Hola Familia!
Once again, I forgot to tell y'all that transfers are this week. I think, or did I tell you? Either way, its Tuesday and I'm writing. So transfers are in and I didn't get exactly what I wanted, but I am pretty happy/excited/nervous/scared to death. I will no longer be a leader of zone (or zone leader for those that are fluent English speakers) but will continue serving as a district leader. I'm going BACK to Santa Fe and will be opening an area that has been closed for about a year for various reasons. My new companion is Elder Pratt, and is fresh from the MTC. I get to train again! Unfortunately, I have heard alot about the area, both good and bad, but I guess that doesn't really matter, we are still going to rock it! I have the heart of down town in the area. Its a new challenge.
My first hijo is making a skyrocket climb in mission leadership. He is going to be a zone leader this transfer, which is as fast as any yanqui has ever moved up. He and another elder from his mtc group. I am pretty excited to see if I can train an assistant, thus vicariously becoming assistant! Haha, just kiddin.

This morning we went and helped our bishop roof a house for someone. We did it with cement. Construction is very different here. Everything is with bricks. At first I was up on the roof receiving a bucket of cement and handing it to someone else, then receiving the empty buckets and passing them down the line. After a little while I got called down to the cement mixer. UP until this point I thought the job was pretty easy, but then they told me that I would have to receive the empty buckets and put them on the ground for someone else to fill with cement, then pick them up and lift them as high as I could and pass them to another guy who passed them to someone on the roof and so on. I will be very sore tomorrow. It was a great experience though... I think my hands took the worst of the beating. I got like a million blisters that all popped and got sand and cement in them. I got home and thought it would be a good idea to put straight alcohol on them.....possibly the worst decision I have made in a really long time. It burned really bad. So that was my morning. I love service...really, I do.

I got one of the best phone calls in the whole world the other night. An elder called from Concordia and told me that the dad of a family there has decided to get baptized. He had a date earlier this year, but I don't know what happened. The good news is that this time the elders didn't ask him if he would get baptized, he asked the elders if he could get baptized. I would absolutely love to be there this week end, but I guess someone will just have to send me the pictures afterwards. That family is so going to the temple next year! I also heard that the mom of a few kids that got baptized in Santa Fe got baptized last week. She wanted to get baptized so bad while I was there, but for a while she was under the impression that she couldn't go to church if she was still smoking. We felt really bad for having miscommunicated, but either way, she got baptized. Now the whole family are members, they just have to activate the dad. He was baptized as a kid, but hasn't really gone to church in forever and doesn't remember anything except maybe his baptism.
OH yeah, I totally forgot, I turned 21 this week! Crazy huh! It was a pretty normal day. My comps birthday was the 27th, so it was a birthday weekend. An hermana made us a super huge awesome cake and we have been eating it for every meal for the last few days. Your birthday is a really big deal down here! Everyone was really excited and greeted us and stuff. It was cool. Saturday we had an activity. We watched the lion king. I think it’s like the third time I have seen it in the mission. Its amazing how much you can relate to the gospel/plan of salvation from that movie.
Love you all,
Elder Rau