January 5, 2015

The schedule of the cyber here in Rahue Alto doesn´t fit our P-day very well, so there´s no time to print and read the emails out, so I´ve been using a lot of the time to write to read. That´s not to say I don´t want you to write less (please don´t write less), I´m just explaining why my emails have been including less information.

Taylor Brown says he´ll get home in about a week and a half, so from there he´ll look at the options and send you an email.

Oh! Thanks for the packages. I saw the juggling book and thought "Wow! This looks really fun and cool and I really want to learn how to juggle, but how the heck am I going to have time to juggle? It´s like my mom thinks I´m bored with nothing to do." But I ended up trying it out and practicing for about a half hour today. Fun :D I hope I get another half hour to do it next P-day :D

So, about the work. It´s been going very very well this week. We´d been an acceptable number of people these weeks, but we haven´t been having any new investigators, so 2 weeks ago I realized we haven´t been using the area book very well and haven´t been using the part where you write the names and addresses of the future investigators. We set goals to change and now we´ve got TON of potential investigators :D

Also, 2 weeks ago we noticed that all the members are very willing to accompany us to appointments, but we haven´t exactly had appointments to have members accompany us. Now that we have lots of futures, Elder Salgado reminded me to ask the members to accompany us, and we had lots of good lessons :D The next step, I think, is improving our companionship study, which is constantly interrupted by all the other many many things we need to do. It´s felt really good seeing what we´ve needed to improve (revelation), setting plans to improve that thing, and seeing success as we complete the plans :D

So, we´ve got one of the most . . . how would you describe it? We´ve been teaching this man for a while now. He´s so humble and he really wants to get baptized. His goal is to get baptized before his son leaves on a mission to Buenos Aires, Argentina on the 29th of this month. He reads the scriptures every day, prays every day, and has even asked for free time from work so he could attend church. He´s fighting his smoking habits (we fasted with his family about it, made him a calendar, and gave a priesthood blessing). He´s also looking for a new job so he can attend church each week. So, he´s the investigator who´s been the most receptive and who´s progressed the most of all the investigators I´ve taught before baptism. We´re praying and trying to think up everything we can do so that he is prepared to be baptized on time, but it´s really close. It will be a miracle if he´s ready to be baptized before Sebastian leaves, but this is a work of miracles, so we´ll see what the Lord has in store.

The other two baptismal dates are 10 year old children. One is a girl in a less active family, but the mom has committed to staying active again. I´ll get to baptize her this Saturday (2nd time I´ve gotten in the water :D).

The other is a boy who lives with an active grandma, a less active aunt, and a non-member mom. The mom´s already been investigating, but hasn´t shown that she wants to change her life. We were told by the mission leaders yesterday that the boy will not be able to be baptized unless her mom also gets baptized, or when he´s older and independent (like 18 years old). We still haven´t told them the news, and we´ve been praying and pondering how we´ll best explain to them, because it´s REALLY delicate. They all want him to be baptized, and they thought he would be able to if the grandma took him to church (Which she´s been doing). I know that the decisions of the mission leaders are correct and that President Obeso really holds sacred priesthood keys for convert baptisms in this region. We´ll see how it goes.

AGH! I still haven´t written to President yet. I´ve gotta go!

Love y´all :D
Make good choices!
Remember who you are!
Thanks for the Christmas cards (The Jensons and Elder Webber)

-Elder Christopherson