Letter May 20th, 2013

I'll start by responding to the emails. First off, it's going good. The mission is treating me good. Yes I have something funny this week =) Just wait. No it does not seem like I've been out 10 months, it goes by super fast....No I don' really have to speak in church very often. Every 2 months when it's missionary sunday and we have to give a talk. That's so awesome to hear about the Super Band and also the alumni band. That would be so awesome =). Sounds like you had a good time in the primary. Maybe now you appreciate us a little more =). You can send the test results to me and to President too if you want. I'm not really going to have time this week to check my email. Just in case you can send it to President as well. I'll be praying tonight =). So Jeff married someone from marching band huh? Now I really want to know who it is. I think I have an idea but I don't remember her name, just what she looks like. Sounds like you had an interesting experience in the temple dad. You really can find someone from Blanding no matter where you go.....And here's a tip so you won't get stressed. I remember the words of President Uchtdorf in the April 2012 General Conference.....Stop it! It's easy. Just think about something else. Something that keeps you occupied and then you won't have time to stress =). Yes I'm working hard and having fun. Always tired but always satisfied =)

Alright, now to the meat =). This week we didn't have any baptisms. Right now we have 3 people with baptismal date. They live together, Flia Proaño. They have a baptismal date for June 8th. They're good people. On one to 10 they're 6. Not super awesome but not bad either. 

This thursday we had 10 people with baptismal dates. We had a family of 5 but only one of them could go to church. All the rest of them had something that they needed to do. Hrm....I guess that's how it is sometimes. We'll keep working with them. Other that the assistance they're super awesome. They have tour of the church and they're keeping their committments. We also had Vanessa. She's super awesome as well. She has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and everything. But she had work and could not get this sunday off and couldn't assist. Needless to say her date fell through. Finally we had Gabriel. He seemed like gold but this week we weren't able to visit him even once. Everytime we call him he says that he's in a bus and can't hear us. Then he hangs up....not really sure what to do about him. We're not going to leave him quite yet, but things aren't looking so good for him. 

So that's basically a summary of all the people we're teaching right now. We're really striving to find new people. We have lots of promising references that we're going to get this week. We're also starting to contact in a new area where we haven't contacted yet. It's really high up on a hill and a poorer area. We're seeing lots of promise up there so that's where we'll be spending lots of our time this week. 

The biggest challenge we're facing here is that everyone works until late. Everyone wants us to visit them from 7:00-9:00and we don't have time. Then there's nobody to visit in the afternoon because they're all busy and we end up contacting. That's really the only problem that we have here. 

Also today we had changes....My last companion Elder Ramos left and I got Elder Vera. He's from Guayaquil (Ecuador)and he's waiting for his visa to get here. His mission is to Argentina and he's been waiting since february. I don't really know him very well but I guess I'll see how things go. 

Funny thing of the week: so we were contacting houses like normal and it was Elder Ramos' turn to contact the next person. He rang the doorbell and it exploded in a cloud of sparks. It scared the crap out of us lol. Elder Ramos about jumped out of his pants lol. 

That's all for now =)

Elder Black