2/11/2013

Hey hey hey!!! Man I love you all so much!! Hahaha this week was pretty good! We had the baptism and confirmation of little "élder Alexander" but we also found out that the baptism counts for the Branch not us, cuz his mom is reactive (due to us!) and he is only 8 years old! So it’s a little bummer but I don’t care I’ll always remember him as one of my Baptisms. He picked my comp to baptize him, it was a good service!  

But ya like dad put in one of his letters I’m really looking forward to having one of those "I get it and I want to be baptized moments" not just kind of they get baptized cuz its right and what they should do... but I know it will come, but me helping anyone into the waters of baptism is good, whether they have the desire, and "want it" or they just do it cuz they know its "right" they will be grateful later. 

Thanks for your prayers for me to find a family! I hope you continue praying it helps so much I can tell!!   We have found two families! Kind of, one is the wife (well not wife but basically) and daughter of this less active guy! But she and the daughter really want to be baptized! So we are helping them work on the marriage thing (I think its just they haven`t had the money/time) but ya then we will unite a family in the church! And it will be great!! They are awesome! And we are really excited to keep helping them. And the husband and they have come to church the past two Sundays so they are progressing awesome!! Ya and the other is an actually family!! We door contacted the wife 2 kids and grandma last Monday, and had a lesson about the restoration with them!! And we invited then to church! but we didn’t have time to revisit them during the week, so we went to their house before church Sunday to see if they could come, but they were busy, so we told them we would come back later, so we came back at about 2:00 after church, and they let us in! They are real accepting! The dad works all week but is home on the weekends 7pm Sat. night to 6am Monday morning! So he was there, we gave the first lesson again!! they were real accepting and it was a great lesson, the only hard thing, (and it happens a lot here, is working on teaching people that this is THE ONLY CHURCH, everyone here kind of just believes that anything of god is good.... but we will work on teaching them more and more! but we are excited to have a big family!!! there was like 10 there Sunday afternoon! all listened to the lesson, but I think some were cousins and friends, but idk its all good!!! we are super super excited!! I’ll keep you up to date on them!!!

Other than that we just have been working hard!! We have a lot of investigators,

I think like 15, and that only including 5 out of the big family. And we have a bunch more potential investigators!! It’s exciting but hard to keep them all progressing! But we are putting the focus where we need to so it is good. 

My comp is ok... haha let’s just say, I have grown a lot because of him. (not necessarily because of his help) but ya  I’m just trying to be the best I can for him. Honestly he would be a fantastic solo missionary!... I say this because he doesn’t exactly like to share his plans, or thoughts or mind with me, like we will go through planning and put names with times, and then we get to the lesson, and I wait for him to start, cuz he has his little plan of what we are going to teach! and then I share my part of what ever lesson he planned. It’s ok, but I have told him like several time, lets plan better, what we are going to teach and how to apply it, and he will be like ok we are going to teach lesson 2 to them. And ok done, idk I just want more unity! More talking about what we are going to teach and how we can apply it to them, and how we can help them.  And every time I ask him for more, like sharing in our decisions and more discussion, idk he gets really impatient. and ya idk its hard to explain, but basically he has no patience... and it has helped my patience grow a lot!! And he does not take advice very well. But I love him and will keep trying to better our companionship. it’s just hard, I feel real, kind of alone in things, but it’s all good!

Today we had a zone activity and went to this sweet place call "Samau chimpe" its natural cascading pools of water and waterfalls,(or something like that I probably butchered it), but I’ll send and pictures.  Like it added to my companions frustration with me, cuz he didn't want to go, cuz it cost a lot of money, like 150 quets, which is about a third of the money we have weekly for food, and we had to use our mission money (the money we use for food, other things we need,) and it also took most of the day, we had to leave at 3 in the morning and it was like 5 hours in the bus then we spent a couple hours there and then came back! Anyway I made him go cuz I really wanted to not miss this opportunity, and more, it was a zone activity and no one else was skipping. but ya I thought it was one of the most gorgeous places ever!! But he was grumpy and angry the whole time... ya. But I know he is glad I made him go. So that added more to his frustration at me! :) Oh well he will live!!

Anyway, dad asked about our area! It’s about the size of the meadows, maybe more, I have no idea where our boundaries end haha but that’s ok. ,I’ll add a picture of a map of the city I found! Our area goes outside the map a lot but I labeled our house and stuff on it. We are zone Verapaz not Coban. 

The Zone leaders directed the zone meeting, no president; I probably won’t see him much really but that’s ok, I got like 10 dear elder letters from you guys!! Thanks they were great!! You can keep sending them that way, (but i didn’t get any other letters (snail mail), idk if you have sent any, if not, it’s all good) but ya, I’ll get dear elder and cards only about once a month! :(

Love you all so so so so so much!!!!

Be safe!