This week, transfer week

So this week was transfer week for the Chicago Illinois Mission. We had 17 new missionaries come in. However, of that many missionaries only one (1) was a Spanish Elder. There were an additional 2 Hermanas and we had a ton of English Elders. So as a result we didn't get a lot of changes in the Spanish Department. In fact, my entire district is the same. Also, Elder Witham, Elder Cardenas and almost all of the Elders that I know are now serving in Chicago. I followed Cardenas and the rest followed me. The one change that I know of in the spanish program is that Elder Cuentas is now serving in the Logan Square area in chicago as a district leader. So now he's back in my zone. All of my past and current companions are now in the city. Oh also cool little factiod. I came to the realization that as of last transfer all of my leaders (except my trainer) from when I first entered the field have gone home. My Zone Leaders, Elder Powell and Elder Call have both been home for a while, and the AP's Elder Jones and Elder Larson both went home a little while back too. As of the coming February transfer, Elder Witham will go home, and by the April transfer, my entire first district will be gone home. That's weird to me. I'm beginning to feel like an old missionary. Which is correct because next transfer I hit my year mark and my hump day ( the day when I have more time behind me than I have left). That'll be weird.

So transfers are happening today, but as I'm unaffected, we're just kicking it.

News from last week. We had Alma Ramirez's baptism, which was really cool! I got to baptize her! Now you guys probably have this written down somewhere, so correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't I baptized on the 25 of September? That'd be cool because then I would've baptized someone on my 12 year mark.

Also, an investigator who I was teaching in Bloomingdale by the name of Silvia Hernandez, got baptized on friday! She's way cool. You guys may remember her, she was the one with a son and a daughter who Elder Witham and I found contacting. She was on the phone when we knocked on her door and we figured she wouldn't be interested, but we asked her anyway. Well turns out she was because she told the caller that she would call them back and that she wanted to hear what we had to say. 6 months later, I received a call from her while I was in another appointment, and she told me that she had just been baptized. She called because she said that she fel very grateful to me for having found her and started her on this path, and that I was a very important part in her conversion. She is a really amazing lady and I was really surprised and excited to receive that call. It was so cool! She is the first person who's door I knocked on to get baptized. All the rest have been member referrals or old investigators.

With her baptism, that makes a grand total of 10 of my investigators who have gotten baptized. I feel very blessed and honored to have been able to see that many baptisms this quickly in my mission. That's 10 investigators in 10 months. And next month we will be having the baptisms for Rafael Cinta (Oct. 9), Angel Ramirez (Oct. 16) and Tania Perez (Oct. 23). The cool thing about those three baptisms is that each of them will complete (or in the case of Angel, begin to complete) a family's membership in the church. With Angel, two of his sisters are now baptized (Flor and Alma, both of whom we taught), and his oldest sister, mom, sister's husband, and mom's boyfriend, are all starting to listen to us as well. We are very much hoping that this spreads to more and more people within this family and outside, as his cousin is meeting with us too.

In addition, last night we had a cool experience. We were teaching Rafael Cinta (see baptismal date above) with his recent convert wife Imelda Medrano (we baptized her on July 31). We were teaching the plan of Salvation and were talking with them about it when we realized that we needed a man to come with us to an appointment for later that night because no man lived in the house. So my companion asked Rafael, and him and his wife agreed to accompany us to the teaching appointment. We went to Tania Perez's house (she also has a baptismal date above), and we taught her... the Plan of Salvation. Having just taught it to Rafael and his wife, we thought it would be a great idea to showcase what we had taught him and find out exactly how much he understood from what he had learned. Every question that we asked him, he gave an awesome answer to and the two of them got along really well with Tania. The lesson went really well and I believe that it helped Tania a lot to meet them and be able to discuss the gospel with some others who are relatively new in it.

Also, an unrelated story... Last friday was the birthday of Byron Ramirez. He turned 2. His mom, Alma, was going to get baptized the next day, and so had invited us to Byron's birthday, both because we were teaching her, and because we have become like family to all of them. I love that family a lot. Well, we came over earlier in the day, and saw that there wasn't a man in the house, and so we couldn't go in (per the church's policy). We had an appointment (again with Rafael Cinta), and as we were leaving, we wanted to go back to the Ramirez's apartment and celebrate with all of them. My companion, however, pointed out that we had no way of knowing that there would be a man there this time, so I decided to call Hermano Bolanos to help us out. I called, and he was more than willing to come and help us with the appointment,especially when we included the words "pastel" and "fiesta" (cake and party). He's a rather eclectic guy, even by hispanic standards. He always speaks in double entendre so you never know if he's being real with you or poking fun at you, but he's a really funny guy when you get used to his humor. Well, he came with us, when to our surprise we met inside the apartment Alma's mother's boyfriend. Alma's mother has been a little against her getting baptized and opposed Flor and Angel in the whole thing from the beginning. However, upon meeting with her boyfriend, Hermano bolanos and him really kicked it off. I was nervous for a second, but then realized that the two of them were a lot alike. It was really good. Him being with us helped to open up some conversation and allowed us some teaching opportunities, in an environment that was significantly less hostile than they had been before. By the end of the night, he had asked us for our cards, and said he wanted to learn more. It was really cool. My companion and I were talking, when he told me how much he felt that the spirit had worked through us to decide to go back to their house, and then worked through me to call the Hermano Bolanos to open this guy up to receive the gospel.

I am feeling better thank you for your concern. Things are going really good for me right now. As far as only being old if I get called sir... every time I go to Dominicks (like the Smiths of out here), in my proselyting clothes, I always get a "sir, where is the bread isle?" So I am a "sir" now and not a "young man". Plus, one of the young women from the ward, when I said it was my birthday asked me how old I was. I said, "I'm 20." She said, "don't be offended, okay? But I thought you were 30." I just laughed and told her it was okay.

I love you guys, I have to go now. I will talk to you more next week.

Did get the garments, thanks much.

Love,
Elder J.