Weekly Letter: August 17-23, 2010

Wow, what a week! I don´t even know how to start this off! First of all, it rained....a lot! I had thought that the rainy season would be finishing up right now, since it started in well in June, it should be ending right now, but basically like clockwork, every afternoon, it rained a ton! it was pretty cool, except that our house didn´t like it too much. Our apartment complex, like many others here in DF, has an open center where we can hang our laundry to dry. It was way cool because we literally had to go down a waterfall to get down stairs! Then we opened the door and the street was basically a river! But being DF, the traffic was heavy as usual, it was way cool to see the cars passing through knee-level water. The small cars literally looked like boats because you couldn´t see the wheels!

So yeah, this all happened while we were waiting for the Zone Leaders to do a baptismal interview with two of our investigators. They had already been interviewed before by Elder Steed, but that was two months ago, so Elder Cardenas and Elder Cabrera wanted to check that everything was good. When we arrived at the house of Uriel and Gabriela, Gaby basically chewed me out. She said that some of her friends in the church were saying that they weren´t being fair to us as missionaries, that they kept saying they were going to get baptized, but never followed through. She told me that she had told me when Javier left, that this month was going to be difficult to be baptized because it is the busiest time at her work. She then told me, "I told you I´m going to get baptized! Okay? So don´t act all sad and everything in front of the members."

I can honestly say that this was the first time I enjoyed getting chewed out. I can honestly say that I was starting to doubt that I would see them get baptized, I knew they would be baptized, but every week something else would happen that made it difficult. However, after the interviews, they said that this Sunday for sure they would get baptized.

Sunday came, and so did they! Actually, Gabriela skipped out on her work to be there. She said that they were going to reprimand her, but she wanted to get baptized so much that it didn´t matter. She said that because the busy season at her work was now going to calm down that she shouldn´t have problems anymore with going to church on Sundays. Uriel also received a job that is only Monday through Saturdays everyday from 9 am until 6 pm. That may not sound very ideal, but here in DF, that´s a real blessing.

So the Lord provided the way that the two of them could be baptized. Elder Childers was able to get permission to be there for their baptism, (because Gabriela had made him promise to baptize her). So it was a beautiful experience, and the two of them were really happy and excited. Even the cold water didn´t deter them....even though Uriel gave me a hard time about the water. He told me afterwards "You didn´t even give me time to prepare myself you just dunked me as soon as you said the prayer." I told him it was better to get it over with and get out of the cold water, and, shivering, he laughed and agreed.

Well, I was only able to write about this experience, and although it was the crowning experience of the week, it wasn´t the only thing I wanted to write about, but right now I am out of time. So I´ll have to close with that and save the rest for next week.

Thank you all for the love and the support. It really means a lot!

Cariños,

Elder Blackham

Weekly Letter: August 3-9, 2010

The cambios have come again, and with them come....change. I was in quite the situation last week. Whenever I thought of the cambios, I dreaded the change, but also looked forward to it. It´s hard to explain, I tried to explain it last week, but I think I failed to do so adequately. I would try again this week, but I know I´ll just waste time and energy only to fail again. Oh well. One of the changes that I wasn´t looking forward to was saying good-bye to my District Leader, Elder Steed.

This last week was surreal to see him leave. We had both gone to Alta together, but hadn´t really gotten to know each other very well because of difference in age, but I had known and been friends with his younger brother, Russell, and they look very similar to each other, so I recognized him instantly to be his brother. It was a great experience having him as a district leader these last two transfers. He basically was smiling every moment for those 12 weeks. I bet he even smiles when asleep! So it´s really weird to think that he´s right now on the airplane ride home. But I know that he served honorably and I´m very grateful for the opportunity that I had to get to know him here in the Mission.

But this was only of the changes that came. I´m going to receive another companion here in Plateros. So I get to stay here with the people I knew and got to love these last 3 and a half months....but I lose my companion (well, one of them, Manuel is basically the third Elder). Elder Childers is actually returning to the area he was in before he came to Plateros, but this time as District Leader. There, he is going to complete his mission. So my Stepfather(in the mission) is going to die(in the mission) in Camarones.(it´s a place, but it´s named after a shrimp---yeah, the fish in the ocean. Why? I have no idea. No one does.) [Basically I just used some lingo from the mission which sounds really weird in English, I imagine that it does in Spanish too, but all the elders that I talk to understand what I mean when I use it, so I don´t think it´s so weird. So if any of you don´t understand what I said, just skip that sentence because I was basically repeating myself in Mission lingo.]

So I´m going to receive Elder Gamez here in plateros. Once again, I´m going to have to teach him the area, but it´s okay, at least I´m not senior companion. Right now, I think that would be too much of a headache for me. I guess I haven´t learned all I could from this area, because I´ll be here another 6 weeks. That´s actually okay, what I was hoping for actually, because we were going to have a lot of baptisms this Sunday, but all but one fell through at the last minute.

The only one that got baptized was a member from a less-active family that had been baptized a year before. The bishop had given us this name because the daughter had been baptized a year before, but went to Canada the week after for 6 months without being confirmed. Elder Javier and I had worked hard in finding her, but she had been busy because she was preparing to be married. When she got married, she then went on a honeymoon, but these last two week she had returned again. When we finally had an appointment with her last week we explained that because it had been a long time since her baptism that she had to repeat the ordinance. She accepted the idea pretty easily, since she had already made the decision once. We then asked her when she would be baptized, and she asked if she could this sunday. We were like... "Ummm.....YEAH!" She got interviewed two days latter, and, even though she was a little sick, she came to church and got baptized after the services.

So yeah, I was a little sad that the other 6 baptisms that we had set for that date fell through, but during that one baptism, I forgot everything. I definitely need to work on the other 6 that weren´t able to. The Orea Zavaleta family, had to do a lot of paperwork with the house(which they are to inherit from Uriel´s grandmother who passed away recently), Carolina and Fernanda weren´t able to go because of a family commitment for their father´s birthday, and Guillermo and Socorro couldn´t get interviewed and didn´t go to church. So we had one baptism this week, but we still have a lot of work to do. I wonder how my companion is going to react when I tell him that we had 7 set for baptism this week and only one got baptized. He´s probably going think, "Oh, we have some work to do here." I think I´m still learning patience daily, and I´m learning a lot about the agency of others. We can only do so much, it´s their decision. But we´re going to work hard on having a lot of baptisms the next week....especially if the other family we challenged to baptism this last week follows through on their commitment.

Anyway, time is short. Thank you for the support. Please continue praying for me. I know it would be a mistake to say that I´m completely ready for what will come this cambio, because if I had already learned the lessons, why would I have to experience it again? Pray for me to learn and improve daily.

Cariños,

Elder Blackham

Weekly Letter: June 1-7

Another week in the mission field. I´m going to go out on a limb and say that it was our most effective week in the mission so far. I think the turning point was Monday at the Meeting. Elder Steed, our District leader, made a District goal this week to have at least two lessons, one new investigator, and one referral received before the Comida at 2:00. We worked harder than ever to meet this goal, and although we often fell short on the goal, we still made a huge stride in our work.

This week, we focused on Baptism....we didn´t even realize it until we looked at our numbers, but we committed all but three investigators to baptism. First, we committed Irene to be baptized and she accepted to be baptized yesterday. Unfortunately, due to a special stake conference we weren´t able to realize the baptism, but she said she would be baptized this Saturday! This is actually better, because she has a greater opportunity to invite her daughters, one of which doesn´t believe in God, and the other is a little hardened because of experiences with religion in the past. However, in talking to Irene, she told us that both of her daughters wanted to attend her baptism, but weren´t able to on Sunday. She said that maybe God is giving them an opportunity to attend by changing it to Saturday. I could give you all the details about how the daughters´ hearts are being softened, but it´s not possible to give all the details. However, when Irene explained to one of her daughters about the Word of Wisdom, and how it was like the 6th of the ten commandments ¨Thou shalt not kill(thyself)¨ her daughter said that it made a lot of sense. How I am glad for modern-day prophets that help understand the doctrine more fully!

Also, the other family that attended church last week. They weren´t able to receive us in their home until Saturday night, and because of work and the grandmother, neither of them could go to Church. However, we contacted them the Friday night, invited them to the baptism that we were going to have on Sunday(but subsequently got canceled). Uriel(the father) told us that he wanted to go on Sunday, but he wasn´t sure if he could. However, the next day, when we had the appointment, Gabriela(who went to church last week with her kids) basically commanded us to talk about baptism. So we taught them the third lesson. After doing so, we extended the invitation to be baptized, and both of them said yes.

They only have the obstacle of a real addiction to smoking, but both of them expressed their willingness to comply with the Word of Wisdom. Without our help, they had already made the goal to be completely clean of smoking by next Sunday, when they anticipate that they will be able to attend church together as a family. They truly have incredible faith. They already have friends in the church....actually, their friends were the ones that referred us to them. And really have the desire to be baptized!

It´s been a while since I mentioned Bety Ábrego. That´s because, due to her work schedule, we have only been able to visit her once a week, and she hasn´t been able to go to church on Sundays. However, she continues to amaze us in her faithfulness in reading and praying, even though she was pretty sick this week, she still read a good 10 chapters in the Book of Mormon! I think she´s read more in the BOM than about half of the members in the ward! We decided as companionship to read with her in one of the Chapters she had already read(because we´ve already taught her all she needs for baptism). Both of us felt inspired to read 2 Nephi 2. As we were reading about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, my companion began explaining to her that in order for the Atonement to work in our lives, we need to be baptized. By this time, we had already taught baptism several times, and I thought for a moment where this was going, and I had a feeling to go with it, to commit her to baptism.

She accepted to be baptized on the first Sunday that she has off work and can return to church(she´s already attended church three times previous), the last Sunday of June and of the transfer period. What´s more, she went on to tell us that she actually had a dream where there was a baptism with lots of people, in a font that she described perfectly, even though she hasn´t seen a baptismal font in our church before. It was a marvelous experience. She has already described several dreams to us. She to us that the week before we contacted her on the street, she had a dream about angels in white(I don´t remember everything she described because I didn´t understand all of it), but wow! Truly this is one of God´s chosen daughters, ready for the gospel in her life.

We were also able to find a great new investigator in the water purifier. His name is Jesus, and he was a referral from the other Elders, because he actually lives more at his work than he is able to be at home with his family(the work here is very hard, people work so hard to support their family.) So we entered the purifier and asked a man if he knew Jesus. The man looked at us and asked ¨You mean the one that´s up there?¨ both of us misunderstood, thinking that he meant that Jesus was on the floor above. But then he smiled and said ¨he´s in heaven, right?¨ Both of us, finally getting the joke laughed, and then asked if there was Jesus working there. He told us to wait, went into the back room for a minute and returned and told us, pointing upwards ¨Yeah, I don´t know him very well.¨ Again, we laughed, and I said, ¨Well, we can help you with that.¨ He laughed and told us that he was Jesus, the man that the other Elders had contacted.

Jesus has been having problems with his family, and wants to find a faith, something so he can change and improve his relations with his family. We promised him that the gospel blesses families, taught him about the Restoration and committed him pray about Joseph Smith....and, when he asked about the baptism(which we also invited him to, but also couldn´t go to), we taught him a little about baptism, and committed him to be baptism....and he accepted, but said he wanted to make sure that it was the right decision before doing it right away, he wanted to be ready. We told him that we were there to help him reach that goal and that we were going to teach him more about this message. He expressed interest in the message and we´re going to pass by tomorrow.

I wish I could tell you guys about everything that´s going on, but there is just too much to talk about. This week, I hope will also be an effective week. Thank you for your prayers and your faith, they really do help!

Con Amor,

Elder Blackham