April 18, 2011-La Costa-So Far So Good

hey everyone!
so im writing here from mar de ajo in la costa. last week was a little crazy just having the change and everything really fast, but now that im here, im loving it and having a great time. its different for sure. its soooo clean!! haha and the people are super nice. thats something i havent seen in 2 years haha. theres alot of sand, which is kinda weird, but its all been really cool. im here with elder baggaley, who is from salt lake city. hes got 6 weeks less than me, but hes been an awesome companion for this week. he seems like a really great teacher and stuff. ive gotta say that ive kinda known him for a while and i never really took the time to really get to know him thaaat well. but ive really been wrong about him. hes alot of fun and we´ve already had alot of laughs together. im thinking that its gonna be a good transfer...
so as far as things go in the mission work here in mar de ajó, the people are fairly more wealthier here, which makes talking to people a bigger challenge. it makes the members of the branch (its a small branch. more on that later...) even more important. but the good news is that we´re working right now with a couple families. we´ve got a family that we´re teaching right now and really trying to get baptized. the lady´s name is nilda. shes an older woman. he husband is named juan. hes kinda listening to us, but hes never gone to church before and we dont have a baptismal date with him yet. its in the works though. but yeah so we´re teaching nilda and her 3 little grandchildren. i actually dont remember their names right now, cause im trying to learn a bunch of different names of the investigators and members that we have and my mind is still in a jumble hahah. but we´re really trying to get them baptized this saturday. theyve already gone to church twice and they seem like really good people. i think that they want to get baptized, but we´ve definately got to get them excited for it. if not, i think nilda´s gonna say that shed like to just keep waiting a little bit. so our main goal this week is talk to nilda and her 3 grandchildren, get them super excited about the baptism, and baptize them this saturday. if its what the Lord wants to happen, it will.
alright so what else has happened...? hahah ok so yesterday was about the weirdest day of church that ive ever had. or maybe not the weirdest, but id definately say the day where i had to do more stuff than ive ever had to before. so get this...in the morning, our branch president calls us and tells us that he wouldnt be able to make it to church. he was really sick so he couldnt go. so he asked us if we could set up and prepare the sacrament meeting. i talked to him and told him that thatd be fine. so we left around like 8ish and then we realized that we werent gonna have any bread for the sacrament. so reluctantly, we went to one of the bakeries and bought a thing of bread. so then we got to church, and started right away to prepare the music, the anouncements, and all that good stuff. by the way, the branch president had also asked both elder baggaley and i to give talks hahah fun. but we set that all up, and then started setting up the sacrament table. we finished that before church started. but there we probably like less than 20 people that showed up, so i had to direct the music, while my comp blessed the sacrament. then i had to pass the sacrament hahah. and as soon as that was over, i got up and gave my 30 minute talk hahah. literally, i had to talk for 30 minutes. i dont know how i was able to talk for that long being so unprepared haha but the Lord definately guided me on that one. during on of the parts of my talk, i actually talked about the conversion of grandpa, with the little deacon that told him to get baptized hahah. but then my comp gave his talk. lets just say that it was a different kind of sunday. im always glad for new opportunities, but id rather not do that again haha.
ohhh but heres an awesome thing that we did. so today we had a zone activity cause in february our zone completed all our goals. so as a reward, president stapley came to pinamar (which is like an hour from where we live) and made us breakfast. we had pancakes with syrup, eggs with bacon (its been awhile since ive had bacon), and orange juice. for me it was amazing haha. but it was cool cause my comp and i were trying to think of some fun stuff that we could do after the breakfast. and last night i was laying in my bed thinking and all of a sudden, i sat up and was like, ¨easter egg hunt!!!¨ haha i mean this week is easter! elder baggaley liked the idea, so we bought all the candy this morning. and while the rest of the zone was watching a movie, we hid all the candy. we didnt tell them until the end of the movie, so the were all surprised and everyone told us that they really loved it. i thought it was wayyy fun too. just another one of those dorky ideas of mine haha.
mom, my comp is definately from the us haha. hes as american as you can get. but an awesome kid. dad, bummer about the lakers losing the first game against the lame hornets. but im not worried. we just need the mamba to do his thing. no te precupes haha. sean, sounds like you guys are gonna have some fun this week with the rest of the fam. be sure to have a good one and send me some pics with them if you can. paige, spring break...fun. hahah and hey, i read that letter from the newer guy in the ward. just for future references for all guys: theres only one guy for you, mrs. gubler ;) . bridg, hopefully that the carita is doing alot better now. thats kind of a weird thing that happened, but hopefully is all cleared up now.
well im hoping for an amazing week. it should be a little crazy here in our area since this week is easter. lets just say that im glad that i wasnt here when it was really hot outside hahah. but we´ll see if there are alot of people that come down here for easter this time of year. but i wanna wish you all a happy easter. i hope that its alot of fun for all of you. and yeah we´ll talk more next week. love you all!
con cariño,
elder ryan hall