From Dave - 9.24

what is up family? yeah its officially my second transfer and things are realllyy diffferent now. Elder Probert left and my new companion is Elder Burton, from a little town in Arkansas. It was tough to leave elder probert, and it was very tough for elder probert to leave Rufino. It was a long day saying goodbye to all of the families here, tears were shed, but the time for Elder Probert to leave was inevitable. Its toughest on these families because they love the missionaries so much and they become really close to them so it just rips them apart to see some missionaries go. So after saying goodbye to everyone Elder Probert had to pack and then we took a bus at 3 in the morning to Venado Tuerto (where we have district meetings and when there zone leaders live) it is an hour and a half bus ride, but we didn´t sleep that night besides the hour and a half on the bus. So then i spent the rest of the day waiting around at the zone leaders' apartment waiting for Elder Burton to come. it was a lonnnngggg day. So Elder Burton is a lot different than Elder Probert and it was kind of a shock. He is a super organized person, which isn´t necessarily a bad thing, it was just different. Him and i have very different personalities, but we are starting to work well together.Elder Probert knew everything about Rufino, i would usually just follow him around and now i need to show elder Burton around and its tough. Ive realized how much i do know though. Also our interactions with people are really different with the members and such. Usually Elder Probert would do most of the talking, he was a super personable and a really likable person. The members loooovveedd him here. So when he left i was a little overwhelmed by everything. I felt i needed to fill his shoes since hes left. Its been good for me because im opening up and talking significantly more with people now. I have to. there is a huge void without Elder Probert that needs to be filled. All in all ive felt it has been a long week, everyone says that leaving your trainer is always tough. Ive found it super tough. But no one said every part of the mission would be easy. The best things for you can usually be the toughest. Im trying my best to look at this moment as a growth period. Honestly i was fairly negative the first few days, but negativity doesn´t help anyone.So anyways Elder Burton and i this past week would do some chatting about home life, about our interests, about what our upbringing was like. so about middle way through our second day together, he really started getting on my nerves. He was continuously dropping cane on me (telling me im wrong). he was Complaining about the pinch, about how Elder Probert did the area book, about how i shouldn´t walk with a hand in my pocket, about how i shouldn´t wear my boots if i dont need to, about this about that, about always having a part. honestly in a day an a half i basically felt he told me i was doing everything wrong as a missionary, of course his intentions weren´t as such, but thats how i felt, and i longed to just be with elder probert again. Eventually after he complained about me being indecisive about which milk i wanted in the super market, i called him out. You all know that im probably the least confrontational person there is, but he was driving me nuts! honestly, i know im being really negative, but it was ridiculous. so we basically had a comp inventory on the spot. I told him my feelings, and he felt bad because he didn´t know that stuff bothered me. So i guess now i need to show when im annoyed with someone. So later we were walking and talking and eventually i said, you know what i dont think that we have anything in common. it is the honest truth, our sense of humor, our interests, absolutely nothing lines up. i find it so bizzare. anyways, instead of going completely negative about this whole change, yesterday i made a personal goal to change everything, i need to change my outlook. We have the most important thing in common, we are missionaries for the church. we can work well together, i just have to make personal sacrifices. im going to make those sacrifices and learn to live with someone very different. this is the Lords work and it shouldn't´t be stopped because of my inability to get along with someone.ANYways. so this past week i´ve learned that not all missionaries work the same way either. The ways Burton does contacts and such are different from Probert, the way he teaches is different. I´ve already learned a lot from him though. He doesn´t know as much spanish as probert, but he has a really good accent. All of the people we talk to think he´s argentine. Hes in his 7th month in the country and is already a senior Comp. He just changed to senior comp this transfer.There are a bunch of frogs around now adays. I dont know where they came from, but they are everywhere. like these big frogs, more like toads. so while Probert and i were walking we would kick them, like they would go pretty far, at first i felt kinda bad, but these frogs are tough. You can kick them like 20 feet and they are fine. so we would kick them like we would kick rocks or something, not all of the time, and not around people (dont want to look like punk kids). However Elder Burton does not approve of kicking the frogs, even though theres like thousands of them and it doesn´t hurt them. no fun frown face. but maybe i guess i shouldn´t be kicking frogs. but that begs the question, what if they were spiders like big spiders? Elder Burton couldn´t answer that, just no kicking frogs, or shooting cats with the slingshot back at the apartment.So what work have we done this week...the actually important stuff. We´ve got a bunch of new investigators to go by. Our key investigators still haven´t come to church. We went by their houses on Sunday morning, but didn´t come out. Still kinda frustrating, but we gotta keep finding more so that we can have more to teach. Thats what we´re doing now. We´re doing a lot of finding so that we can have more people to invite to church. Burton´s style is find as much as you can and invite as much as you can, so that at least some people will come to church and progress. Probert´s style was more like find solid people and work really hard with them. I feel good about this transfer though, i feel we will get some baptisms, but the problem with Daniel and vanessa and jose and rosana is that they aren´t married, could be tough, but i think once they have solid testimonies, things won´t be too hard.good to hear that all is well at home, ill let you know when i get the package and letters and such. thanks for all of your love and support. Please let me know if you got any questions or anything you´d want me to change in my email and stuff. youre all in my prayersloveelder whiting