09/05/2001

Hola familia. This week was a pretty cool week. I learned a lot and had some great experiences and some really hard ones, but they are all for my own good. Things are going great. We're working hard and we're having success. We're always finding new people to teach. We have two girls who I'm pretty sure will be baptized the 17th of September. They are awesome and they still come to church on their own. They are ready to be baptized. Their mom seems to be discouraged because her husband won't marry her and she wants to be baptized too. It's pretty sad, but what was pretty rough is that we had 8 people with baptism dates and one family couldn't get back in time to go to church and the other two didn't come. So we're gonna work hard this week and see if we can get the members to help us get them to church. We had an awesome experience yesterday too. We were walking to this investigator's house to see if we could teach them and this guy yells out "elders". Everyone here calls us brothers, so we turned and walked into his yard to talk with him. He told us to sit down and started talking about how the missionaries taught him and his family a few years back and did service for him in the church shirts and ties. Then they invited us to eat turtle and it was legit. It was pretty good too. Then the mom started talking to us about the church and said that she wants her family to go to church and that she wants them to get baptized. After this she then asked us how she and her husband can become members. It was awesome! In church I was praying that I really would love to teach a whole family with the mom and the dad and their kids that wouldn't get down and lazy. We just keep working hard and the blessings truly come. It's pretty crazy. This family is also pretty rich for living here and the rich people don't listen much. But yesterday this other guy stopped us too. He has this big three story place which he used to use as a hotel. But now he has made it into a residential. He also has some lots here that he is looking to do something with. He is finishing the second floor into a buffet thing. The 3rd floor willl be for apartments. But he told us he wants us to come and teach him and his sister. Idk how, but some days during the mission it's as if everyone is willing to hear and sometimes nobody. You just always have to work hard, be diligent, and obedient and things will always work out for the better. But when things go wrong and you make a mistake, you work harder and you'll always feel better. Fun fact of the week.... A motorcycle can carry a mattress, a family of 5, a trailer, 40 bags of fruit if you put them on the handles right, and the best of all, a patient with an I.V. in his arm, hahaha. It's fantastic. But before I end, there is something pretty special about the children. They are truly the greatest in the kingdom of God. Last fast Sunday none of the kids got up to share their testimonies and that's how it has been the whole mission. They usually just get up back in the states, I guess. But I was thinking that it would be really cool to see some kids get up and bare their testimones, and then two girls got up and both said "I know the book of mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet." One said it and then the other, and after my testimony this awesome kid that is 10 (who reminds me of Keaton and Parker) got up and shared their testimonies. It was awesome and really made me think of how strong this church will be when all of these kids get older and become leaders. But Cassi, Calli, Chelsi, and Carli, and all of the parents that read this, please help your kids to get up and bear their testimonies. It will help them out a ton in the future and help them to feel the holy ghost much stronger. I remember during a primary program when I got up to say something, I felt something different and it brought me comfort and made me happy. Have an awesome week. Do something different to help someone out that you have never done before. Love, Elder Christoffersen