Weekly Letter: August 22-28, 2011

para todos uds:

This week was a great...but challenging week. Elder Price and I are getting along with each other very well. We can relate to each other pretty well. He is about to complete a year mark this Thursday, which is way crazy because I remember when he was "born" in Toluca, when I was in Centro. I realized that in this Change I will complete a year since I was in Centro in Toluca. It might sound random, but it´s really hitting me. Right now I can say that a year ago I was in Plateros, my first area. So I don´t feel like I´ve been out so long, however, thinking about how I went to Toluca a year ago.....that´s just incredible.

I´m working hard with my companion right now to get his confidence up. He´s really learned a lot since he was in La Crespa in Toluca. However, his last area in Santa Monica was not a great experience for him. He didn´t get along very well with his first companion. However, when another District Leader arrived in his place and became his companion, he began to wish that his first companion was there. The companion that was with him before didn´t work very well...and he was getting pretty discouraged with that companion. So right now he is taking everything really slow. Actually, one time we were teaching the plan of Salvation and he told me he couldn´t teach a principle that I left for him to teach. I just whispered really quickly that he could do it in Toluca, so that he better do it now...and then I shut up(a not-so-popular tactic to use on non confident missionaries. He was good about it, and then began to teach the principle, and did quite well.

But yeah, we were able to get many new investigators this week. One of the highlights was a lesson we had with Inés and her family. We had invited her to invite others to also be there to listen to us. We were able to talk with her family, another family that lives next door and has a store really close by too. We were able to talk pretty well with them. I don´t know how well they´ll progress, because they´re pretty active in their church. But they accepted everything we were teaching them, and we have an appointment with them this week to talk more. The mother went to church yesterday, and she liked it. However, her kids couldn´t do so because they had commitments in their church...but that´s okay. We´ll see what they say this week.

And that brings us to Sunday. We got there Sunday and we were surprised to see that Lluvia had gotten there before everybody else. Lluvia is the wife(but not married) to a less active member, who has wanted to get baptized since I first knew her. But they haven´t gotten married yet. However, we hope to be able to animate them to do it quickly, because it´s been a long time. However, that´s not the best thing. She arrived with her 9-year-old son Jorge, who had been going with his father(not her husband, but another relationship she had) and going to Catholic Mass. He went to see if he would like to be baptized in the church. We talked a little with him, and we mentioned that there was a baptism that same day at the end of the service. He decided to attend.

So yeah, we were able to baptize Sofia who had a baptismal date since last week. And it was really a great experience. So I was pretty excited that Jorge was able to be there. So we´re thinking of him as another potential baptism for this week, which may inspire some action on the part of his mom and his step-father. So yeah. I have to go right now. We have to help Sofia move from where she was living(behind the Church) to another street about four blocks away (not so close, but still close to the church.) Thanks for everything!

Please pray for me and my companion in this area. There is a lot of success waiting for us!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham