March 12, 2012

Hey everyone!

First to answer some questions.  We don´t have daylight savings time here, time stays the same. And it is getting hotter every day. It´s not terrible yet but I know it´s just going to get worse. Thats ok though... all part of the mission. We don´t get fed by the members very often, I´ve only eaten three times with them and only once was an appointment. We cook for ourselves every day so I am trying to be creative. I haven´t eaten all the snacks yet, I´m trying to save some of them for later on. But they are tempting. Thanks again!

So this past week was pretty much awesome!! The only thing that really could have made it better is if we had some baptisms. But unfortunately, we didn´t have anyone ready yet. Next couple weeks we should have some people getting baptized. We´ve got a lot of work to do though. So Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all perfect days. We didn´t miss one appointment that we had marked. Not one!!! That pretty much never happens so we were pretty pumped. We´ve been pretty blessed lately but we´ve still got so much to do. Monday we had a family night at a less-active member´s house. We´ve been working with him and his family to help him come back to church and to help his companion get baptized. They have a few things they need to do first, such as marriage, but they are doing really good. Anyways, we had five of our investigators come to this family night and it was a big success. Then, the next two days were just filled with appointments. We taught nine lessons on Wednesday!!! We´ve been pretty busy. We also had eight investigators attend church!!!! NEW RECORD! Church was really good as well and our investigators really liked it.

So we are still working with our one-legged investigator, M, and he is doing so good! This week he has already gone a couple days without smoking and he is understanding everything so much better. Yesterday, we passed after church and he told us that he smoked that morning. We were kind of disappointed and didn´t really know what else to say. As we were sitting there, his friend passed with some cookies and three more cigarettes. As I was sitting there, I knew that we couldn´t leave him with those in the house because I knew he would smoke them. We didn´t really know what to do but then I remembered what the missionaries did with their investigator when I was on splits before I left. They set up a plan and the first thing they had him do was destroy all remaining cigarettes he had in the house. So I challenged him to take those three cigarettes and destroy them. Without hesitation, he picked them up, grabbed a knife, and cut them up into little pieces and threw them out. This man is so amazing. The determination that he had in his eyes really made me realize how much we have already helped him and the desire he has to change and follow Christ. He really wants this and is willing to do whatever it takes. He has a date marked for baptism so he really needs to quit completely. We´ve been praying hard for him and are passing him everyday to help him out.

We´ve got two other investigators that are doing super well right now. The first is E, I think I´ve talked about him already, and the second is a member reference named A. They both are really committed to doing everything they can to be ready for their dates and are progressing rapidly. They both came to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. They both have strong testemonies of the Book of Mormon and are keeping all of our appointments. It´s a blessing to see the Spirit working with these two people as they continue to learn and grow. Just the level of committment and the things that they are doing really confirms to me the blessings that come from living the Gospel of Christ. Elder Bunderson and I were talking about it the other day and we both feel that the Spirit is helping us to help these people change their lives. We can see the difference we are making and it really is a blessing to be here.

Other than that, not much is happening. N has a baptism date marked for this Saturday so we are praying really hard and trying to do everything we can to help her reach this date. She still doesn´t have the full support of her father yet, but he is easing up a little bit and she is going to call him again this week to talk to him. She is going to bring the branch president and have him help her out a little bit. She thinks her father will feel a little more open about it if it comes from a native Caboverdiano instead of two white missionaries. She´s got amazing faith and I know that with the Lord´s help, she will acomplish her goal. I hope everything continues to go well at home and I love you all. Have a great week!!