who goes home the cambios after ours.

The change is going to be a good one. I feel a little overwhelmed about the two areas because even though they are next to each other, we basically cover half of Grenada. This should be quite an adventure and make the next few weeks fly by. I chuckle because we do a lot more walking now and my poor companion gets so tired keeping up with me that he basically passes out when we get home at night. We will be better organized next Sunday for all of our meetings as we will be in church for 6 hours plus ward correlations for both branches, which makes for a long Sunday. However, if there is one thing I have learned on my mission is patience to sit through long meetings, ha ha, but I'm still always shaking my legs and the benches -- can't stop that.

Now even though we have two areas to cover and super long Sundays, one of the benefits of combining areas is that we got to choose which of the two apartments to stay in, so we moved all the stuff into the house that is bigger and we now have 2 refrigerators, 2 microwaves, 4 fans, and 4 desks, which is pretty awesome.

As for our investigators, we were able to help two of them start the process of getting married so they can get baptized, but the paperwork can take some time. We also picked up some investigators in Sabaneta who are preparing to get married where the wife is already a member, and then he can get baptized as well. So we may have a couple of weddings and baptisms coming up the end of the month. I was also pretty stoked to talk to the family of converts in Sandino that we married and baptized on Valentine's Day 2015 -- their oldest daughter is putting in her mission papers in 2 weeks!!

Well, that's about it this week. Luckily, it really hasn't been as hot here in Grenada as it was down in Rivas, plus I have really enjoyed P-Days here in Grenada as they have a lot more awesome places to eat to choose from. We are supposed to have interviews with the new mission president some time the next 2 weeks, and this may double as my exit interview, but we will see. Well, have a great week back home!