Wednesday, October 26, 2011

October 17, 2011

Dear Fam,

This week was wonderful as usual.  Really I'll just try to go over a couple of the highlights of what happened.  

On Saturday we helped to set up for one of the members (Janette's) daughter's quincenera and then we got to go to it that night and it was so much fun and so great!  We obviously couldn't do a whole lot of dancing or really anything, but it was just so nice to see everybody so happy and having so much fun.  It was a lot like a wedding, but just for a 15 year-old that doesn't have a boyfriend.  Elder Johnson came back to visit the mission with his parents and he came to the quincenera and it was really weird...  I saw him in his regular clothes, hugging girls and using a cell phone.  He just went home something like 3 weeks ago!  What the heck...  At least I'm still a ways off!  It was great to see him though!  (He's one of my trainers if you don't recognize his name.)

This week we had a really exciting thing happen!  Janette's parents, Rosalio and Emilia, were apparently talking to each other about baptism the other day and Rosalio was saying how he thinks he's almost ready.  He is a little bit worried because he likes to "socially drink" but other than that I think that there might be a baptism sometime soon!  We talked to him the other day and apparently he has a hard time grasping really any belief about anything other than God.  I don't even know if he really believes in the Bible or any sort of church needing to have a "leader."  He just realizes though that God is the reason, and I think that all it takes is a little bit of sincere reading and a little bit of sincere prayer and testimony follows.  I'll let you know how it goes!

We met a Puerto Rican less-active member named Milly this weekend and she looks like she could be your sister.  She looks just like a mix between you and Aunt Nancy and just the way that she acts and everything is just so similar...  So she has been a member for a long time apparently because of some huge miracle that happened in her life, but now she doesn't go to church because she doesn't feel comfortable around some of the people.  She adopted her granddaughter and she is 8, so she is looking to get baptized, but the whole situation just amazes me that she is inactive.  Her daughter was telling us a story about how she met Thomas S. Monson when she was 9 or 10 and he told her that everything would be ok and that her broken ankle would be completely healed and the next day she went into the hospital and it was like nothing had ever happened!  They both have really strong testimonies, it's just sad that people have to feel so uncomfortable to the point of not being able to continue going to church because of something someone did.  It would just be nice though if people could just understand that the reason we go to church is because it is a commandment and we want to show of love for God by doing his will.  If only everyone could understand His plan for us, they would understand the reason why we do anything in this life!  

Things have been a little bit hard with the Spanish members in the ward lately.  They took out the Spanish group and are really trying to just dissolve the whole ward back into one, so it's easy to understand why they might be offended, but then you have to think about the Stake President's reasoning.  As the Spanish Elders, I'm always kind of confused about what we are supposed to do with the English members, but really this whole situation is just opening my eyes to the fact that it's all just one big whole in heaven.  There are not going to be Spanish people here and English people there, so I think that what the President wants is for us to just be one ward like we are supposed to be.  It's just so hard to explain the concept of sustaining your leader's decisions to the members though, so that is probably the biggest dilemma right night, but the wonderful thing is that all we need to know is that if we just keep pressing forward and giving the will of the Lord a chance, everything will turn out in the end.  Even if the gates of hell shall gape open before us, it will all be for our benefit and experience.  

I can't find your Mormon.org profiles.  I made one a few weeks ago and here's my link http://mormon.org/me/5Q3R/.  Give me your's!  Or make one if you haven't already!

I don't have a lot of time left, but I still love you and I'm so happy to hear from you every week!  I'm glad that you are living your own dream right now.  Everything sounds so perfect and I get a little bit sad that I have to be missing all of it, but know that I am still doing great.  I absolutely love being on a mission and I feel like I am on the right track in my life.  It's a wonderful life!

Don't worry about rushing sending me packages or anything...  I will live!  If you want you can send the soundtrack to Les Mis though... Just throwing that out there.  :)

Love

Eric 

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