Week #98 - Caught Green-handed (Santiago)

Hola familia y amigos!

The time is going by way too fast and I don’t like it! This week was pretty good, I am still trying to help Elder Baldwin as much as I can, because it is a for sure that I am leaving this area next week. It’s been kind of hard, but I am trying my best, I don’t think I ever said this but he has a learning disability and so it makes it a bit hard to teach him, but he is working at it and learning and understands a lot.

This week we had planned on doing some service by helping to paint a local store. Our appointment to start painting was right after lunch, so we went to lunch dressed in our jeans & t-shirts so we could go straight there when we were done.  Our house is on top of a huge hill, so it’s so much easier to just go to lunch at the bottom and leave to do service than to go up and down, back and forth. Anyway, while we were eating of course the BPs family had to get involved. I’m almost positive they called him because when we left, we ran into him by the church, and while we were walking to him he had a huge grin on his face like he just caught us in some terrible act.  I just told him that we were going to paint for a service project and he said, ‘ok’ like it wasn’t true. Later when we saw him we were covered in green paint, so I guess we were caught green handed! The whole encounter kind of bothered me, but whatever.

So this week we were working hard to help get Ondina baptized. She is a friend of Lorena´s and she is also Gustavo´s mom. Anyway, she has had a really hard time in her life recently. She is in debt to 5 banks, but she is pulling through. When we first started working with her we wanted her to at least go to church for the first hour, but she stayed for all three! Then we invited her to drop coffee and that night she dropped it! Well this week she got baptized and she was so happy! She took all her family (four of them aren’t members) and it was a great service. On Sunday at church the Spirit was really strong and she cried during the confirmation. It was a great weekend!

This week we went to San Pedro for a multizona and we watched a talk by Elder Holland that he gave in the MTC in January. The talk was really great! It talked about why they made the Preach my Gospel manual. He said the first purpose was first to convert the missionary, and I realized that it was true. I feel so much more... better I guess you could say, because it really did convert me. I always asked myself why would people go on a mission and go then come home and go inactive, or just basically be lame and not want to help anymore. It’s because they weren’t really converted. I feel like when I get home it doesn’t finish with what I did here. I have to keep working when I get home, it really is a commitment for a lifetime. It was a great talk and I really felt the Spirit and it made me want to work the best that I can right now. I don’t want to go home, I love it too much here, but the show must go on! Not to make you guys baggy, but I did get my travel itinerary. I fly to Miami in the morning of August 23^rd. I leave SPS at 7:15am, arrive in Miami at 11:35am then leave for Phoenix at 5:20pm and arrive at 7:10pm, so now you can start planning for that! Well I hope everyone has a great week!