Weekly Letter: May 10-16, 2011

Another week has gone by. I can really honestly say that this week was not as effective as we have had in the past. However, there are some bright spots in this week. For example, Miguel Torres I think has reached the point of unbaptized member status. He already volunteered to help clean the stake center for the coming of Elder Oaks this Sunday (it was kind of embarrassing that only he and another brother new to the ward volunteered quickly to help with it...but at least we can see that he´s going to be a great strength to the ward family)

Actually, yesterday in the class of Gospel Principles, he basically put his baptismal date for the next Sunday. So we will have at least one baptism this week. The only thing is that we will need to see if everybody else that we invited will follow through.

Enrique Guerra still hasn´t been able to go to church, but he says that his works looks to clear up a little. He works as a directing manager in a car factory, and due to troubles in Japan, they have a lot more contracts than they are used to do dealing with. However, we are going to give him and his family a tour of the inside of the church on Thursday... he already said that he is certain to be in the special conference on Sunday, he isn´t sure about his family, but we´ll see if we can get all of them excited to go.

We also have been visiting an investigator with a lot of potential in Tlaxomulco. Her name is Ana Patricia, she had before talked to the Jehovah´s Witnesses, but didn´t agree with a lot of what they were saying. She technically is Catholic, but after losing two babies due to birth complications, she became disillusioned with that religion and has simply studied the Bible for the last few years. She understood very well about the Restoration, and is already reading in the Book of Mormon, and likes what she reads. The only thing is when we explained the Sabbath Day on Saturday, she understood it really well, but when her husband had to work that day, she felt like she couldn´t go to church either. But we´re going to pray for her and her family. Her husband is a really reserved person, but doesn´t seem to be against us being there. One of her sons is also pretty reserved, but then we explained how things were done in the church. He seemed vaguely interested in learning more(vaguely interested because he hardly ever expresses himself) We´re going to see if we can invite her and her family to go to the Church on Thursday too, to get to know the church with Enrique´s family.

We´ve also gotten to know a man named Gabriel. He lives really close to the Church, and has a lot of interest in God, and in what we share with him. We´ve talked to him several times, and he accepts us really well. He is a little confused because about a year ago he finally got home after being detained 7 years in Panama without a charge. Before his time in Panama, he said he didn´t believe much in God. His mother is actually spiritualist or something really weird like that, and he had some of the same inclinations. However, in prison several people came to visit him from various religions....actually he´s been baptized several times in several congregations. He says that it was there that he met God.

He´s a really good person, but we thought he wasn´t really going to progress very well, that is, until we met his wife. We knocked on the door one day to see if Gabriel was there, even though we didn´t have much hope because his car wasn´t there. His daughter Mari Carmen answered the door and told us to come in. Caught off guard by her hospitality,(especially because we had never talked to anybody other than her dad), we asked if her dad or mom were there. She answered that her mom was, and called to her. Her mom asked who it was, and she hesitated, not knowing what we were called. I was about to tell her that we were missionaries when the Mom said "Is it the Elders?"

It turns out that while Gabriel was in Panama, Lorena was here, and had several struggles, including being cured of breast cancer, and trying to raise their daughter alone for 7 years....and she had gotten baptized about a year ago. Mari Carmen is about 10 years old, and was going to be baptized with her, but Lorena wanted her father to be there to approve of it. So we´ve been in contact with the three of them this whole week, and were going to go to church, but Gabriel got back at 9 o´clock in the morning from his work Sunday. He was going to go to church, when his wife reminded him that church had started an hour before, and Mari Carmen was still asleep. However, we talked to the mother and she´s really excited about the coming of an apostle to the Stake Center. So we´re hoping that not only she, but also all the family can go this Sunday.

Well, I´ve written a lot, and I have to go... Please pray for us, we need some help here with every single one of these people, and whole bunch more. Thanks for your support and prayers, they are truly answered!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham