August 4, 2011

Dear family and friends,

        This week has been good compared to the last few weeks. We've been having a lot more lessons with people that want to learn more and they're home more often. We talked with Rafael's mom again last week and we asked her pretty straight forward if Rafael can be baptized, but she said that she "needed to think about it more". Maybe she was just trying to say that to get herself out of the conversation because when we asked Rafael a couple days ago if she has thought about it, he said no. He needs permission from his mom because he's 15 years old, and anybody under 18 needs a parent's signature.

          We also wanted to see Gaby this week, but every time we came over, she was busy and so we haven't really set up a time to see her again yet. We have an investigator named Elizabeth that we've been teaching for a few weeks, but we haven't seen that often, either. However, we did get to see her and her 2 daughters Liz and Carolina, and Carolina's boyfriend was also there. We watched the Restoration with them in Spanish, but only Elizabeth understood, so we promised that the next visit we would come by and show it to them in English, and they promised that they'd be there.

         We also have an interesting investigator named Catalina that's not actually an investigator. Although we had a lesson with her, she never told us that she was baptized 4 or 5 months until Hna. Herrera (her fellowshipper) called us and told us that. But she does need to be confirmed though, so I guess that's all that we have to do, and then she'll be a ward member.

         We're also teaching a person named María Hernandez and she seemed really cool, also. I was on exchanges when we met her and we helped her move some marble that was really heavy. So we offered to come by and teach her a little more, and so we did and she was really interested in what we were teaching and we'll see where that goes.

         There was a funny story that happened to one of the missionaries in our district, Elder Santillan. We took his bike back to our apartment so that he could fix the flat tire because we had some tools at our apartment. So he fixed it and then I drove them back to the church so they could pick up their stuff that they left there and then he realized that his helmet was gone. He said he remembered taking it with him and putting it on the bike, so we tried to retrace our steps and go back the same way we came. About halfway home, we saw an area in the middle of the road where there was about 10 crushed pieces of white styrofoam and we pulled over and started laughing our heads off before we got all the pieces off the road, haha.

         That's great with what happened to your friend and being able to pray. The power of prayer is definitely underestimated sometimes. For example, we also have another investigator named Jose Garcia that couldn't have us come over because he was too busy, but he did want us to say a prayer because his electricity had went out in his apartment, and so we said a prayer that he could be able to have the electricity come on and be able to see in his apartment (it was already about 8:00 at night and getting dark). We left as if we were going to leave and since a member came with us, we went into his car and the member started to make some calls. Then a couple minutes later, Jose's wife calls to us and says that the electricity is back on! So prayer does work, you just have to ask in faith and believe that prayers can be answered.

         Oh yeah, so the AC in our apartment was broken again for about 3 days, and it was around 87 degrees, again. But this time, I didn't know that the problem was easier to fix and so the guy basically just turned on the breakers and that was it. So I guess now we'll remember the next time our AC goes out to just turn on the breakers.

         That's pretty much it from me this week. That'll be interesting how Julia and Andrea will both be there for band camp this week. Tell me how everything goes with that and how everybody's summer is. I'll tell you if I need anything else.


I love you!


Elder Meiners