So this week we should be having 2 baptisms. One of the kids we were gonna baptize this week didnt show up to church so we have to wait until next week.
Man we are sooooo busy all the time, like we are literally running from apt to apt and dont have any time to contact people. but we are teaching a whole bunch so that is the good part.
And the other bad part is that because we are doing so much stuff and the weeks are passing by so fast I cant even remember what we did all week. And at nights I hardly even have time to journal so its tough to remember anything at all.
Thursday was my companions birthday so he got a bunch of gifts and stuff, but nobody threw eggs or flour at him all week...boring haha. But friday we got together as a zone to celebrate and we ordered pizza delivery. The darn pizza took 2 hours to get to the house and by that time we were starving, like all of us and so we shoved the pizza down as fast as we could and rushed off to our apts. The only reason why we even stuck around for so long was because one of the American elders mom had sent him root beer extract and so we made that. It tasted sooooooo good! Its really sad that root beer doesnt exist hereand just to be able to try it after so long was awesome. (btw if you find root beer extract and send it to me I will be extremely happy)
Saturday we went with a member couple to go visit on of their friends and wow, what a factory product catholic she turned out to be. We tried explaining her about the importance of prophets but she was just like "but prophets are men, why do we need to depend on men when we have God?" And she was a very very firm believer in the orginal sin. The member couple has like a 4 month old boy and so we asked her if she believed that this tiny little gift from God had sins, and she was very firm in her opinion that he most certaintly did. Most people when we use that example agree that very young children dont have the capacity to sin. Ugh, heck we couldnt even get her to commit to pray about our message. All in all it was not a very fun expierence. I really hope that the members that we went with dont get discouraged and not want to present us to other friends of theirs. We told them that no effort is wasted and that it doesnt matter want the result is the important part is to open your mouth and preach the restored gospel.
Speakin of which on thursday we will be having an even that we are calling Bocas Abiertas, (translation Open Mouths) which basically consists of us and our ward missionaries teaching the members how to open their mouths and talk with their friends, and how they can help us in missionary work and how they can help us teach while we are with them. Then we will open our mouths and stuff it with food hehe, that will be the fun part
Anyways Im out of time and I will send pictures next of the baptisms!,
Love
Elder Patrik Connole
Nov. 8
Nov. 8
So Bocas Abiertas failed miserably, everyone told us that they could make it and that they would be there, but in the end only 2 people showed up on time and about 15 came in total. Ugh. I don´t get it.
But there has been a lot of big news this week, as in 2 baptisms! woo! One was Walter Flores, a 16 year old kid that we met about 3 weeks ago and he gave a dang solid testimony about how he knew how he had just entered onto the path and that it is straight and narrow but with God´s help he will be able to enter into the kingdom of God. Heck it made his nonmember mother cry. I baptized him and it was a very special feeling througout the whole thingHe is way cool and will be one of 2 active priests in the ward.
Oh yeah speaking of which, the ward and the branch we are in charge of just got combined into 1 ward. The stake presidency felt like that this was the best way to help both areas progress and I totally agree. The branch barely had enough worthy priesthood holders to manage and the ward really only had about 40 or 50 people who go to church on a regular basis. So in both the ward and the branch they had like young kids my age running YM and YW, nobody except the Bishop or Branch Prez had counselors, so it was just a big mess. But now we have real leadership and everything is going to work out soooo much better.
The other baptism was Karlo and he actually lives in another area but we got permission from President Fernandez to teach, baptize and confirm him. He is the 'boyfriend' of the branch president´s daughter so we had a really good support system already built in. He got baptized early sunday morning and was confirmed the same day. I was able to confirm him.
And during all these baptisms and ward changes we were fasting so that just made it even more spirtually uplifting and awesome. Elder Lowe and I throughout the whole 24 hours had a very spirtual feeling, very similiar to what you feel while you are in the temple. There was no hunger nor were we even slightly preoccupied for our physical needs the entire time. We were seriously on a whole different level of spirtuality.
Oh yeah on Monday it was kinda funny because we went to go rock climbing again and this dude from Sweden who is here doing volunteer work came in. And so after a bit we started talking and so obviously I was able to share a little bit of my swedish background and some of the phrases I knew, and he told me that he thought for sure when he first saw me that I was a fellw Swede, hahaha I guess I can´t escape my heritage. Anyways so I gave him and his American friend from Michigan, a couple of pamphlets and directed them to www.mormon.org. They hadn´t ever heard of the Church and so they said that they would check it out.
Saturday night we were teaching a mom and daughter and the the daughter, Sandra is really progressing quickly and should be baptized the 20th, anyways we started the lesson at about 8:40 or so and we were planning on teaching until about 9:10 or so so that we could get home before our 9:30 absolute deadline. Unfortunately they had a lot of questions and the member who was with us is quite a chatterbox so at 9:28 we said the prayer and we told the member, ok now we have to run!!!!!!!!!!!!! and so we sprinted the 6 blocks back to the room and got in at like 9:33. oops...
This morning it was pretty cool because the stake president called us up to thank us for the work that we have been doing. I was in the middle of changing so I made E. Lowe answer it and so I´m sure Presidente Hale actually said a lot more but he didn´t actually get it all haha
times up!
Love you!
Elder Patrik Connole
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