Oh man there's so much to update you guys on this week! First of all wasn't conference great? It's such a blessing to hear the words of the prophets without having to travel great distances and hear the counsel of the Lord to us in the latter days! I love my new area! I'm now serving in Fairlawn, NJ. Basically it's a subcity of Paterson. I'm in Sister B's area. Her and her companion got doubled out and my companion, Elder C and I got doubled in! So not only am I a new district leader, I'm also the senior companion, the driver, doubled into a new area so neither of us know anyone, and on top of that we're doubled into a sister's area so most of the people that they worked with were sisters who we can't work with! Elder C loves it just the same. Paterson is really ghetto. It's a city area and there's a lot of people here. I love it! My companion, Elder C, is awesome! He's 24 but he's only been out on his mission for two transfers more than I have. We're the youngest companionship in the mission. He's from Sao Paulo, Brazil but he's traveled all over the world. He speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and English. He's awesome. He likes to work out a lot like me and we work out for an hour and a half every morning. I have a feeling I'll lose a lot of weight here. The branch here is very small but they're very strong members. We live in a four-elder apartment in Paterson. My roomates are Elder De la Cruz, from Mexico, and Elder Crawford, From Washington(Tri-cities area). Everyone in our apartment speaks Spanish because it's really the easiest language for all of us to communicate in so we all speak Spanglish to each other. It's pretty cool. I'm really brushing up on my Spanish here and my transfer goal is to be able to speak it pretty much fluently, which shouldn't be too hard because everyone here speaks it so I definitely get the needed practise. We've been doing a lot of work trying to get to know our area. I spent like an hour on the phone with Sister B just trying to get a feel for all the people they've been working with. We really haven't seen many of their investigators but we've been finding a lot of new investigators of our own. There's always someone walking out on the streets at any given time of day and so we walk as much as possible to talk to everyone on the street. People here are very open and very willing to hear and learn about the Gospel. It's amazing! I really love my new area. There's so much to do as a district leader. Most of it involves a lot of paperwork that I have to do but the bulk of it is keeping track of the missionaries, making sure their alright and doing what I can to help them. It's really a different side when you see the amount of work and care that goes into supervising this great work. Camp Helamen was nothing compared to actual missionary work and service. While I definitely don't think there's any way to properly simulate what goes on here, the duties required of us are immense. I enjoy serving them though. The most I think the assignment does for me is gives me a greater opportunity to serve the missionaries around me. I love doing it and it really I think helps me set myself apart from other missionaries and really focus on the work that I have to do. I'm excited to do the work here in Fairlawn and to see the great success that the Lord has in store for me. Getting doubled in shows that President Bahr and the Lord have a lot of faith in Elder C and I that we can really succeed here and we don't intend to let him and the Lord down! That's cool that Chelsea is graduating early. She'll be married by the fall. No doubt. Yea she wanted me to be Gastonne if they did that play last year. I think that's funny that Zach is Gastonne because Gastonne is huge and manly and Zach is somewhat lacking in the huge, manly, and hairy department. I'll email Kelly right after I finish here. The mail works the same here and yes I'll probably still usually get it on tuesdays. When you go to the temple make sure the girls realize what a sacred place that it is and what an even greater blessing it is to be within those walls. Thanks so much for everything and I hope you guys have a great week. I know I will! Elder C and I are excited to start off this transfer strong and take Fairlawn by storm!
Elder Guinto
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