Leaving Things Better?!

[from July 15, 2017]

Hey Family,

This week was pretty good.  My companion is training his replacement which is kinda cool.  His name is Elder Reyes and he´s from Guatemala.  He´s gonna be the new migracion secretary.  It´s kinda weird, in the mission there are two Elder Reyes´s and both have been my companion and both have been secretaries.  Elder Reyes the tico (from Costa Rica) was the Ruta Secretary before I came into the office. 

This week I´ve been thinking a little bit about when it will be my turn to train a new secretary.  I talked to Elder Burt (who´s the General Secretary in the San Pedro Sula WEST mission) and he was telling me how in that mission, the secretarys are trained for one day, but the secretary from before leaves a book with really clear instructions and if they ever need help they can just call.  I think when my time in the office ends I´d like to do something a little more like that.  So this week I´ve been working on getting this computer cleaned out of all the old stuff we don´t need, cleaning up my desk, and making a calendar of stuff I have to do.  I want to leave this job in a better position than I found it, just like any other area or calling in the mission. 

Also, in this ward before the changes (I think american missionaries say "transfers").  There used to be 3 companionships of missionaries.  Now there are just 2 because of all the areas they had to close.  So another thing we did this week was divide up the area that got closed between us and the sisters.  I´m pretty happy cause our area before was really stinking small.  I know in every area there´s people to find, but I like to have lots of space in my area.

Also, we finally got the new truck that we were so excited to get.  It´s WAY nice.  It´s a Nissan Frontier 2018.  It´s also really expensive; the guy who buys them for the church in Honduras told me that it cost about 38,000 bucks.  It has lots of cool stuff it can do, I feel kinda like I´m driving Grandma´s Buick or maybe a super high tech jet plane. 

I´m also trying to study some church stuff in Russian.  It´s super hard.  I don´t know if anybody´s tried it yet but the thing that really throws me off are where to put the stinking accent.  I´m starting to understand the alphabet and a couple of words. 

Also I´m starting to teach Elder Reyes a little English.  I´m gonna try and get him way good.  That´s my project cause we´re gonna be together for a while I think, and we get along super well. 

One other thing I´m in charge of is reporting robberies to church headquarters reporting the robbery.  On Thursday I got a phone call that said missionaries on the other side of the mission got robbed and the guy who robbed them stole his rambo doll.  Yes, rambo doll.  Like John Rambo, but not an action figure, a doll.  So first of all he was walking with his John Rambo doll and then he got robbed, but instead of them taking money or the cell phone they wanted his John Rambo doll. Pretty funny, at least to me.  
    
Love you guys and have a good week!

-Elder Stoddard