2013-08-19 Everything is just falling into place with them so well.

Hey Everyone,

This has been a pretty great week.  I can’t believe I’m already half way through the transfer.  It has flown by.

Congratulations Sam on your Eagle!

Well the first thing I’m really excited about is I found those two young men who we talked to in the street my second day in the mission field.  Remember the ones we couldn’t find their house because my companion didn’t take good directions and I was mad at him?  Well on Tuesday night right after we started splits (I was with Elder Crankshaw) I found them--in the church of all places.  To be honest I still don’t know why they were in the church but it’s a pretty great place to find investigators.  I freaked out Brian when I knew his name but after talking a little he remembered talking to me and “the short one who looked Chinese.”  We set up an appointment to talk to him and Sebastian the next day at Sebastian’s house.  When we talked to them the next day we met Sebastian’s sister Kimberley too.  It turns out she has gone to seminary every morning for 2 weeks but somehow that’s not something that anyone mentioned to the missionaries...  As we started to teach, Sebastian said he’d go grab his Bible.  He came back with a Book of Mormon. I was thinking, "Where on earth did he get that?"  Turns out his boss gave it to him recently and told him he should read it.  We talked for 2 and a half hours because they didn’t want us to go.  We went and taught them all again in Brian’s house a couple days later.  We actually taught them in a Catholic church which is kind of cool.  Brian’s parents are the grounds-keepers for the church and live in rooms behind the church, but we taught in the actual church.  Brian’s parents are great too.  His dad had talked to the missionaries in Santa Cruz a while ago and liked it but just lost contact with them. Everything is just falling into place with them so well.  They came to church on Sunday for all 3 hours and wanted to talk more when it ended but we were completely booked for the day and didn’t have time to.  We have an appointment tomorrow though and we’re playing soccer with them this afternoon. Tomorrow we are going to do Word of Wisdom.  Hopefully that goes over as smoothly as everything else has so far.  I’m pretty sure both of the guys smoke something though.  I was super excited to find them again though.  I’d been thinking about them all week.  Everyone I passed I thought was one of them. Pretty awesome that we found them.

Sorry I can’t get pictures to load so that will have to wait till next week.  I hate computers here.

Remember that lady I told you about who has the Catholic Bishop for an uncle who gave her a photo of Joseph Smith?  Well we visited her again and she told us that he always used to tell her about Joseph Smith.  She doesn’t want to pray about the church though.  Her husband is literally always travelling, comes home maybe once every 6 months, but they have a great relationship.  She says she can’t make as big of a change as changing church without her husband so she wants to wait for him to visit and pray about it with him.  That’s kind of frustrating but it’s a lot better than where we started with her leaving the house when the missionaries came.

Medrano family (added later)

It was also her birthday the day we visited so she made us a huge traditional dish.  I didn’t recognize half the food on the plate, I still don’t know what the meat I ate was.  It was also right after we ate lunch that I couldn’t finish because I was so full.  I have no idea how I ate all of her special birthday food but somehow I did.

The Flores Family had another anticucho barbecue for us.  Marcos (the dad) invited all of his family to come and listen to us too.  It was delicious (well except for they had a sausage this time that is made of blood instead of meat.  It didn’t actually taste that bad but it was gross knowing what it is.) and we had an awesome lesson afterward.  We taught 6 members of his family who already thought highly of the church.  They don’t live in our area though so we have to figure out a way to pass them to their own missionaries.

The 5 Vasquez kids should get baptized on Saturday!  Finally, I found them like my second week here and finally things are working out.  We have permission from the parents and the grandma they live with is coming to church again.  I think a few weeks ago was the first time she’d come since the 1980s.

People don’t do a very good job keeping bugs out of the food here and I guess I’m used to it because I realized I drank a glass of lemonade with at least 20 or 30 ants in it and it didn’t even bother me.

We had 13 investigators in church this Sunday but we were still missing about 10 other important investigators. It’s actually pretty hard to manage that many people at once and get everyone to the classes where they should be.

Well I’m going to go play soccer with Elder Crankshaw and Brian and Sebastian so I’ll talk to you all next week.

Have fun starting the school year everyone!

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S. Alma 34:32-34