Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Transfers and a Blessing

This week was a fairly normal one. A few nights before transfers, we got a call telling us that Elder Metcalf was being transfered early and had to leave the next day for McAllen. He spent the whole night packing. The guy he drove down with is from Peru, and not the best driver in the world. While Elder Metcalf had one leg in the car and one out the car started to drive away. Luckily, he was okay.
The next day the three of us still in Laredo went out, and we had not been out more than 15 minutes when we received a phone call from one of our investigators (the guy that let us in because he thought he would be cursed if he didn't). We had trouble reaching him after we made initial contact, so it was a welcome surprise. He was at a hospital because his aunt was sick and he said he wanted us to come visit with them. We drove up there and went in to see how she was doing. Apparently she was having some kidney failure and the possibility of cancer on her liver, so she wasn't doing very well. He asked us if there was anything we could do, so we explained a little about the power and authority of the Priesthood and told him that we could give her a health blessing. He said that would be great, so we did. It was a very powerful blessing. Right before we gave the blessing, she was moving around and in obvious pain, but after we finished saying the blessing, she was sound asleep. It was a very powerful experience. We haven't heard how she is doing lately, that night we got the call for transfers (which happen ever six weeks or so). We found out we were getting a new elder, Elder Cordoza, from a different mission. This is very rare, because you almost never switch missions. At transfers the next day, we met him, and he told us he was originally in Ecuador, but he tore his ACL (in his knee) and had to go home for six months to get surgery. I guess if you are home longer than a certain amount of time, they re-assign your mission call. He is really cool, and is from Dallas, about six hours north. He said this area is nothing like northern Texas.
We are moving apartments this Friday. Right now we live really close to downtown, where it's a bit more rough, and we are moving uptown to a more ghetto area, but it's not as tough. The train tracks run about 10 feet from our new apartment, whereas right now at the old place the tracks are about half a block away or so. Tell everyone hello and I appreciate their letters very much.