July 25-31, 2011

para todos uds:

Well, it´s another week in the mission. Another week has gone, but now is another chance to start again. I doubt I´ve said sufficiently how much I love the mission. I have often at night started to think a lot about the people we´re teaching, and sometimes it´s so stressing that I can´t sleep...and then I think to myself "Isn´t this mission thing so great?" I think there are few times in the life of someone that what they most worry about are other people´s choices, other people´s answers to prayers, and other people´s experiences. I love it! Whenever I get tempted to be discouraged, I remember that.

This week was such a week. We have been working so hard these last few weeks to find new investigators...however, without any success. The last two weeks, it wasn´t so hard because we still had a baptizing pool. (or rather, a bunch of people that could be baptized.) But this week, everybody EVERYBODY was out of town.....or baptized :) so we didn´t have as much work as we had had in past weeks...so we really got down working hard with the area book and ward to find more people to teach....and NOPE! We had four new investigators this week, and none of them went to church this week....sigh.

We did, however, have a miracle with Lucio. He was not able to be baptized last week, because he still hadn´t left the habit of smoking. However, we visited him everyday at the same time to see how he was doing, and shared a small message. It really encouraged him. When we saw him Friday we already were programed and ready for the baptism on Sunday....but when we didn´t see him Saturday(our appointment fell through) and then neither he nor his family showed on Sunday at church....we were a little worried that he had fallen again.

However, he arrived with his family at 6:00 ready to be baptized. José Luis Alvarado, a blind member of the ward baptized him. I had foreseen several problems that could have happened. Jose Luis had to repeat the ordinance like three times, but finally he got him submerged the third time. Actually Lucio got down on his knees and basically lied down on the font floor the last time to submerge himself. When finally he was baptized and the two of them went to get changed, Inés, his wife (who got baptized with their two sons three weeks earlier) told me that Lucio was hydrophobic. I am continually astonished by the faith and desires of this people!

So yeah, that was a great way to end the week. We didn´t have the success that we wanted in all the Goals of Excellence...however we did have a Baptismal service, and have another one planned for this Sunday. So at least we´re doing okay with the goal to baptize every week.

Please pray for us so that we can have even more success here! Thanks for everything!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham