12-6-10 email

This week was pretty good but very disappointing, the baptism that we had fell through, and one of the ones that we had planned for this next Sunday also fell through, because the investigator couldn't come to church and the rule is that they have to come to church 3 times in order to be baptized, so that wasn't very good. We really didnt get too much done this week because just alot of random and unexpected things just kept happening all week that hindered how much time we had to work and teach. I also really didnt have anytime to study so my Book of Mormon study and Jesus The Christ reading also got delayed so now I will have to read more than usual to get back on my reading schedule , thats okay though. So we still may be able to pull off a baptism or 2 this weekend but they are kinda far fetched, but oh well just got to keep your head up and keep working.

So Tuesday started out pretty good, at the families house that we eat lunch they have a 6yr old son and he is pretty crazy, like he has already read the book of Mormon and reads "Preach my Gospel" and you can just tell he has very good parents, the mom told us a story about him that his school teacher told her, at school one day they gave the kids milk with coffee in it ( why they would give 6yr olds coffee in unknown to me haha) BUt when the teacher gave him his cup he said to his teach nope I cant drink coffee and one of the kids asked why not, he said "because only drunks drink coffee" haha I thought that was pretty funny! So Johan (thats the name of the 6yr old boy) brought his book of mormon to school and gave it to one of his friends and told him to read it and he asked us if we could go over to his house and teach him a lesson haha so we said yea, it was the first time that ive ever gone teaching with a 6 yr old but it went very good, we ended up teaching his friends mom and she seems very interested! then at about 3pm we found out that the Bishops Mom had just died, and that there was a funeral service that night and they asked if we could come and be a part of the services. It was really sad because we knew her, she had been pretty sick for awhile and she lived at the Bishops house, so when we would go over there on Saturdays to eat, she would always ask us to come into her room and talk to her and share some scriptures and sing some hymns to her. What makes me feel really bad is that last Saturday when we got to her house after just walking for about an hour strait because the bishop lives far away and we were all out of money because it was the end of the month so we didnt have money to take a taxi, so we had to walk, so when we got to his house, he asked us if we could lift her out of bed and put her in her wheel chair because she cant move anything below the waist, so we helped her gte in her wheel chair, and after she asked us if we could sit down and talk to her and sing some hymns to her, but we were very tired and sweaty so we told her that we wanted to go out side and get some fresh air real fast. Then when we were going back in to talk to her, the bishop said the food was done and to come eat. I feel really bad about that because I wish we would have just gone in there and talked to her! So the funeral services were very good, the Oaxaca Temple president gave a talk and it was very good! My companion played the Violin and it was a pretty beautiful service. It went very late so we didnt get home till about 11 pm that night!

Wed we had to wake up an hour early because we had to go to Oaxaca for the practice for the annual missionary choir thing at the temple. So we went there for that and then had to come back home so we got back home at about 12pm then went and worked for awhile then at 2 we had to go to the Viewing of the bishops mom, thats was pretty good then after that we had a meeting with the ward mission leader then after that we taught some lessons and then had to leave again for Oaxaca because we were going to go to the temple the next morning at 6 and our house is like an hour and 20 min away from the temple so we had to go to Oaxaca and sleep at the zone leaders house, which isnt too fun because we have to sleep on their very hard and small couches! The good thing about it was that we got to eat at McDonald's that night! It tasted pretty dang good! I never thought I would miss McDonald's!

Thursday we woke up at 4 am and got ready and went to the temple! It was really good to go to the temple, the Oaxaca temple is very small and it only has one room for each thing, but its very pretty as are all temples! It was very different going through the session in Spanish, but it was still a very good and spiritual experience! After the temple we headed back to Our area in Etla, it took a very long time because for some reason when people get mad here they like to get a bunch of people together and park their cars in the middle of streets and make it so no one can come or go from the city, so we had to sit in traffic for ever! So when we finally got back to our area it was like 3pm and we had to go get some lunch, we were starving because we hadnt eatin all day! So after that we went to some lessons but 2 or them fell through, but in one of them we were able to give a baptismal date to one of our investigators but its not for 2 weeks! After that we had some extra time and I needed a hair cut so we went to a members house who cuts hair and I got a hair cut! So we got home and went straight to bed, after a pretty long day!

Friday, we had to wake up early again and go to Oaxaca again for the chior practice, its really starting to get old haha, so it took forever to get there again because the protest was still going on and we had to take side streets to get into the city! So we did the chior practice thing then headed back to our area and it took forever once again because we had to take the side streets so we didnt get back till like 3pm again so then we ate and went out to work, we taught some lessons and then came home about 930pm Another late night

Saturday we actually got to wake up at 630 which felt very good, because our sleep schedule had been crazy all week! So that morning we went to mutual, yeah they have mutual on saturday mornings here because kids school sceduals are all weird and different, so there we met a new investigator her name is Milka she is about 17 years old, she really wants to get baptized but her mom is very catholic and wont let her, so we are trying to see what we can do about that.So not too much really happened Saturday well, nothing out of the ordinary, that night we had a family home evening with a family it was pretty good they brought two investigators! After that we went home and went to sleep!

Sunday was pretty good, it was fast sunday and I fasted for Milka, so that her mom would let her get baptized. So fast sundays are always good at this ward, every single person wants to bare their testimony. The bishop if the kind of guy that is very organized and on time so even though there was like 6 more people on the stand waiting to bare their testimony's at 11:10 he will stand up and announce the closing hymn and prayer haha and the poeple get stiffed! After church we went to eat with a family and they made my companions favorite food for his birthday which is cow tongue tacos, they actually tasted pretty good! After that we went and taught some lessons and then called it a night!

So my week was pretty good, Im still very tired from the lack of sleep, but thats okay, hope fully this next week will go good!

Well I love you , and the kids!

Te amo,

Elder Stradling