So I've been here for about a week now and I'll let you know how it all is. So I've moved a little more south than Gandia where I was before. Its about an hour and 30 minutes more south. It's in the Elche zone in the mission which is the Elche stake. Which means I am in one of the main areas of the stake now which is super great! My area has a small portion of the west side of the city of Elche. The other portion of my area is a lot of little towns and a bigger one named Elda where there used to be a branch. They broke up the wards in Elche and added the branch of Elda and that's how we have the 2nd ward in Elche where I'm at now.
I would love to include a lot of pictures of the area but I've been driving all over the place. I've been blessed with a car in this new area which is a huge blessing. The sad part is I'm driving all over the place, we don't walk a lot and I'm the only legal driver... I've driven to Alicante which is a big city to the east of Elche, to Elda many times, and all over Elche.
I am companions with Elder Rodriguez who was my district leader when I served in the island of Mallorca. We're super good friends and we have a great time together. He's been showing me how to get around the area and how we work here. It's a very different area meaning we work a lot with the members. We meet with the members at least 2 times a day which a lot and we have lots of dinners or lunch visits with them. It's a great way to get to know the leaders of the ward and fortify the members. It's been super fun and we are hoping that by working with them a lot we will get references from them which usually end up being the people that get baptized and stay active.
This transfer we are going to try and work more on finding people. Not every member gives us references and so we have a small teaching pool right now . We have one investigator who is being baptized this Saturday and that's about it so we are going to be working hard in Elche and Elda to find more people.
This transfer I hope to try and help the two parts of the ward become more united. There is a small division between the members in Elda and the members in Elche. The members in Elda are a little salty about closing the branch there and they have a little bit of pride about their branch that closed 6 years ago. They're a little possessive of the missionaries and get offended if we say we are the Elche missionaries. They want us to be called the Elda missionaries. And that's a problem because the fact is all the members are equal and were in the Elche ward not the Elda ward. So we hope to help them understand this and help them become more united with the Elche members.
I am super happy to be here and I'm having a great time already. I'll inform you all more when we start working a little more and get more situated here. Thanks for the emails from all of you and thanks for the prayers! They help a lot!
Love you all!
Elder Keith
Sorry about not sending lots of photos but I just don't have many. I promise more next week!
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