Weekly Letter: November 15-21, 2011

Alright, if this letter is missing a few c´s I hope you can decipher the hidden message. The c key is one where you have to hit it several times for it to work.

I got my package. I did get it intact...I think. I got several Butterfingers (which I´ve almost eaten all of...one with a Halloween message that I got on November 15...sigh.) A teryaki beef jerky. Several slim jims....and HUGE box of Cheezit(which I am already half way through with.) I also got my shoes/army boots.(which is cool because half of the military camp is in my area), and two pairs of socks. (The two intact pairs of socks came as a relief to the now four "saintly" pairs I have...but I guess I can´t send any pictures anymore.)

My son is named Elder Granados. He is from Chihuaha, Chihuaha. And he´s feeling a little bit of home sickness. His father passed away about 2 or three years ago... and when he came on his mission he left his mother and thirteen year-old sister alone...and from what he´s telling me, Chihuaha is not the safest place right now. He´s talked about how they used to follow him home to know where he lived...and how some people would threaten him, telling him that they knew where his sister went to school. So he´s more worried about his family than homesick actually.

This week, we committed someone to get baptized yesterday. Her name is Lourdes Sanchez, and she really is golden. She accepted the date and everything, the only thing is that she wasn´t able to get to church for some reason. Her phone has been off the hook for quite a while, so there was very little that we could do. She was going to get to church late, but also had to leave early to go to Puebla. But I think that she took longer than she thought in the morning, and because of that it was impossible to get to church. Since her phone is still not paid, she couldn't tell us, and we couldn't get a hold of her. She should be coming home today in the afternoon...so we´ll see if we can find her.

Also, we were able to find a new family in an area of the ward that we haven´t worked very much. His name is Manuel Santiago and Luz Rios. They looked at us in such a way that I was like...."we have to contact them." They told us that they had seen us several times and wanted to talk to us but later they were never able to talk to us because we were always too far away from them. So we went Friday and we talked to them about baptism and they both accepted. The only thing is that they weren´t able to go to church this week because he got really sick and they had to go to the hospital to get him checked up. He´s had several strokes (I don´t know if that´s exactly the translation, but its "infarto cerebral" in Spanish.), so they wanted to make sure everything was okay.

Also, we´ve been having problems with Esmeralda again, but I think we´re just going to focus more on her mom and see if she follows. She seems to get to the point that she knows this is true, but doesn´t want to commit because of her "Virgin de Guadalupe." Every time she mentions it, we tell her that her issue isn´t about that, rather whether or not God has called a prophet. Yesterday, she told us to come for her at 9 so she could go to the earlier services. But when we got there, she told us that she was very sorry that she was not going to accompany us because her mom was sick...she said that she might be able to go to our services at 11:00 and to pass by for her. We went and nobody was home. We called her and she said that she went with her God-father and would not return until late.

We passed by late, and she finally told us that she loved the going to church, but that she would no longer be going. I think she expected me to get angry at her or something, but when I didn´t say anything, she started asking me to say something. I wasn´t speaking for two reasons: one, my companion needed practice, and two: I´m so bull-headed that I would have gotten into another discussion. But yeah, I don´t know if it made an impression on her, because I think it did bother her that I´m usually the talkative one and the one that´s laughing and everything, but that in that experience I was just silent. I did learn that my companion is much more capable of teaching than I had initially considered. So I guess this week I will be trying to adjust more so he can learn. I feel like he gained confidence in the time he talked to her, so I guess, even if it didn´t help her, that maybe it helped us as a companionship.

Well, time is short I have to go now. Thanks for everything that you´ve done for me. Thank you for your prayers and support. Keep praying for us so that we´ll have more success.

Cariños,

Elder Blackham