Finally Teaching

Tilled this guy´s back yard

Asado with Bishop

Refrigeration done right

Juan José

The crew getting hype for the priesthood session of conference

So this week was a pretty good week. Finally were able to sit down and teach some people.

About a week and a half ago, we did a division with our district leader´s. Usually, when we do division´s, the district members go to their district leaders area and we split up and do double work in that area. This time, our district leader came out to our area. Elder Ostler went off with the district leader, and I with the other. About 2 hours later, we ran into each other (cuz Empalme is really, really small, like about a mile long and half a mile wide) and they were going nuts and super pumped. They had found an older couple who had been reading the Book of Mormon and had been wanting to know more but hadn´t known where to go! Their names are Liliana and Domingo (Spanish for Sunday). It´s been really cool teaching them this last week. Turns out, after meeting with them getting to know them, she is just his nurse (he is kinda old and senile and loosing it) and he got baptized when he was a teenager. She has accepted the invitation to get baptized and we hope to do so before the end of the month. What´s more, she is kinda boy crazy (weird to say about a 50 year old) and has a crush (also weird to say about a 50 year old) on Juan José. So we´ll see where this goes ;) we hope they both get baptized, then get married, and then get sealed next year.

Speaking of Juan José, he is slowly starting to read the Book of Mormon again. He also has told us the main thing he wants in life is a woman who loves more about God than anything else (describes Liliana perfectly), and who will be totally faithful to him (sounds like Liliana). To be honest, playing matchmaker is pretty fun :).

We have also started teaching two other women. Patricia and Lourdes. Patricia is Lourdes´ mom, and Lourdes is a college student (I don´t remember what exactly she studies). We contacted them in the street, and I did not think anything was going to come of it. I thought it would be just another failed appointment. The opposite happened. We had easily the best lesson we have ever had (prolly the best of my mission), even though both Elder Ostler and I struggled a bit with our Spanish. We taught the Restoration. The spirit in there was literally electric. It felt like being near something super high voltage, just safer. After we told of the first vision and quoted the scripture, she rolled up her sleeves and said she had goose bumps. It was really, really awesome. They also have accepted the invitation to be baptized.

Definitely learning that attitude is everything. Our mission president asked everyone at the beginnig of March to pray and ask if it´s possible to baptize every month in every area that we´re in. So I did, and I got an answer that it is possible. When we didn´t baptized in March, I felt a little like I´d failed as a missionary, especially since I knew that baptizing every month is possible. So, I started reading in my journal to figure out what I was doing different during my first three months when I was baptizing every month. I realized that I had a much more optimistic outlook on things. If someone gave us the time of day, I assumed they were golden. Lately, I had developed the bad habit of assuming that pretty much everyone we talk with and accepts a visit from us, won´t be home when we go by and that nothing will happen with them. So, I´ve been trying to change to the way I was when I started (I think there´s a life lesson to be learned there), and we started teaching Liliana, Domingo, Patricia, Lourdes, and we have people with a baptismal date. Also, just having a bit of fun and joking around makes things so much easier and enjoyable.

That pretty much sums up my week. Hope you all have had a good one!

Elder Brown

Alma 27:26