So the news is in, I am now serving in the Goshen Bilingual area! We cover the Goshen stake in the very southwest corner of the mission, which consists a few small towns like Goshen (where we live, 900 people and two wards), Genola (three wards), Elberta and Eureka (one ward each) in both Spanish and English. This means we co-cover the Spanish Branch in Santaquin with the Spanish Sisters there.
To begin, I love it here. No longer do I cover 67 wards, but a mere 7, which is just one stake. I am getting to actually know the members and can work well with them. We cover everyone in the area, English or Spanish, no stepping on anyone's toes or crossing over areas: we have our little area and we know it. We have a car to get us around between the towns, and go on splits nightly on each ward's assigned day to visit people.
It is a great area, full of history and beautiful scenery and lovely families. We have a few investigators and potentials, but the bulk of our work is less actives. For example, one town has about 500 members on record, but an attendance of only about 120. We have a lot of work to do here, and I am so excited to do it!
As for companions, I am in a trio temporarily, Elder Contreras being the reason for that. He has been out for 23 months, and his visa will expire just before the normal transfer date, so he'll be leaving in 5 weeks. So that he doesn't make a hole in a companionship somewhere at that time, he is spending his final days here with us before he heads back to Mexico City. He actually lives very close to the CCM where I lived in Mexico City. He is a great guy and a hard worker despite being so close to the end, I hope to learn a lot from him by the end.
Elder Rios is the one who was in the area before, and thus my "steady" companion so to speak. He is a convert of about 3 years from California (near Los Angeles), and he is an awesome guy. He has been out on the mission around 14 months, three of them here in Goshen. The members like him a lot, and he's done a great job getting me acquainted with people in these small towns. With a trio now too we can cover a lot of ground on splits nights, so we hope to get a lot of work done this transfer! I am so excited to be out here, and to be a missionary in the thick of it is just icing on the cake. I will get more info out on the people specifically next time as I get to know them!
For a funny anecdote though, when I arrived Elder Rios posted a picture of us three on Facebook for the town to see, though for some reason he put my name as Elder Milton. So, now I am doing my best to get it changed to Elder Martin, but news moves fast in small towns, and I may have to fight hard to stamp out the Elder Milton virus, haha.
It was a bit hard to leave my last area in Provo, but the people behind are in good hands, and should get to the sets of missionaries they need to. Goshen is amazing though, I love it so much!
-Elder Martin
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