2013-12-16 I was wrong when I said it just rains a little bit...

dinner was cake, a donut, and a cheese-filled croissant
with a banana milk shake to drink

Hey Everybody,
No packages or letters have arrived in the zone for 2 weeks.
 

Being district leader is good, this week I taught about how to work with your ward.  

Celeste is doing a lot better than before.  I'm going to go visit them today and she'll be there so I'll know more next week.

They were supposed to get sealed this coming week but not anymore. Hopefully it will happen in January. The stake president didn't give Marco the Melchizedek Priesthood because he hadn't read the Book of Mormon all the way through.  I was pretty upset about that actually.  Anyway he's reading now and has another interview at the end of the month.

My shoes are doing alright.  They are getting well worn though.  I think I'll probably need to buy another pair before the end of the mission.

Yep, I got my skype info.  I'm planning on trying to talk to you in the morningish (11 or 12 my time) but I'm not sure yet.  I'll let you know next week.

This was a good week.  

Last Monday transportation was on strike and there were blockades so I just stayed in my own area. We went with Gerardo to a restaurant and ate a huge Pique Macho.  I forgot my camera so I didn't take a picture though.

Today I think we are going to go there again with him and Junior and then later I'm going to visit the Floreses. 

Tuesday there still wasn't transportation.  Also the rainy season really has started.  It rained for like 16 hours straight that day.  It was also the day of our district meeting.  We walked 7 kilometers (I think that's over 4 miles) to the meeting in the pouring rain.  Their roads aren't made well so when it rains they turn into small rivers.  It rains a lot here now.  I was wrong when I said it just rains a little bit like it did in Florida.  It's pretty much rained nonstop all week long.  We left a door open by accident a couple days ago and when we got back for the night we had a small pond in our apartment. oops.

We finally got Santiago and his mom together to talk to them and they both have baptismal dates for the 11th of January (Elder Howlett's birthday).  Santiago says he already has his answer that the church is true but his mom doesn't.  She said even if she doesn't get baptized on the 11th she'll let him and support him in going to church every week.  I'm really excited about that.  They are both really nice people and I really think his mom can be ready for the 11th too.

Next week is our ward mission activity.  Everyone in the ward is going to go out and knock doors for a few hours after church to find us more people to teach.  I hope it works out as well as we'd like.

I did an interview for someone who only speaks Quechua this week.  I had a translator.  The translator and the lady getting baptized are both kind of older and they kept getting distracted and just started chatting in Quechua during the interview.  It was different.

Javier didn't get baptized... we aren't really sure what happened.  We had a normal appointment the day before his interview that went well but he didn't show up to his interview the next day.  He won't answer his phone and he didn't come to church yesterday.  Hopefully we get in touch with him this week and get things worked out.

Things are going really well in my area.  I haven't been as excited about how it's going since I got to Alamos.

We visited Jeampier and when we finished our lesson we asked him to pray like we always do.  He always tells us no but that day he told us yes.  He bowed his head like he was going to start and we waited for like 5 minutes and nothing.  He changed his mind and told us no.  O well, I'm not sure why he changed his mind but it still feels like progress.

Ana is still progressing well.  We had a long visit with her this week because it started pouring rain and we were waiting for it to stop a little.

Hope everything is going well back home.  (hey, I'd like to have pictures of the house decorated for Christmas and also the Flores family really wants to see pictures of how our house is.  At first I thought they were just kind of joking but they ask me every week if you've sent any pictures of our house yet.  If you could just send some pictures of the rooms of the house that would be good.  They want one of my room too.)

I'm looking forward to talking to you on Christmas.

Love,

Elder Howlett

P.S.  Luke 2:52