July 7, 2011

Dear family and friends,

This week was pretty good. We got to baptize and confirm Marco this past weekend, so it was really good. At first, we were kind of hesitant to baptize him because he still had some issues, but we thought it would be better if we baptized him and he had the Holy Ghost so that he could be able to know the difference between right and wrong so that when he does fall, he'll know how to pick himself back up. So now we're not really responsible and it's between him and God now if anything ever does happen.

We're still doing really good with Rafael also. He just has to have permission from his mom to be baptized because he's only 15, but other than that he's doing great with hardly any vices. We're getting really close to dropping Gabby because we haven't seen her in about 3 weeks and she won't answer any of our phone calls or our texts. It's really sad because she was doing really well too, but now she'll hardly even talk to us.

So on Saturday, we had a "ward talent show". I put it in quotation marks because there were only 4 acts and 3 of them were by missionaries and one of them was by Hno. Calix (a single adult who put it together) trying to sing his heart out to rock music to 10 people that showed up. There were so little people because it was only announced two weeks in advance and it was announced as a "missionary work talent show" and so nobody was interested in it. When we were eating the dinner afterward, Hno. Calix went up again and kept singing music because he was just desperate to sing to at least a few people, I think.

Bro. Shields did call me on Saturday, also. I haven't done anything yet because first, I want to try and use the bike I have for as long as possible because it hasn't been giving me any problems as of late. Second, I haven't been able to check it out on a computer because Bro. Shields said that I should have a member check it out for me before I do anything because I can't be on a computer besides on P-Day. Right now, I'm not too worried about it because it's not really on my priority list right now, and when it is, I can take care of it.

On Sunday and Monday, we went to visit Juan Carlos Piña and he wasn't doing that good on Sunday. On Monday we went to see him again and we gave him a priesthood blessing and then when we came over on Tuesday, his wife said that he died on Monday night around 7:00. I think she was a little relieved because he was suffering a lot and so she didn't seem that sad. She almost seemed happy for him because because even though she's a less-active member, she knows that he's in a better place now and that he's no longer suffering. She also said that she's going to try and come back to church again, too.

We've also been teaching Marco's sister, Mara, and since she moved into a new apartment, she doesn't have any furniture or tables or anything like that, so we asked some members to help her out a little. We got a guy named Ricardo (who has his mission call to Texas) to help us out because he has a pickup truck. We stuffed a couch and a chair into his relatively small space. And then as we were turning onto the road, we were also going down a really big hill, and so the couch fell onto the road! Elder Cunha yelled "Stop the car! The couch just fell off!" At first, Ricardo thought it was a joke, but then when he looked into the rear view mirror, he saw the couch tumbling onto the wet road (there was a light rain at the time). By this point, we were all laughing and we saw that the back of the couch got most of the damage since it had a couple holes in it and black on some parts of it. So when we delivered it, we gave it to her with the back of the couch up against the wall, and then we told her, haha. She still accepted it. We also gave her an eating table the next day.

Oh yeah, the AC in our apartment broke again, so for part of Saturday and all of Sunday and Monday, it was like 88 degrees in our apartment and it was sticky and humid outside, too so that didn't make things better. So for our 4th of July, it was pretty much hot in our apartment and then we went up on the roof to see the fireworks. It was actually really pretty because we could see more than 20 different places over the Las Vegas valley where fireworks were going on. So it was pretty much like seeing 20 firework shows instead of one. Not to mention there were lots of people setting off fireworks in our own apartment complex, even the big ones. So those ones gave us a scare.

So that's pretty much all the time I have. If I need anything, I'll let you guys know.

I love you!

Elder Meiners