Weekly Letter: August 15-21, 2011

para todos uds:

I will now talk about about this week.

Tuesday we had interviews with the President. It was a great experience, because I was able to give him a great report about the progress my companion has made in the three months we´ve been together. I am truly thankful to be serving under such an inspired man. I wish I knew how he does it, but I don´t, but somehow he can animate a whole room of missionaries to do things that they wouldn´t normally do, but at the same time, do the same thing with a single missionary one on one. I really feel that I have so much to learn from him, especially in my responsibilities with other missionaries and their investigators. I definitely recognize it as the spirit. So I am going to try to do what the Anti-Nephi-Lehis did, and bury old weapons of rebellion, that would otherwise inhibit my receptiveness to the spirit.

We were lucky to have our interviews as one of the first ones, so then we went directly from there to our house, where the Sister Villarreal inspected our house (which was clean!), but she told us to look for another house because she didn´t like the quality of it. So then it was to work. It was pretty awesome day because several things worked out very well. We had our food appointment with Judith....a recent convert, and we talked pretty well with her son Eduardo, who had just been laid off from his job. However, we set an appointment to go on Thursday to talk to him...because we had to hurry and go to another appointment afterward.....which fell through...but oh well.

We then went to the church because we had an appointment with Margarita and her kids (two of which were baptized the last week, and one that had just turned eight). We talked first off about the confirmation, and then Dana (the 8-year-old) asked if she could be baptized that Sunday....obviously we obliged. (Both of her parents are non members, but her mom is really interested in getting baptized...it´s just that she isn´t married with the father of her children and they live together.) So then we set another appointment to fill out the baptismal form, and have the interview with the Zone Leaders.

Then, we went to another appointment with Sofia, which was such a powerful lesson. She was opening up more and more. If it weren´t for the fact that we had to move to another appointment afterward, we would have invited her to be baptized right then and there. (As it was, we did finish the Plan of Salvation on Friday and invited her to be baptized next Sunday...and she accepted!) And those were the three people we focused in this week. We found several new investigators, but really, we have to work with all of them so that they can progress well.

That then brings us to Thursday, when we had the appointment with Margarita and her kids in the church (her house is really small and it´s hard to teach her there, so we´ve been meeting with her in the church lately. Dana passed her interview, we filled out the forms, and ¡vámonos! We had to run to our appointment with Eduardo. We still ended up getting there late, but they were waiting for us. We were able to share a message about the Atonement, and then we invited all present to be baptized. Danae(Eduardo´s wife) didn´t accept because she felt that his losing his job was maybe a sign that she shouldn´t join the church (he had acquired that job with help from the church´s job search), Hadassa(Eduardo´s niece) did accept, but said she wanted to wait, but didn´t say why (she had already told my companion and I that her dad is against her going to and baptizing in the church). So then we got to Eduardo, who said "I´m ready. I know that there are a lot commandments that I need to complete, but I feel I´m ready for my baptism."

Luckily Elder Lindstrom was still with me in interchanges of companions, and as a Zone Leader, he could interview him right then. So, he passed the interview and we put the date to be baptized on Sunday. The only thing is that he is an offensive lineman in an American football team....that is, HE IS A REALLY BIG GUY.....and he wanted me to baptize him. So I repented and started to exercise daily in the morning like I should do everyday anyway....but even doing fifty push-ups a day for three days was not quite enough. I had to re-baptize him four times.....but it´s a small miracle that I actually got him out of the water four times. But yeah, he finally got submerged completely the fourth time...so yeah, I baptized like a 300 pound guy yesterday....! Yeah!

And that pretty much brings us to the now....which are the changes. My companion Elder Garcia went to an area that´s called Valle Ceylan, which is part of the same stake but a different zone in the mission (they divided the Tlalnepantla stake between Lomas Verdes and Tenayo), so it´ll be interesting, but I guess I´ll still see him in General Conference. I also received Elder Price here in my area. He is from Laverkin, Utah (really close to Hurricane), and we have already met and we know ourselves pretty well....I was his District Leader in Toluca when he was in the La Crespa. So I´m pretty excited about this week. So we´re going to work hard to get two or three baptisms this week to start the change rolling. So please pray for us!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham