Hello,
Sounds like everyone at home is doing pretty good with everything. Dad sound busy and looks skinny. You should go workout =). I hope everything with your businesses is going well. It all sounds promising. How's the Princess Festival doing? Any progress with that? It's so great to hear that if you both die I'm in charge of the family. Yeah! Be sure to leave me lots of money lol. Just kidding.
So this week.....I never know where to start with these letters. My mind has a bunch of random, unconnected thoughts. I guess I'll just start spewing them out at all of you =).
First off, this past monday we went in to teach Carlos Barreto like normal, but after we sat down his brother and his family (his wife and 4 kids) walked into the room and sat down.....Sweet! New investigators that come to us. A dream come true for a missionary. So we got to know them and we found out that they were investigating the church a year and a half ago and they ended up turning down the missionaries and didn't accept a baptismal date. We taught them all the Plan of Salvation and then invited them all to baptism (5 in total that can be baptized) and they said "yes" without any hesitation. They said that there's always a second chance to accept the gospel......yeah there is! They're pretty awesome. They've been keeping commitments (reading pamphlets and the Book of Mormon and praying). They're pretty excited for their baptism this month. They even went to Carlos' baptism as well. The sad thing is that only 2 of them went to church so their baptismal date will be pushed back a week to the March 30. The dad and one of his son's were working or something. But I guess that's how it is sometimes. Can't have everything. We'll definately be teaching them the Day of Rest this week =).
On tuesday we went contacting in the morning. We left the house and didn't really know where we should contact, so we prayed to know where. We both felt that we should go in the same direction. So we did. We ended up contacting 22 people within an hour (that's pretty good by the way) and made 4 visits for later. After we left that area and had "finished contacting", my companion and I were walking down a street that we always walk down. Out of nowhere he said,"There's a lot of houses here, let's contact this house". Okay...so we did. We hardly had to say anything in the contact, he just wanted us to come in lol. His name is Rimber and he's about 23 years old. We got to know him a little and found out that his dad just died 10 months ago and their family was still struggling a bit. We started with a prayer and begun to teach him the Plan of Salvation. He's pretty sharp (not to insult the people here in the coast, but most of the times they're not so bright lol) and understood everything. He also had some good insights. Afterwards we invited him to baptism and he accepted it easily. I know that the Lord guided us to that house and prompted my companion to knock on that door. We walk by that house all the time and we never knew that someone was in there just waiting to hear us. Unfortunately we were never able to find him in his house again after that. We're going to keep trying to find him. He's just too golden.
This thursday we had Carlos' baptismal interview. Elder Ospina, a missionary from nearby Santo Domingo, held the interview. He said that Carlos is "preparadìsimo", or really prepared. After the interview I asked Carlos who he wanted to have baptize him. He choose me. Not really sure why, but cool anyway. The baptism went great. After the baptismal ordinance Carlos shared his testimony with everyone there. You could really tell that he was a changed person (he used to smoke and drink a lot), and that he wanted to obey the commandments and become closer to the Lord. A great baptism, but most of all, a great convert.
Sarita and Kleber....we're not really sure how they're doing....Sarita's doing great but Kleber is a mystery. Every time we go to visit them Kleber isn't there. Always gone working. Also one night some of his friends came over to his house and Kleber didn't sleep in his house that night. Hopefully he didn't go out drinking...They didn't go to church either =(
Update on Eulaulia. She's doing alright with her family situation, but she's starting to get sick more and more often. She washes a lot of clothes by hand for a lot of people. The cold water and all the effort is taking a toll on her body. This sunday in the middle of a class she said that she was having a hard time breathing because of some back pain. She seemed a little scared. We took her into the bishop's office and he gave her a blessing. In the middle of the blessing she got what I think is a Charlie Horse in her foot and calve. She was in pain. Luckily there was a sister member of the ward (one of her friends) in the bishops office and rubbed it out. Needless to say Eulaulia isn't going to be washing our clothes much anymore. She'll still want to, but we're not going to let her. She always says that we're like sons to her and that a mother has to take care of her sons and not the other way around. But I don't care. She's not going to touch my clothes =).
Sorry, but the pictures that you sent me didn't come through Dad. The pictures that you sent in the letter to me and Hunter with the water filter and stuff =(. Also in that package you sent me earlier not all of Katarina's talk got through. I'm missing some stuff. So if you could send it to me through email that would be awesome =)
Well...can't really think of much else for this week. Things here are just going great. There's a ton of work to do here and we don't know how to do it all. A good thing for a missionary =). We're continually trying to improve all the time. I guess I'll finish off by answering some questions along with the funny thing of the week. The mission....is more or less what I thought/dreamt it would be. All of the specific experiences I could have never imagined. But it's awesome. A great experience. Souveniers...No I haven't really bought any yet. There's an area of our mission that is known for it's souveniers. So I'm waiting until I'm in that area or close to it so I can buy a bunch of stuff. From Florida, yes, a hat =). Hats, hats, hats. If any of you that are reading this letter goes somewhere, buy me a souvenier hat =). No I will not pay you back. You'll just have the satisfaction knowing that you did something nice for someone else. Isn't that better that money? My back is getting better. I'm getting better at doing excercises and that's helping me lots. My rash/fungus/I don't even know what went away. I still don't even know what it was. The nurse of our misson thinks it might have been a hookworm. But I don't know. I don't think it was, so don't worry mom =). My ear is better as well. I can hear!
Funny thing of the week: that tuesday when we were contacting and found Rimber we also found a strange person.....We were walking around and we saw this guy with a beard and a really old Nikon camera. Basically looked like a hippy. My companion though,"Hey, he's here. Let's contact him. Why not". So we did. Even my companion had a really hard time understanding him and I only picked out a few words. He had a really heavy coastal accent. He said that he's the owner of Ecuador and then he said,"I need to take a picture of my eye like this!". Then he put the camera lens right in his eye. This guy was a nut. I know that God loves all of his children but, some of them are a weirder than others. So we got the heck out of there lol. And no, he wasn't drunk, just naturally mental. That was one weird dude...
Here's a couple pictures of the baptism. There's Carlos, his dad Jesus, and Carlos' brother and his family. The other bigger guy is one of Carlos' other brother and also wants to start listening to us now. And there's me with a parrot!
See ya later.
Peace out,
Elder Black
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