Week 53

Email part 1

Monday, January 17, 2011 5:27 AM
Whoa there family of mine,

Well I definitely am at Tres Cruces right now because my comp had to come for a medical check up with the rest of the newbies. So that`s why I`m doing email so early. Evidently mom has not yet written me and won`t for a couple hours because it`s about 5:15 in the morning there. So I`m using part of my time now and I`ll use the rest later to quickly read mom`s letter and then reply.

Woo! So anyways, life is good. My comp is awesome and word`s cannot actually describe the joy I have. It is the shiz. Woo! So we`re working our booties off trying to help people get baptized. We had 4 in church yesterday which is good, but we were hoping for more. Sadly, not one of our 5 people with a baptismal date showed up. It unfortunately seems like they all disappear when we put a date with them. Poo. But we do have a awesome couple, Miguel and Natalia that are progressing at hyperspeed. This past week, we managed to get them to read the scriptures every day, pray as a family, commit to get married and get to church for their 3rd week. They are awesome. This is the couple that told us the very first visit that they wanted to be taught so they could get baptized. However it took a while to get things rolling. With my new comp`s obedience and excitement for the work, we are receiving a lot of blessings and I`m a very straightforward person. I say things as they are. So we have been able to really help them see the importance and blessings from each of the above things. They are going to get a marriage date this week which should be for about 2 or 3 weeks in advance, depending...so they should get married and baptized in early February. The only other obstacle we have is the word of wisdom, which should be easy to conquer as long as we have the spirit.

Other than that, we have a lot of "investigators" but not a lot of people investigating the gospel. So we`re going to be really frank with people this week and see if they want to continue. Because right now we`re having a huge problem with lessons falling through, which is kind of a sign that people don`t see the importance of all of this. So we`ll see what happens this week. We`re just working really hard to get some baptisms. On the other side of the playing field, we`re working a ton with less actives as well which is awesome. We`ve gotten several families to start coming back to church and we`ve got a couple more that are close. So our average attendance for church has increased by about 15 people since I`ve gotten here, which is good. We`re going to continue working with them as well. Good stuff.

I`m doing well. We`ll get mail tomorrow and we didn`t get any last week so I have nothing to report. We do have surprise rain storms pop up every once and a while where we`ll get totally drenched. Oh well. It`s not horrible. At least we don`t have a cell phone or a wallet or anything...just books that we put in bags and they stay dry. Other than the occasional quick rain storm, it`s mostly just hot and humid. We`re surviving. Time is kind of just flying...as we`re just focusing really hard on the work and the days just leave us.

ps, happy 18th birthday to Patrick. I can`t believe he`s already going to be 18...and he was still 16 when I left. :)

Um, well that`s all I`ve got for now...anything else will be in the next email which will come later today. Hope mom is feeling better. Being sick is no fun at all. Giggles. Take care...for these next few hours. :D

Love,
DJ


Email part 2

Monday, January 17, 2011 8:03 AM
Um, so I`m really sorry, but I`m not going to have time to get on later so here is part 2. Sorry to you mom. I`ll read both of them next week. I hope there wasn`t anything urgent in there. There never has been before so if this week was the first week with something urgent, that`s uberbad luck. Um, so I have nothing else to add really. We`re pretty much doing awesome. Life is sweet.

We`re going to continue working hard and sharing the gospel. It`s a good message. I`ve come to the conclusion that given enough time and attention, we could convince anybody because it all just makes too much sense. The problem is that people don`t want to give us the time of day. People are generally friendly here. Anyhoo, I don`t really need anything right now...since I`m now over one year my philosophy is: well if I survived the first year without it, then I can survive the second year without it. That`s the general philosophy... I`m doing pretty well. I`m healthy and eating better and more routinely than before. My comp is a BOSS and I`m really hoping we stay together a second change...I think I might even ask president to stay with him. We should have interviews either this week or next. We`ll see what happens

Ok, so my apologies again to mom. Everything just had to work out so that she got sick this week when I did email earlier than usual. I`m going to assume that there is nothing absolutely urgent. I`ll be back in a week. :D

Take care of yourselves. I love you all. Say hi to all for me.
Love always,

DJ

ps...We got a 25 pound zucchini from an investigator. We`ll send the picture next week. :)