Transferred after all!

Hello Everyone!
 

Sorry I didn't let you know last week that I would be emailing on the 4th of July, I didn't know that our P-day was getting switched until a few days ago.  The good news though is that we have the whole day as a P day instead of only until 6:00 so that will be really nice.
 

So I have some big news.  Last week on Monday Elder Guzman and I received our transfer calls and they told us we were staying together another transfer! However, the next day right after I finished emailing we got another call from the Assistants to the President of the Mission while we were shopping in Wal-Mart. They said more or less, hey we're really sorry but we messed up a lot of people's transfer calls and yours were one of them.  Elder Gaskill, you're getting transferred to Elk Grove.  I was really devastated after that.  I really didn't want to leave Stockton, and all the ward members and investigators that we were teaching.  I probably cried on and off for about an hour.  After I finally got a hold of myself it was around 6ish in the evening and I wanted to go say goodbye to some people before I left.  The sister missionaries called us right as we were about to leave and told us they needed us to go with them to give a blessing to a lady that was in the hospital who had gotten in a really bad car accident who's sister they were teaching.  We went to the hospital, gave the blessing, ended up giving another blessing to another lady whose daughter saw us in the parking lot and asked us if we could give a blessing to her mom who just had surgery.  So we finally left the hospital at about 8:30 and then we went to go say bye to Familia Gonzalez/Banda who are two awesome families that live in our ward in our area.  We talked to them for a while and I said bye and got a picture with them.  Then it was about 9:45pm but I still wanted to say bye to familia Guzman before I left so we went over there.  The hermano wasn't home and the kids were in bed but Hermana Guzman started crying when I told her I was leaving.  We told her we would come back early in the morning to say bye to her husband since he wasn't home and left.  Right as we got home Hermano Guzman called us and said "wait, come back. I just got home"  It was already 10:00 so we couldn't go back but we told him we would come back in the morning.  Eventually I got off the phone with him and it was about 11:00 and I still had to pack everything up so I was up really late.
 

We got up at about 5 in the morning to get ready and drop off Elder Torres because he was getting transferred too.  After we dropped him off we went over to the Guzman's house to say bye to Hermano Guzman.  It was super hard to say goodbye to him but we stayed and talked about an hour.  I gave him all my contact information so we could keep him in touch and he said he was going to come visit me in Elk Grove a few times with his kids too.  I gave him the number that we have up here and said goodbye to him.  It was really hard to do.
 

Later that day I came to Elk Grove.  My new companion's name is Elder Austin.  He is about 10 months old in the mission and was Elder Grow's companion in the MTC.  He is a nice guy and went to West Point for 2 years before he came on his mission.  He's really nice and we get along well.  I miss Stockton and Elder Guzman a lot though.  It's a lot different up here.  There are still plenty of Latinos but there are a lot more white people, a lot more black people, and a TON more Asians.  It's a lot harder to find Spanish people to teach up here.  The area we cover is probably 2-3 times larger than our area in Stockton.  I'm getting used to the area, but it's really big.
 

Yesterday was a lot of fun because they did leadership training, and since my companion is a district leader I had to go drop him off and get a new companion for the morning while he was in training.  Since Elder Guzman and Elder Luttrell are also district leaders I got to see both of them and talk with them for a while! That was a lot of fun.  Most people don't get to see their trainers that soon after getting transferred so it was really nice to see my "dad" in the mission.
 

Today we got together as all the central zones in the mission played some games, which was a lot of fun.  We played football, volleyball, and basketball.  It was good to see Elder Torres and Elder Moors again, two elders that I served with down in Stockton.
 

We don't have too many investigators up here, but I'll tell you guys a little bit about the ones we have:
Aire - she's the wife of a member who was baptized about a little while ago.  She likes the church, but isn't sure if she wants to get baptized because her husband had a really cool experience when he prayed to find out the church is true and she thinks that is what's supposed to happen to everybody.  So she doesn't think she's ready yet.  Her husband told us that he heard her talking on the phone and saying she was sure she was going to get baptized soon but didn't know exactly when.  She's awesome and I know she'll get baptized soon. Unfortunately though they are moving about 20-30 minutes south to Galt soon, so she will probably be baptized there.
Gio- he is a 16 year old kid who is really cool and wants to be baptized.  His only problem is that his girlfriend got kicked out of her house once she turned 18 a few months ago and so now she's living with him and his family, and he can't get baptized while they're living together like that.  They just moved down to Los Angeles for the summer though to work so he might end up getting baptized down there.
Olga- she is a nice lady who has all the right questions and really likes the things we teach her.  Her one problem though is that she doesn't drive and her husband really likes the Pentecostal church.  His cousin just died in a bad car accident a few days ago so I think the plan of salvation is something that they will really like
Francesco- he is this really old guy who I love a lot.  His problem is he doesn't understand why God would let there be so much suffering in the world if he loves us so much.  We've taken every angle possible to explain it to him but he still doesn't accept it.  He is awesome though.  I think he knows he's going to get baptized but he's just trying to challenge us.  He talks like that for sure by saying that "it's our job to convince him to believe again".  He's really funny and I think he really likes what we're saying and has showed a lot of progress but is just holding out on us.
 

That's all we've got for now.  The big news is that I'm up in Elk Grove and have been here for a week already.
 

Hope all is well.
Los Quiero!
-Elder Gaskill