Weekly Letter: June 21-27, 2011

para todos uds:

Okay, I´ve got to write double time, because I´ve got twenty minutes before P-day ends. This week...we weren´t able to baptize. When I went to do an interview for the missionaries in my district, another district leader went to my area to do the interviews for the people we were going to baptize...and they weren´t there. I don´t know exactly what happened, because the District Leader says one thing, my companion another, and the Sister says something completely different from the two. But yeah, we were pretty bummed about that because two baptisms that we had for this week fell through. And then the family didn´t go to church, which made things even weirder....but we´ll see what happens this week.

We do, however, have two investigators with a baptismal date this week. Their names are Rosa and Lesli. Rosa is the daughter of Maria Elena that got baptized my first week here, Lesli is her "niece," (but really it´s that she and the mom are just really close friends) It was way cool inviting them to get baptized, Rosa is already asking work off this Sunday, because she only can take it off every other Sunday...and Lesli was actually going to get baptized a while ago, but couldn´t because she was pregnant...but she gave birth in January, and she´s ready for this Sunday! So yeah, that was the miracle of the week.

Also, I gained a testimony of what the president of Area of Mexico has said. He has said "Mexico is ready to baptize every week." Or rather, that every companionship, every week must baptize. That´s something that really is a wake up call for us missionaries. Our president has stressed the "urgency to baptize every week." And this week we invited 6 different people to get baptized, and all six accepted. The question with many of them is getting them to church, teaching the Law of Chastity so that they get baptized, and helping them find jobs that allow them to go to church.

Actually Saturday we went with several people to Visitor´s Center by the Temple in Mexico City. It is always a great experience to be so close to such a sacred building. Unfortunately, we in the mission are not privileged to attend the temple until at the end of the mission, but it always is a great experience seeing it, and helping the investigators understand the sacredness of it.

Then yesterday, we also had some miracles....9 of them...in church! 5 of them went for the first time...and one is another reference from Maria Elena. So yeah, we were pretty excited with that. The only thing is that a family that had told us that they were going to church weren´t able to go. We actually passed by for them, but they had to leave to pick up another family member in the terminal. It´s a family from Chiapas, Mexico, and they don´t have much time here, but they want to be baptized, only, they just starting working...and they work Sundays! It´s so frustrating, but we´ll see how we´ll work things out. I just found out that there is a sister in the ward that helps the people look for jobs...so we´ll see if we can work out something for them because it would be about 4 or 5 in total that would be baptized.

Well, time is up. We have to go to an appointment at 6:30, and just began to rain. (yes! it started to finally rain this week!) So we have to go by for a coat and an umbrella first. So thanks for everything. Please keep praying for us here!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham