October 18, 2010
Dear family,
Glad to hear that everything is going well in Maryland. The weather is changing a little bit here as well which is awesome! We actuallyhad two days in a row where the sun was out. I think I have only had5 or 6 of these days in my entire mission. Its also warming up just alittle bit. Im glad to hear that Adam and Alex won and that Trent isgetting better and better every game. Sounds like Adam´s team ispretty incredible. Thats pretty awesome.Fishing school sounds pretty interesting, and its cool that mom anddad got to go into some of the rich people sections in the stadium,even if it was for the Nationals. I think I would have had more funup in the announcers booth looking at that stuff. It sounds prettycool. Sounds like Trevor is going to be the man for the piano for awhile in the ward. That`s pretty cool. I am definitely sure that bythe time I get back. Trevor will have surpassed me by a ton in thepiano. And he`ll probably have 5 or 6 songs written. Makes me just alittle bit jealous. :)Well this week was pretty slow for me, at least until Thursday. I wentand met with Elder Slingerland in the mission office. (ElderSlingerland is the area medical advisor) I learned that I had aninfection in my toe, so I have been taking medicine for it all week,and every morning and every night I have to soak my foot in water. Itis kind of annoying because it cuts into my Personal Study a littlebit, but at least it is starting to get better. Tuesday all of ourappointments fell through and we couldnpt find any of our backup plansat home, but we did get to go to the temple in the morning which wasawesome as usual. I love the temple, and it was a great experience.We seem to move our Preparation Days a lot here, but we always haveinternet on Monday which means on Tuesday we get one less hour ofpreparation day, which is fine for me.Wednesday was the slowest day. We had a Emergency Transfer Meeting.(If you remember at every transfer we have a meeting, which is nice,but makes it tough to proselyte that day). This meeting was for 8missionaries coming into our mission from the CCM because of VISAproblems for Mexico. It was cool to have them presented, but Im notsure if I am a fan of the Transfer meeting every 3 weeks. It wasnice, but it was really frustrating afterwards, because ourtransportation back to our area took 2 hours. We were supposed tostart proselyting at 4 and we didn`t even get back to our sector untilfive, and then we had to go and put our suit jackets en ourroom(because our area is dangerous when we walk around in suits), andso we didn`t start proselyting until after 5:30.All in all, we didn`t have a whole lot of teaching on these three days. Thursday was awesome. We finally found Fernando at home. He is oneof our investigators who is really awesome. He is 16 years old, andwould be baptized already, but his parents won`t give him permissionto be baptized, and they won`t talk to us. Its really frustrating forme, because he knows its true and he wants to be baptized, but hisparents are a huge road block. Needless to say he may not be gettingbaptized for a year and a half when he doesn`t need his parentspermission anymore. Thursday we also gave a blessing to Pilar whohas a whole bunch of medical problems that make it dificult to attendchurch and progress, and she has a little problem with faith. We alsoworked with Leidy a little bit. And we talked with a few otherinvestigators briefly. Friday was good we found two older investigators who the missionariesstopped visiting. One is Alfredo who moved to Argentina for a littlebit, and now he is back, and seems interested in the gospel. We alsotalked to Freddy who actually found us and wanted to be taught, Im notexactly sure how his lessons will go. I don`t have the best feelingsabout his situation right now, but hopefully that will change when weteach him later today. We also talked with an inactive member, and wetalked with both Carmen and Milagros some more. William Casanova camewith us and helped us a ton. Im not sure if I have told you muchabout him, but he is awesome. He works for the Peru MTC as a teacherso I actually knew him before I got to the area. He is the EldersQuorum President and is awesome. A little more on him later. Saturday was the day of the baptism for Josè Tenorio. It was roughbecause he works until 8:00 every night Monday to Saturday so we hadto have the baptism at 8:30 and very few members came, but Milagroscame which was great and she accepted a date for baptism. Nov. 13.Funny thing about Milagros, she is a little superstitious. Sherefused a date for Nov. 6th for one reason... 6 is the number of thedevil... And she also doesn`t want her baptism to be at night.The baptism went well, we had a few people bear their testimoniesafter the baptism, including Josè and his testimony was brief butstrong. He had been investigating the church for 15 years so we areso happy for him and his family who can now progress with the goal ofthe temple.William Casanova taught me a ton during the baptism. He came to thebaptism even though he was incredibly sick, and he helped a ton whichwas great. He conducted the baptism and gave a message about the holyghost. It showed me an incredible example of faith.Sunday was good because of the confirmation of Josè and the fact thatI gave a 35 minute lesson, in Spanish... It was awesome... But it wasbad as well because David was our only investigator (Josè isn`t aninvestigator anymore) who came to church including Carmen, Milagros,and Leidy. Carmen and Milagros took a step back and Leidy still isn`tprogressing so we can`t teach her as often anymore.Im starting the scripture of the week this week.This weeks is: 2 Nephi 33. The whole chapter. It is the finaltestimony of Nephi and I love it. It talks about the book of mormonand the bible (Testimony of the Jews, and Testimony of Nephi) it talksabout charity and it has other things I really like.A few pictures of my companions camera: I have been kind of lazy onthe picture taking. Ill have photos of baptisms next week. First is of me and my companion at the Zone Lunch after the temple.Me pretending to punch him.Second is of our Zone the first P-DayIf the pictures don`t work sorry. Ill try and send some again next week.Love you all have a great week. The church is true. I know it. Goodluck is sports, school, church, and total.Tyler