Countdown: 4

So this week we started teaching a part member family. G. and A. are the couple and they have one little kid. G. has been a member his whole life, but his wife A. isn’t a member though she has already learned a little bit. We just talked about some of her concerns and about the Book of Mormon this week. It went really well. They are a super cool family and we are really looking forward to teaching them more. They are young, like late 20s and just great people.

We also had zone conference this week which was pretty good. I had to conduct which I wasn’t looking forward to, but it went alright I guess. We talked a lot about becoming master teachers and Christlike attributes. We watched a couple of the new Bible videos that are out. We talked a lot about the one that illustrates the parable of the good Samaritan, which I really enjoyed because its my favorite one. It went well overall.

For Memorial Day we had a really solid p-day at the park, but that was about it. We’re in a hispanic ward, so nobody even knows what Memorial Day is, so we didn’t have anything special.  Actually, all holidays are a little different in Vegas from the looks of things because people come here to vacation for the weekend so everyone has to be at work in the hotels and casinos to cover the influx of people. It’s a weird place. 

Countdown: 5 ... (and click on "mariachi" while you read this)

My new comp is Elder Lopez.  He’s from West Valley City, Utah, now but lived in Aguas Calientes, Mexico, until he was 10ish. He has been out 14 months.  We've known each other since he came out. He was “born” in Battle Mountain while I was in Fallon, haha. He'd rather be doing regular missionary work all the time than have to do some of the zone leader stuff we do, but he’s happy to be here and excited to be in a Spanish ward.  Most of what I’ll be trying to do is get him ready to take over the area in one transfer (6 weeks – well, 5 now) because that’s going to come really fast. We've got some finding goals which have already started pretty well. We got 2 new investigators this week who are both pretty solid and should be picking up a few more this next week. We set 2 people with a baptism date the first day he was here, so that was fun, but then we found out one is already going to have to be pushed back and the other looks a little sketchy at the moment, but we will see. We also want to increase ward involvement and get more organized, but its difficult doing it all at once because Elder Lopez just needs to meet people first and gain their trust. Hopefully by the end everything will be ready for him. 

F. is doing pretty solid. He doesn’t have the priesthood yet, but the ward is working with him, so things are going pretty well. He came to our ward party this week and it was the first party he’s been to in a year because his old church didn’t allow dancing or "worldly music" etc. He loved it and had a great time. His sister and her family came too and also really enjoyed it, but no surprise there because the party was GREAT! They hired a Mariachi to come and serenade all the Moms in the ward, and they were great. It was so much fun. We had several of our other converts there and they all fellowshipped really well. Plus the bishop and a couple other members are DJs so they had the whole DJ set up and everything, haha. Went really well. 

This week, of our investigators we just had M. and E. at church, even though we had a lot more people promise to be there. We were happy to have those two though, but E. lost the key to turn on her oxygen tank and we can’t find it anywhere, so she is really struggling trying to figure out what she is going to do without that. We've been praying and feel like everything is going to work out, so we hope so! E. is set for baptism June 16th but this whole key to the oxygen tank thing is a huge trial for her, so hopefully everything works out. The other one with a baptism date it T.  She’s set for June 9th, but that has to be pushed back because she still didn’t make it to church. She has to come 3 times still but she’s been taught almost everything.

Lately we have been running out of things to teach 3 of our recent converts, B., L., and R ( who are 10, 8, and 8), so this week was super great that I had a new companion to bring new ideas to teaching them! Elder Lopez had a great idea to read the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s burying their weapons of war from the illustrated Book of Mormon stories book and then to draw weapons. On the weapons we each wrote things we wanted to give up that we don’t do right and then we went into the backyard and dug a whole and buried them. It was pretty fun and went really well. Hadn’t tried that one before!

Oh ya, and we also got another set of sisters into the zone so we had to help them move in and set stuff up for them this week, but now it is pretty much good to go I think so hopefully the extra companionship will bring more work to the zone! We are now the biggest zone in the mission by 2 companionships. 

May 7

We had another great lesson with F. and he finally confirmed for this weekend! We had a lesson at his apt, and outside was a big party with a DJ, food, a bounce house, piñata, the whole 9 yards. It looked super fun, but while we were teaching we could hear it but realized we'd rather be there teaching than at the party. That was pretty cool. Especially because we had to walk right through the party to get there and it looked super fun, ahah. So he will be getting baptized Saturday at 8:00pm.  After this long process of decision making it’s been so worth it!

We also had a good lesson with T. with a couple from the ward there who are ready to fellowship her, but she never called us back on Sunday about church so I guess she was working. The upside is I think this might have been her last weekend working, so she should be able to start coming to church next Sunday! We also taught our new investigator E., but she slept in through the time we were having a member pick her up because she is heavily medicated (still recovering from a stroke). Can’t blame her for that. We will keep working with her and hopefully get her to church next week!  And we've started teaching a guy named R. too. E. pretty much referred herself...she asked another investigator for our number, and R. is a ref from members in an English ward. Both going pretty well. Working on a couple more refs this week. 

May 2 (sorry for the gap -- we'll catch up)

Elder Kakau is back in my ward and had a baptism on Saturday. In the time when he was changing into dry clothing after the baptism itself and before we finished the meeting, Elder Corvalan and I taught the restoration with several non-members there. The spirit came super strong when we testified of the authority to baptize. It went really well. The air conditioning even cut out exactly when my comp started quoting the first vision. It was pretty incredible.

F. is doing doing well. He came to the baptism this weekend and got his interview with bishop and then was at church. We hear the interview went well and he LOVED the YSA (young single adult) Sunday School class we sent him to in church this week. We have one of the YSAs in the ward coming to a lesson with us for him tomorrow night! Bishop basically told him he has to make his decision between the gospel and playing the drums. I think he really liked it.

Transfers are coming up.  People are getting anxious.  President Black announced in the temple this morning that this transfer is goin to be it. Whichever mission you’re in, you'll stay in. So one week and a couple days till everyone finds out what mission they’ll be in when the mission boundary changes come July 1. We’re getting 27 new missionaries in the mission this transfer and 23 the next – a lot!. 

One day this week I was on splits with one of the district leaders (where one of them goes with me and the other goes with my companion), and we were tracting when a 17ish yr old black high school kid opened the door. The DL gave his little intro and asked if that’d be something he'd be interested in and I quote the reply......."Heeeeeaaall yeah it is!" ‘