Chapter 48: Manantial

Photos with members of my old ward Jardines de Toncontín

Huge raincoats my new bishop lent us when we were completely unprepared for the rain

Hey guys! It's been one awesome week! I got transferred!

Bye Bye Office:

So transfers were Tuesday, but I stayed in my old area a few days extra to teach the new secretary how to be a secretary, so I didn't get to my new area until Thursday night.

Manantial:

My new area is called Manantial (which means spring, like a spring of water) and it's gorgeous! The area is huge and actually comprised of several different neighborhoods (barrios), and we live in an area called la Cruz Roja, because the Red Cross built many houses here to relocate people affected by Hurricane Mitch.

Cruz Roja (and Altos de Santa Rosa - another subdivision of our area) are built on top of mountains just outside the city. When from our house, we can see the city on one side, and a ton of rolling green mountains on the other. It's beautiful!

Manantial is a large residencial area where the people have moneeeyyy. Which means 1. the members there are very generous and have nice things and 2. the nonmembers aren't the most soft-hearted people I've met.

But all the members here are so great and they leave to go work with the missionaries ALL THE TIME! It's AWESOME.

My new companion is Elder Knowlton, from Layton. He's got 7 months on the mission and he's a cool guy, we get along well.

I'm also the district leader out here, which is a fun experience. My district has 4 large areas, so I'm excited to get to know this part of the country really well.

The House:

The house here is really cool (I didn't take pictures of it because it was absolutely filthy when I got here and we're going to be cleaning it up today) but it's an apartment on the 3rd story of a member's house!

The members we live with are the Familia Troches. Everyone just calls the dad Troches, I think his first name is Jose. But anyway, Troches is the FATTEST MAN I HAVE EVER SEEN. I don't have a picture today, but imagine Jabba the Hut and that's fairly close. He only speaks English with us and he's really nice and an awesome fella. Super fat. He also makes delicious spicy chicken wings.

Working with the members:

So my comp only has one transfer here in the area, and doesn't know too many members, old investigators, or recent converts (it doesn't help that the Area Book is empty) so yesterday after church, about half of the ward council met up and we all went to a section of our area called Bajos de Las Colinas and we just went visiting a TON of different active, less active, inactive, and new members along with several investigators the missionaries used to teach. We walked from Bajos up the hill to Las Colinas, then back down through Cruz Roja just meeting a ton of people already well-acquainted with the Church. This coming Sunday, we're going to do the same with Altos de Santa Rosa and during the week, the Bishop is going to show us around Manantial.

We also got to do some service yesterday with the Bishop, and we ended up getting really sunburt. So that's fun.

Anyway I love my new area and I'm so excited to see what's in store for me here!

Love you all! Make good choices!

Elder Jensen