6-13-11

This week for me was pretty good, it seems like it went by really fast, but I guess that how it always is here in the mission, it just seems like time flys by so fast! I have only been on this new area for about 2 weeks now, but we are already having quite a bit of success, on Sunday we baptized one of our investigators, his name is Benito and he is 25 years old, I had the privilege of baptizing him, the services were really good and I think that everyone felt the spirit, even though I had to baptize him 3 times because the first 2 times his tie floated up so the third time I tucked his tie into his shirt, so that it couldn't float up anymore haha. But other than that the services all went very well! And the cool thing is that the members in this branch actually go to baptisms, in my last area we were lucky to have someone with the priesthood show up to be a witness, but here we had like 25 members come to support Benito, I really think it helps alot so that he will feel accepted! This week I also got a little sick, I have just had a headache for about a week now! But its nothing too serious, they say its regular because of the climate change, and because its so hot and humid here, but who knows! I just hope my head will stop hurting soon! We have a lot of good investigators that we are teaching right now, I think we will be able to baptize about 6 people in this transfer, my companion is kinda new, he only has 6 months in the mission, so his teaching is a little sloppy, but he is learning fast! I am the first American companion that he has had and he also wants to learn English, so he is always asking me how to say certain things in english, and then I have been reading with him in the book of mormon in english so that he can learn! Also this week on friday we had zone conference and President de la cruz gave his last training, because he goes home at the end of this month, and we will be getting a new mission president. It will be very different to have another president and I will miss President De la Cruz, but I also think it can be a good thing to get another president and be able to learn different things from him. I also had my last interview with president de la cruz,and it was very different from all the interviews that I have had with him, basically he was just telling me bye, and that i have grown alot as a persona and as a missionary in the time that he has known me, and that he had a lot of confidence in me but that I also need to win the trust and confidence of the new president. After the interview he took some other elders and I out to dinner, than dropped us off at our house. Then sunday was the baptism of Benito and after the baptism we went and ate really fast and then we had to go back to the chapel because we had to prepare for an activity that we were going to have! The activity went really well, we are doing a combine activity for these next 3 weeks with the elders from puerto escondido, and we are trying all the members on how to be missionaries, they are all really excited and ready to work! We actually had like 40 people show up last night, and its starting to look like the 3 week event will go really well!

So thats pretty much all that happened in my week, sorry its a little short I dont really have much time to write, but I will send the pictures from the baptism and also a few from the week!

I hope that you have a great week full of success!

Con amor,

Elder Stradling