Sunday, October 16, 2011

October 10

By far the best experience of the week was our lesson with M. where we set her with a baptismal date. We brought Hermano V. (1st councilor in the ward’s bishopric) with us for the lesson and he testified right to her soul. M. really felt that what we were teaching about the restoration was true and was super excited when I committed her to be baptized on the 22nd. She asked, "So soon?" which is usually kind of a bad sign, but she was saying it as in, "I can get baptized so soon?!?" haha, it was incredible. She has had so major trials in her life, and the gospel has already been a major comfort for her! It’s awesome to see how much its helping her, haha! After our first visit she read through Chapter 10 of 1st Nephi. She is fantastic. The spirit was just so strong in that lesson too. She came to church this Sunday in Spanish. We will be inviting her to a family home evening we are having at a member’s house tonight, which should be great! She really wants to go to a FHE, so it should be great.

I’ve written before about you ward’s “young men’s (YM) president – the program for teenage boys). He is just extremely involved in everything the YM do. He is kind of a kid at heart, so they all love him and respect him a lot. He picks a large group of them up every morning and drives them to seminary, picks them up for firesides (like the stake missionary prep fireside), talks to them all the time about missions, etc. He is really just helping them get the testimonies they need to make the decision to go on a mission. Calling him was probably one of the best callings that has ever been made in this ward. Well, he and our new ward mission leader. Everything is changing with them. Our youth are getting much stronger (the young women’s pres was already great) and we finally have a strong missionary program starting. We are trying to set up some time to get some of the YM out with us, but it’s hard with their schedules and our schedules because they all have school and soccer.

Mom asked if I’ve tried any new Hispanic foods lately. I did try pambazo’s, which are basically large wet sandwiches they make in Mexico City. They are pretty solid.

Yep, it’s transfers next week. We'll get calls on Saturday (Oct. 15). That'll make it a nervous week. I always get nervous when I think I might be getting transferred. I have no idea if I’m going or not, but it looks pretty good that I will be moving. Check back after Tuesday!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

October 4 (sorry for the delay)

Conference weekend was pretty sick. On Saturday we spent the whole day at an investigator’s house for breakfast, then the morning session, then play some pool and eat some lunch, and then for the afternoon. That was pretty legit. The lady’s name is M. (her husband didn’t really watch but he chilled with us) and she is Peruvian and loves Pres Uchtdorf (this is her 2nd conference as an investigator...kind of an eternagator as they call them here). So she loved Saturday morning because they talked about Peru and Uchtdorf talked. The really cool part though is that most of her family in Peru used to be pretty anti-Mormon and this time 2 of her brothers and her mom watched conference and loved it! M’s on is a member who is going to University of Utah, so the grandparents wanted a feel for his religion and everything. Pretty sick, not going to lie.

Then we did priesthood session at the church, of course, which was sick...mostly because Elder Holland’s talk as always was super powerful. After priesthood session on Saturday, we went home to get some dinner because we hadn’t eaten since like 1, so we were hungry. When we got home I got this unshakeable feeling that we needed to go by the house of the family from the wedding a couple weeks ago, so me and Elder Kakau just left dinner for later. We got there, and the whole family was there and told us to come in! We had a nice chat with the father of the bride about our purpose of missionaries, and now the whole family is interested and not just the couple who were married. Unfortunately we aren’t sure when we will meet with them, because the wife will almost for sure give birth in the next couple days. We will be in contact with them though. The husband of the couple is very interested in the "other book" we have. So were excited for that too.

On Sunday we went to our Young Men’s Presidents house for both sessions with our priests who are in mission preparation class. We got to watch both sessions with all of them, which was great. Breakfast and lunch there too, and hang out with the YM in between for a bit. They are all so much more likely to serve missions now than they were before our new YM pres got here and started pushing them hard and getting us involved with them a little more. They are going to make great missionaries. A couple don’t even have super active parents, but they are doing super well now. Ya, pretty fun weekend overall.

Also, ya, its cooling down a bit. Lower 90s here aren’t bad at all, and those are our highs these days. Some days in the 80s. Not like home where 90s suck and 80s are sketchy, here 90s are decent and 80s are suuuper nice. So glad the 100s are over. They got pretty harsh some days. Of course now they’ll probably transfer me up north for the winter, haha. There is a strong chance I go to Carson City actually, but not much of other options in the north. Maybe they’ll let me stay another couple and do 9 months here. That’d be sick cuz we finally have people that are good investigators! hhaa.