Crazy Week!

¿Como estamos? This week it actually started to get a little colder. I am bummed. The summer is going away. But its all good. Man this week was crazy! Elder Crocco leaves tommorow and it is crazy. We have spent last week gettting everything situatedwith everyone we are teaching and saying goodbye to all the members. It was cool to see the mixed emotions that he has been feeling. He is about 50% super excited to go home and 50% really sad to leave his new home. I am not looking forward to that day. But he had a great last week in my eyes. Yesterday for preparation day we went glofing with a member in the north part of the city. It was really fun and I never realized how bad I am at golf. It is really hard and it gave me a new respect for those that golf. But I was getting the hang of it by the back nine holes. We also went to West Edmonton Mall. It is one of the biggest malls in the world and it has the biggest indoor roller coaster in the world. We were there for about 5 hours and we didnt even hit half of it. But it was super fun and a good thing to do for Elder Crocco before he goes. So I got a very interesting call on Friday night. It was President Campbell and he was informing me that I would be training, which I already knew, but also that I would be a new distict leader. It was very surprising because Spanish missionaries rarely ever go leadership in this mission because of the size of area they cover. So I am excited and a little overwhelmed to train and be a district leader. It will be super fun and I am looking forward to getting my new companion tommorrow. Saturday was a crazy day too. I had leadership training in the morning and then we had a big Spanish activity. We had a lot of people show up. There were probably 60 people that made it out and we played soccer and ate some delicious food. It was good because we had quite a few investigators there. Mauricio was there and he is actually super good at soccer. He definitely beat on me. But Alex and Chris were there too. She is still going good for the end of the month to be baptized and Chris is working hard to do his best. We then had Mauricio's baptism. It was so good. It was small, only about 20 people including Alex and Chris. But the Spirit was super strong and he was so happy. It was more a celebration of all the changes that he has made. I am also happy that I am sticking around in my area so that we can keep tabs on his progress. It was a great day ending with an amazing man making an amazing covenent with his Heavenly Father. I am excited to get a new guy and keep the work going up here in the North Side. I love this work and I am the happiest I have ever been in my life. And its not just satisfaction, but its true joy. Its crazy how that works. I heard someone say the other day "I am glad to hear that life is stressfull. I know that that is not what you are expecting but I know that through all the stress comes growth. How ever much we hate it, life helps so much". Let life become a blessing rather than a burden!! Mucho Amor Elder Kipp