June 24th

Whew! This week was a little bit crazy. I'll start by saying that it rained. And that it still rains. Here is what a normal day is like: wake up, its a little bit cloudy. 8 am, sunny, blue skies, HOT. mid morning to afternoon, still beautiful blue skies with almost fake-looking, beautiful white fluffy clouds; still miserably hot. 4pm, things start to get crazy. Clouds roll in, it gets dark, FAST. Then the rain comes. Sometimes lightly, and for a little while. Sometimes lightly and for a long time. And sometimes the rain is torrential. It literally rains 9mm bullets of water. And nothing can stop it. My umbrella keeps my head and shoulders nice and dry, but from the waist down, there is no hope. NONE. And a few not so great things happened this week due to the rain. My shoes got wet. Like really wet. And they are waterproof! But waterproof means nothing when you have to walk through streets that become rivers. And....my triple got wet. I was so sad. I had it in a plastic bag in my backpack. Normally my backpack keeps things dry. And the plastic bag is a precaution. But I guess from taking it out and putting it back in my backpack, there were little invisible holes in the bag, and it couldn't save my scriptures. I have dried the triple out and put it under the leg of my desk at night to try to flatten it back out, but it has only worked so well. I figure I'll just get a new one. I only have 4 months of notes and marking, which is a blessing. I probably would have cried if I had 20 months and it got wet. But no big deal, the work continues regardless of the rain. This week we had baptisms! Seven baptisms in the ward, FIVE from our area! It was a crazy night. One of our investigators was baptized by her boyfriend. It took him at least 7 tries to submerge her completely. And then Elder Ibarra from the other area was nervous and baptized their two investigators in such a way that President Glazier (who attended because we had 2 families baptized) called it a 'wrestling move' and said that he never wanted to see that kind of baptism again. I baptized Emma Mendoza de Jimenez, the wife/mother of the Jimenez family. She was so nervous after seeing Fatima baptized 10 times and the other two slammed down and dragged up. So I had to talk her down a bit and explain that it was going to be really easy and that there wouldn't be any problems. Luckily, it WAS really easy and there were no problems. The next day in church, I was supposed to give a talk (they informed me of that saturday night after the baptism at 9 oclock!), but the confirmations and announcements took so long I only had to give a short talk/testimony, even though I had prepared an entire talk. So with all of this stuff, needless to say it was a stressful week. Luckily, my Mom is awesome and had sent me a bunch of goodies. I ate a whole bag of chips in one day, and a whole bag of m&m snack mix in another day! So that helped the stress. Also, I felt really good this week because I beat everyone in my district who would arm-wrestle me. However, the stress is not over. We do NOT know our changes yet. Tomorrow night we should know. And on top of that, I am feeling a whole lot of responsibility because my training is over, and now I am a trained missionary. No excuses now. But there is also a lot of hope before me now. I am a missionary! And with the worldwide training (which was AWESOME!), I feel like I am ready to go. One thing I really liked about the training was the perspective that missionaries are only there to assist in the missionary work of the ward. That is my though for the week; the missionaries are only full-time employees of the ward mission. They NEED the help of the members in teaching, and especially in finding people to teach. Missionary is the Lord's work, and it is to be done by all members of the church in everyday life. So help us out. Introduce us to your friends and neighbors. Think of all of the blessings you have received, the stability that you feel in your life that allows you to have peace and assurance in all of the business and bustle of each week, and pray to know who you can help by sharing the gospel, and for opportunities to share it. I know that the Lord wants to bless us and our friends and families, and He will do so as we reach out in love and act in faith. Entonces, id y trabajad! Hay mucho trabajo que hacer en la viña del Señor. Les agradezco por su apoyo y amor, y siempre oro para que ustedes reciban las bendiciones que están buscando, y que tengan oportunidades de ver las manos de Dios en sus vidas. Los quiero mucho, amigos