2-14-11

This week has been pretty awesome! We have been crazy busy with all the work we have but that's a good thing! We are seeing the results from our hard work, which is nice! We didn't baptize this last week, but we have 3-4 already for the Saturday and Sunday! As a missionary you really just learn to love the people that your teaching! I found out that yesterday an investigator in my last area just got baptized yesterday! I was sad that I wasn't there to do, because she was a investigator of mine! She is a 40yr old lady, and has a lot of problems with her husband, I had some very good lessons with her, she always called me her angel, I was teaching her daughters too but I guess when I got changed they didn't really want to listen to the missionaries anymore! I wish I was there to teach them but I can really see why I am here in this area! Well let me tell you about my week!

Tuesday- Was a pretty good day, but we really didn't have anything planned in the morning so we just went around to some people and tracked a little bit, and we found a family that were pretty excited to hear the message. Later, we went and taught a few other lessons, then we had a lesson with Marco, who might also get baptized this Sunday but it looks more like it will be the next week! He is 19 years old and is pretty cool. We took him to a members house for the lesson because he forgot his keys and was locked out of his house, but it turned out really good because the members did a really good job of sharing their testimonies with him, it was a great experience! The only thing with him is he has a problem with the law of chastity, its just how the young people are here, pretty much half of the teenage girls here are pregnant! Its pretty sad!

Wed- We had a lesson early with a family we are teaching they are just so poor and have pretty much nothing! Its a single mom named Isabel that is 7 months pregnant, and a 11 yr old girl, 9 yr old boy, 6 yr girl, 4 yr old boy, and a 2 year old girl! The kids are so good, and behave themselves so good The mom works really late and the kids just have to take care of themselves, cook the food and wash the clothes! After the lesson with them we went and taught a few other investigators that we had found a few new investigators! Then later in the evening we went and got some free tacos from some members who own a taco stand!

Thursday- We had another lesson in the morning with Isabel and her kids, and it was her 4 year old sons birthday, so we bought him some candy and potato chips (kids love those here!) While we were there the older kids just got home from school and were thirsty from there long walk home and they asked there mom for water but she had to tell them that there wasn't any and that she didn't have any money to buy any because the lady she works for fired her and didn't pay her for the last week of work she had already done!! That just made me feel so bad and so spoiled for all that I just take for granit in my life and all the blessings that I have in my life! So we told them we would go buy them some water and food, Isabel said no, but we told her that it would be for a present for her sons birthday, so she said okay, so we went and bought a big thing of water and some other food so that they could eat! I felt really bad after, and I wished that I could give them more but we really just dont have much money as missionaries. Later while we were teaching a lesson some guy from another church knocked on their door and the father of the family we were teaching told the guy no because they wanted to listen to us, then the guy from some Christan church was like " why are you listening to these Mormons, dont you know that they teach lies and have a ton of wife's" Now normally we dont like to argue with other people about the gospel but he really didnt give a choice so we told the father to invite him in and we could talk about why he thinks we are liers, haha and it funny to see the look on the others guys face he was like " opps what did I get myself into?" So we started talking to him and he tried to use the bible to say we are wrong, which he couldn't do because we know the bible from back to front, so we just ended up shutting him up and he was sad and he just got up and left. It was pretty funny, but I really dont like to do that to people... but oh well ...Later we went and taught a family of 7 and they are really interested in the gospel, the wife a bit more than the husband, but we are becoming very good friends with us, because thats kinda how my companion and I are, we are just very social and like to make people laugh, and people like to listen to us because we earn their friendship first!

Friday- Was a good day, but very busy so we were just running all over the place and we taught a lot of lessons which they all turned out very good! We just have so many people we are teaching right now, its a little overwhelming at times but that's just part of the work I guess! Nothing really that exciting happened this day, but we really got a lot done!

Saturday- also a very good and crazy busy day, even busier than the Saturday, we finalized a few baptisms and taught alot of lessons, we saw a roll over car accident which was pretty cool! Then later we had another appointment with Julio, the family of 7. That went very well, and they are coming along nicly! Pretty much we just spent the whole day working to make sure that all our investigators would go to church the next day, because they have to go to church three times before they can get baptized!

Sunday, we left really early because we had a ton of investigators to pass by for, so we got our ward mission leader and a priest in our ward to go on divisions with us, so that we would have time to pass by for all of them! At church we had 15 investigators! All the members in the ward are like all impressed with us now haha! And because we are baptizing so much! We really earned the respect of a lot of them! After church we went to eat at the bishops house and then after we went with him to visit some families, the first one we went was to Isabel, the one that is pregnant , and the mom wasnt there because she was working, but the kids hadnt eatin in a day or two so the bishop gave them 40 pesos because thats all he had and we said we would come back later! After that we went and visited another family with pretty much nothing and told them we would come back later as well! When we left we all felt bad and were trying to think of something we could do to get them alot of stuff as soon as possible! So I thought of an idea that we could send a text message to all the members of the ward to see if they could bring all the extra things that they could to help out two families, so we tried it and within an hour we received a ton of stuff like 20 boxes full of food and other stuff! It was really cool to see, because pretty much everyone in our area is poor thery just arent as poor as these families, so it was really a huge sacrifice for everyone who brought anything! After we had two car loads of stuff we went and dropped it off with the families! It was really cool to see because they we just so grateful! They really just had nothing and didnt know if they could even feed their kids! It was an awesome experience!


have a great week!


te amo,

Elder Stradling!