November 16, 2009

Hey Everyone!!!
Life doesn´t ever slow down, huh?
It sounds like life never changes back home. Mission life is the same, hard but very rewarding. So Elder Gómez and I have been teaching quite a few people. We have an older couple that aren´t married but like church. I don´t think they are going to get baptized. The whole law of chastity thing really kills us out here. People just don´t understand the importance of getting married. We also have a 15 year old girl named Silvina. She is the niece to a recent convert but changes her mind a lot. She was supposed to get baptized last Saturday and it didn´t happen. We have another youth, Julian, who is 14. His dad is a member but the parents are separated and the mom doesn´t want anything to do with the church. Sadly, he´s living with her so we have to do some convincing for that baptism to happen. There is an older lady named Raquel who is very receptive to our messages but didn´t come to church last week. We need to verify on her. Also, an old investigator named Jorge always comes to church but doesn´t feel ready enough to get baptized. We teach him the lessons once a week and hopefully one day he´ll ask us to be baptized. And last, but not least, a lady named Cecilia. She´s probably the best but the hardest to find. She´s very busy and works a lot but we found her doing service at a school. She has 2 kids, and one of them can get baptized. She told us she was going to church last week but she didn´t show up thanks to all the rain that poured in the morning. There are several other people we are teaching but that would take up way too much time to tell. Long story short, we are teaching a lot but no baptisms.
My companion Elder Gómez is from New Jersey. His parents immigrated from El Salvador. He speaks English and Spanish fluently. He´s a cool guy but very lazy. That´s the only downside. He just wastes way too much time and has no idea of time or money management. That hurts us sometimes when we have lessons and when we show up "late" to the church. Late for me is 8:30 a.m. (church starts at 9 a.m.) but he likes to show up 10 minutes before meetings start and get everything ready then. It doesn´t give us a good image either but he doesn´t seem to care. However, he is leaving this transfer and I will get a new companion in a week. I already know who it is because of the importance of his assignment as Branch President. His name is Elder Sabey and he is just coming out of the offices. He just has one transfer more than me so we are pretty equal on time. I believe he is from Colorado if I´m not mistaken. I´m excited to work with him! The area is the same. Our good "friend" and ex-counselor told everyone not to come to church anymore and has continued to spread rumors and lies. Let´s just say we´ve had some low assistences lately and not many people like us. Oh well, it´s a shame that the situation has gotten out of hand but hopefully we´ll be able to fix it. Other than that things are fine. I´m trying to stay excited and happy but it´s hard. I just keep on working and working and hope things come out all right.
Thanks to Mom for the package, I just got it last week!! The Reeses are all gone and some of the peanut butter. I haven´t cooked up the smores yet but I´m getting around to it. Have a wonderful week!!
Later,
Elder Page