9/17/12

Hello Family and Friends!

Sounds like everyone is doing well this last week. I miss you all a lot!

This last week was a great week.

The weather really has been awesome, it didn't rain at all last week and has seriously just been gorgeous. It already looks like this week will be different because it is super dark outside and I can't see the sun, but hopefully it clears up, as long as it doesn't rain I am totally fine.

This last week we were having to deal with people's really frustrating schedules still, but we had several good appointments.

We has a really awesome lesson with two of our most progressing investigators. We brought another couple from the ward and they shared awesome testimonies and basically taught the Word of Wisdom for us as well, it was an amazing lesson.

Right before that lesson we had contacted a potential investigator and we were able to teach he and his friend the Restoration. When we finished with the First Vision and asked him what he thought about it, if he thought it was true, he told us, "Definitely! I actually saw this on the news the other night!". "The news?". "Yeah, the news! This whole Joseph Smith Vision was on the news, so yeah, I believe it!" We were super confused, but not going to say anything to him. We did hear that NBC did some special on the church or something like that, so many somewhere with all of the coverage with Mormons he saw a clip of the Restoration movie or something, he believes it is true, so no harm done! It was actually really funny. We totally forgot about it until later that night and then out of nowhere I asked Castaneda about it and we just laughed because we were so dumbfounded, but a Mormon TV special sounds more likely to be the case or something. We were able to set baptismal dates with him and his friend.

That brought our total baptismal dates up to 9. 9! It is a crazy number, several of them are first lesson dates (more as goals and dates to gauge their intent) but all the same, we have 9 baptismal dates, 8 of them are for October, so I am really excited. The dates change all of the time and people use their agency wrong sometimes as well of course, so maybe not all of them will go through, but I hope so, we shall see.

That is definitely one thing that is different about this area, the sheer number of people we have to contact and to teach in our pool, I love it. We are busy and it is an awesome feeling.

We were able to go buy and talk to the man who yelled out for us from his window the other week and meet with him for a little bit. Because he was getting ready for work we didn't have time to teach him a full lesson, but we gave him a 3 or 4 minute Restoration and then invited him to be baptized and he said that he has been wanting to be a member of the Church for years. This is the man whose whole family is Mormon and used to go to church all of the time in Mexico. He is actually helping pay for his nephews mission as well. Super solid. He was definitely heaven sent.

That is something I am seeing as well. When we truly come to love these people and are willing to sacrifice for them, God blesses them with a testimony and blesses us with more people. We fast a lot and really do everything we can for these people, and it really has focused me a lot more on our investigators.

On Friday we went by and met with another investigator who has had lots of issues in the past and was very angry with God for taking his mom away from him, but his heart has been softened and has seen the blessings in his life that come from living the gospel. He is a really brave man because he has left all of his old friends and the have equally shunned him as well for wanting to live a life that is in more accordance with the Gospel principles. We went by with him and watched the Great Apostasy movie about Wilford Woodruff getting baptized and for whatever reason that really changed something for him because when we invited him to be baptized he very excitedly said yes. Which is a change. He is a very shy man though and getting him to church was a struggle because he made tons of excuses and finally E. Castaneda was super blunt with him ( I dont have the Spanish skills to do so, and I am not that bold either I think) and called him out on all of his excuses and left him with no choice but to come to church, and when he did he LOVED it, he looked really good too, I was impressed.

On Saturday we had a rough day getting into contact with people but later on at night we had a super fun time with the Spanish members. The 15th of September is Mexican Independence day so we had a big party and several of the members dressed up in traditional Mexican dress and did a dance, that plus the awesome food made it an awesome night.

The members are definitely another reason that I love it here, they have stayed strong in an area with not tons of Spanish support and we almost have a branch here due to their devotion to the gospel. It is awesome.

Anyway, things have been going super great here. God is blessing us with His children to teach and I have been really impressed with the intricacies of his plan. There were many times this week that everything just so happened to work out super well.

I am so thankful to be privy to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to be one of His missionaries.

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers!

I love you all so much!!!

Love,

Zac