March 9, 2015

Hey sorry for not writing a family email last week! I didn’t have very much time to write. I don’t really have very much time right now because we have a very important soccer game scheduled at 3 so I will just write this family email and then reply to all of you guys after we play.

Anyway to catch you guys all up on what has been going on.... C and L aren’t going to get married. They decided that they would just rather separate and live apart. It was really hard to accept that decision but we can’t really do anything about it except for support them. It was hard because everything that the church is about and everything that we teach them is about families being together and they have decided to separate. Hopefully in the future they will change their minds and decide to get married. But L and 3 of her kids are going to be getting baptized on Saturday. We had L talk to President Rowley and she explained the situation to him and he said that she is ready so we are going to have her baptism this Saturday.

A couple weeks ago I finished the book of Mormon again and right after that president challenged the entire mission to start it again and finish it before July 1, which is the day he leaves and the day the new president gets here. We also have a plan to work with the members of the church in missionary work. I’m not really sure how it is at home because things have changed a lot but here we have kind of a hard time getting the members to really "participate" in missionary work. So we are starting what we call "Alma and Amulek" because Alma was a missionary that went to Amulek's house (member) and they both left together and preached the gospel. So we are visiting the members and helping them set "missionary goals" to invite people to church or to talk to someone about the book of Mormon. And it has actually been going really well for us! Liliana brought her mom to church and other youth are bringing their friends and cousins.

On Saturday we had a service project cleaning up all of the garbage on the beach. It was something we did with all of the members and missionaries with the city of Talara and it was awesome. There was a lot more garbage than I expected ha-ha. We ended up filling up about 25 or 30 giant black trash bags of just garbage and we didn’t even get all of it. We are going back this week to keep working on it. It feels great to offer service with all of the members and missionaries because the people can get to know the church and see that we are normal people just like everyone else. Speaking of Mormons being normal people, today we watched Meet the Mormons as a zone with president Rowley and it was awesome! A lot better than I expected ha-ha.

This weekend was district conference in Talara and it was full of great experiences. Saturday night when we were sitting in the adult session we looked over to the door and saw a crazy guy (a guy who is just out of it all the time because of all the drinking and drugs he has done his whole life) walk in so we went over to him. my first instinct was "oh great, now we have to get up and take him out and tell him he can’t be here" but then I thought about it as we were walking up to him and something told me to just invite him to come in and sit with us. I was kind of scared at first ha-ha but we invited him to come and sit with us. And I learned a great lesson. When we would sing the hymns he would move his hands like he was leading the Mormon tabernacle choir and sing his heart out to the best he could with the words ha-ha. It was a funny experience and he really liked it. I mean I thought that Mormon meetings were pretty cool sober. This guy got to go through one high as a kite ahata. But I learned that just because he is suffering the consequences of his bad decisions doesn’t mean God loves him any less. And that doesn’t mean that I should love him any less either. I’m thankful God sent him our way that night to teach us that lesson and to give us that experience.

Also we are teaching a guy named A and his family. We weren’t able to find him or get ahold of him all week and we were kind of down about it. But before we left for the conference Sunday morning we prayed that he and his family would go. And as we were waiting at the door they showed up! I know that God hears and answers our prayers.

Well that’s all. Love you guys!