Mexican Wedding and Baptism

Buenos dias! Let's see. The week went pretty quick after I wrote the last e-mail. We had plenty of time to do some door knocking and found some good people, but are going to have to work hard still to get back in the door and teach entire families.

One week we were walking down the street and this guy, Juan Carlos, in his car stopped us (this has happened a few times before). He used to live in Logan, with a brother, so knows a little about our church. He gave us his info and we said we'd call to set up an appointment. So finally last week we saw him on Friday and brought this girl who's a recently returned missionary in our ward (in Spanish they call them “ex-missioneros” I don't really like that. Why “ex?”). We taught him and his nephew and it went really really good. It's funny because there were four of us teaching, but I really like having this RM with us because we flow really well together. The nephew has grandparents who are members in our stake. I don't know them. But it's just another connection. They say that statistically it takes something like 7 contacts with the church before someone accepts and is baptized. Hopefully this is the seventh time.

After our appointment with him we went to this little taco/pupusa place for dinner, and in walks Juan Carlos to get some pupusas. Funny. He wasn't able to come to church, but I he truly seems interested, or at least has the desire to understand.

The best part of the week though was Alma and Paulo. We taught them and they had their baptismal interview Thursday night. Alma told me that her mother, Maria, isn't too happy with her deciding to get married. That she wasn't really talking to her. Luckily she did come to the wedding, though she didn't come to church or the baptisms the next day. Too bad. I believe she knows the church is true, and knows she needs to be baptized as well, but as a mother, she doesn't want to see her daughter be hurt again (because Alma's already been married and divorced) and so now she's upset and we think that's why she didn't want to get baptized too. Because in the past she said that when Alma could get baptized, that she would do it too. So now we still will be working with Maria, trying to help her.

But, the wedding and baptism were wonderful. It was so great Saturday when they got married. Alma almost never wears dresses to church, but was all dressed up; she's teeeeeeny, so she looked like a dolled-up 13 year old. And Paulo had bought a new tie and white shirt (still had the fold lines in it). It was just a little marriage. Hermano Montiel and his wife were there, bishop and his family, Hermana Acosta (teaches gospel principles and husband is stake pres) was there and another counselor and his wife. They just looked so happy. Of course!

And, we had been able to get in contact really fast with one of the missionaries who taught them when they first moved her last year, and he flew out the next day to be there and baptize them. So it was really special for them. And the baptism was even more amazing. Everyone was just sooo excited for them. They've been waiting so long to do this and you could just see them radiating happiness all day Sunday. I was able to blow up a nice picture of the temple that I have with a frame it for them to have in their house because this is definitely one family that will be going to the temple in a year. I don't doubt it.

And what else? We had some really good fish this weekend. Fish tacos!

Yesterday we had our mission conference. It was good. Elder Packer and his wife were mission presidents in Malaga, Spain a couple of years ago.

There were things in there that I learned that I can improve on. Right now I just really want to improve my teaching abilities. Become that master teacher! And I always love hearing from President and Sister Watrous speak too. They are just such good people.

Tomorrow I'm going on exchanges in the Samoan program. Yeah! So Sister Brown will be coming here to Spanish for the day. It should be interesting to have these three sisters here doing the Spanish on their own. But I think it will be a really good learning experience for them. And I'm excited to speak my native tongue of Samoan, and eat some “pig.”

We don't have any baptisms coming up...yet. But somehow, I know we can have at least one more baptism by the end of the transfer. We're trying!

Oh yeah, earthquakes. We had one a couple of weeks ago. We were teaching Alma and Paulo and all of a sudden I notice their faces were all funny, and then I realized that there was an earthquake. Just a little one. Sister Lewis and Sister Yeom were somehow oblivious to that one. Then Sunday night when we got home we had another earthquake. Like a 5.7 or something. It's too bad how those things excite me. It didn't last too long, but kind of was jerky in the way it moved. It scared my companions. I already know where I would go in our apartment to hide if there was a big one. Sister Dutson figured it all out one time. We have to think about these things, right? I'm pretty sure our apartment will just fall over if anything happens. Ha ha ha.

Love you all, thank you for everything!