Email from Monday, 26 July 2010

Hey family! How is everyone? I'm sure you're all fine. I miss you all. This week has been good. We had a baptism Saturday, but they didn't show up on Sunday to receive the Holy Ghost. We baptized two teenagers. They are really excited about the church. They go to all the activities and they love to read the Book of Mormon. Their parents aren't as excited about the church. They wanted to be baptized but they don't want to do their part. They haven't attended church yet. I even offered them spaghetti if they went to church, but they never went. We want to baptized the whole family but their attendance is somewhat of a problem. The funniest thing happened this week. We found a family 2 weeks ago and we began teaching. On our 3rd visit we asked the mom to be baptized on the 31st of this month. Little did we know, she was already baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! Oh funny right!? She has been inactive for 4 years now and she finally went to church the week before we asked her to be re-baptized. Well, whats even more strange about what happened is that she has children that haven't been baptized, so we are going to baptize her little boy on the 7th of next month. He doesn't know how to read so we offered to teach him to read. We started teaching an English class every Saturday, and I asked my companion and the other missionary who lives with us to teach him to read. How weird right, sometimes the Lord works through us in mysterious ways. I can't believe we tried to baptize a member. Well, we have an amazing family that we are teaching right now. They are going to get married next month on the 7th or the 14th. I'm not too sure because we have to wait 15 days for their marriage document to be processed. They are totally loving the gospel. The father barely reads but he always reads the chapters that we assigned him. I am really excited for them. We also found a new investigator this week. He is really positive. His father died a while ago and we taught him the plan of salvation and he really enjoyed the lesson. The spirit really testified through us. We asked him to be baptized and he accepted. Now all we are missing is his attendance. Well, thanks for all of your letters. Thanks for the socks as well. I cant wait to get them. I'm even more excited for the junk food that you sent me! OK, thanks for everything. I love you all.

Email from Monday, 19 July 2010

Hey family! My new companion is learning quickly. The first week was a little difficult but it's getting a lot better. I had to teach all of the lessons, plan, contact, and fill out the area book. I pretty much had to do everything. He is a good missionary. I'm learning a lot. We are going to marry a family next month. I'm way excited. This will be my first family that I'm going to baptize! We are going to baptize 2 teenagers this Saturday. They are really excited about their baptisms. I'm excited for them. This will be my first baptism as a senior companion. This Sunday, we had 5 investigators attend church. It really gets my blood pumping when we have a lot of investigators attend church. I want everything to go perfectly so that they can enjoy their experience. I gave a talk last Sunday in church. I talked about missionary work. I have to teach the class for the investigators next week. I'm excited! I read in the Book of Mormon the other day that if we search for the kingdom of God first, God will provide for us. I know things will get better if you humble yourself before the Lord. I'm going to send my memory card for my pictures this week. I'm going to mail it in an envelope. I hope it gets to you all. I'm also going to send you all the letter that the president of the mission gave me because I am a trainer. Well, I miss you all, and I hope everything is going well.

Email from Monday, 12 July 2010

Hello everyone! Sounds like everyone is doing just fine. I haven't had a chance to do a baptism in a river yet. They used to do baptisms in the river here in Jesus De Otoro, but now we have a baptismal font. This week has been amazing! I am the senor companion. I am training a new missionary. His name is Elder Coronado. He is from Guatemala. He really looks up to me. I really have to be on my best behavior. I have to be perfect! We are learning a lot together. I am directing the area and it has been really interesting. It's really weird not being the junior companion. I have to make a lot of decisions, and sometimes it's really hard. I am really enjoying it though. My Spanish is getting so much better. I feel like it's doubled in just one week. The Lord is truly working through me. I could never do these things with out the Lord. We had 5 investigators attended church this WEEK! I couldn't believe it. We are trying to Baptiste a 35 year old man, but its been kind of difficult. His companion lives in Spain and she might be returning from Spain. He wants to be baptized but he is afraid if he gets baptized, she might return and he might sin, so he is going to talk to his companion in Spain and ask her if she wants to get married. It's kind of an interesting situation. I hope he gets baptized. We have two baptism dates right now. The other baptism never happened. Two of them moved away and the other doesn't want to listen to us, so we only have 2 baptism dates right now. We are probably going to marry a family next month. We will see what happens. They should be a baptismal date for next month. OK, I love you all, and I miss you. Keep me in your prayers.

Well, this week has been good. We have transfers this week. I think I might be a district leader for my area. I'm not too sure. I'll let you know next week. We will see what happens. I've been reading a lot about humility. Humility is a difficult attribute to acquire. If we are humble, we are willing to submit to the commandments. We also are confident that whatever the Lord wants us to do we can accomplish if we rely on our Savior. Our confidence should never be in ourselves but in the Lord. He is all powerful. If we rely on him, we can accomplish anything. The opposite of humility is pride. Pride is a serious problem. If we are prideful, we cannot progress. It is a stumbling block. Thinking we are better than others and glorifying things that we own are all signs of pride. Sometimes its hard to see pride in ourselves because we are prideful, and as soon as we think we're humble, we fail to be humble. The only way to overcome our pride is to submit to the Father and realize how weak we truly are. I have to give a talk next Sunday. I don't know the subject yet. We didn't have a class for the investigators, so we started teaching a class for the investigators last Sunday. Our branch is really starting to progress. We started an activity every Saturday. We share a message, play games,and we usually eat a little snack. When we first started it, no one helped us. We shared the message, we did the games, and bought all the snacks. This week the branch started doing the activity with out us!!!! We assigned people to take care of the activity, and it has worked! The branch is actually starting to look like a branch! The first week I got here we created a plan for a member that was addicted to alcohol. I've been here for about a month now and he hasn't relapsed. I'm way excited for him. The other Sunday he paid his tithing! He is doing really well. He started leaving with us to teach. He is way awesome. I don't remember if I told you this, but we had a baptism last Saturday. We baptized a 14 year old girl. He father really didn't want her to get baptized because he thinks she doesn't understand what we are teaching her. About a week before her baptism, we taught a beautiful lesson on faith and how we don't need to understand everything to have faith in god. It really changed his mind about the whole thing, so she ended up getting baptised. The spirit is really important in this work. We had no idea what to teach that man. We were sitting there in silence for about 3 minutes, and all of a sudden the Spirit told us what to teach and what to say. I could never do this work with out the spirit. Well, I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July. I love you all. I hope all is well.