January 30, 2013

Las Palmas from a hill above town.

Why hello there my family!!

Wow mom, I´m glad that you had a really crazy and awesome week full of amazingness and crazy stuff!! Long email too, but I loved reading it!! I didn´t really have much else to read either since this week has been pretty sad in receiving emails/letters. Not even the bulletin made it! So, that´s life here in the good old mission!!! Loving it, loving the 26ºC (78ºF) weather, loving the mountains here on the Island, and loving the ocean!!! The ocean is really cool!! I love seeing the ocean!! It´s blue and full of salt and living things!! It´s also really pretty!! Loving life here in the paradise of the mission!! Not much has been going on, but I´ve seen some miracles happen and have been trained by the zone leaders via a meeting via Polycam, and that´s about it!! But here´s my week in a nice polished nutshell. (I don´t know why polished, but oh well, take it or leave it.)

So Thursday you know what we started with. weekly planning, YAHOO!!!!! I know, same old same old. We then had a lesson at 4:30 with Jose and he´s doing great!! We talked a little bit more about tithing and the blessings that come from paying tithing. We pretty much helped him understand it more since he was having dudas [doubts] about it. (Yeah, I don´t know how to say dudas in Ingles [English], but you know what I mean.) We then tried to see Luciano and Leidi, but they weren´t there, so we went to Maria, the recent convert and she was doing great!!! We talked about how the Spirit works and watched the Mormon Message called, The Voice of the Spirit. Super cool and we also gave her a DVD full of Mormon Messages! She was happy to see us!!

Friday we started the day with Cristian, a less active member, and talked to him about a lesson in the George Albert Smith booklet about forgiveness. We also talked to him about tithing and why it´s so important for us and for the Lord. I guess this week has been full of tithing! We´re experts about that now, haa! We then had Medio-Día [lunch break] and ate and stuff. We then went over to Luciano´s house and talked to them about trials and stuff in our lives. Pretty much why we have trials and what they are for in our lives. We had the booklet of Spencer W. Kimball to help us out too!! It´s pretty crazy how a prophet can pass through so many trials in his early life!! I was shocked when I read that lesson!! Super cool though and it helped them out a lot!! It also helped us out to be able to answer questions in the future!! That was Friday!

Saturday we tried to pass by a new investigator, but she couldn´t talk to us at the time. We then tried to pass by some of the less active members as well as former investigators in the area and see if we could find someone. Not much, but some people were interested in listening to our message! We then ate at the Mission Leader´s home and it was really good food!! Rice with lentils, meat with a super good sauce, oh goodness, it was really good!!! Elder Valenzuela and I then had to go a bit early to meet the Elders of Vecindario and do a quick exchange so that Elder Valenzuela could do some baptismal interviews. So for the few hours of the day I was with Elder Lisonbee and we were here in Las Palmas. We tried to see Oscar at 6:00, but he wasn´t there. I was pretty bummed about that, especially since we haven´t seen him for about 2 weeks. Not much we could do, except for try to see him at another time. We then switched back and my companion and I went to see Fani! She´s doing good and we talked about honoring and sustaining the law. It was a good lesson and she understood it! Not much else that she has to learn to be able to get baptized, she just needs to get married and she´ll be good!!

Sunday we didn´t really do anything. We tried to see Jose, but he wasn´t home. At 7:00 we went to Franklyn´s house to have correlation and it was pretty good!! We talked about all of the investigators and also had chocolate cake!! Super good the cake, and the meeting so yeah. Double good!!! Not much else happened Sunday so yeah. That´s it.

Monday was okay. We didn´t really get too much of anything. We mostly passed by former investigators and less actives to see if we could find someone. Everyone was either gone, didn´t live there, or something. We found one member, but she was an active member so it didn´t really help too much. Later in the evening we went to Noche de Hogar [home evening] and it was pretty good!!! John and Josué gave the message and it was about service! I really liked it and hope to be able to apply it more in my life. Then while we were in the Guagua [bus], we got a call from a former investigatoer that we passed by earlier called Samuel! He talked to me and sounded really interested about the message that we share as missionaries!! We set a time up for today at 11:00 in the morning and it sounded really positive!!

Sunset over Las Palmas

Tuesday we had the zone meeting and it was really uplifting!!! I learned a lot even though it was pretty much setting goals and all of that, but they will help us grow as missionaries!! We then saw Oscar and talked to him about baptism and why he wants to do it. It was a pretty good lesson, but it would have been better if we had more of his participation rather than him just answering "yes", "no", and "I don´t know" to everything. We then committed him to baptism and he accepted!! Super cool and I hope that things work out for him in the end. We then visited a person called Juan, from Haiti. We visited him at the church, and there were members doing family history at that time, so we gave him a "tour" of the Family History Center and one of the members talked to him about why we do family history. It turned into a sort of bashing on Juan´s part, and testifying on the member´s part. It was really cool and it helped me see a bit of what Alma was saying when he said, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass" and how the simple things confound the wise!! Super awesome how that happened at that time. We then talked a bit about the restoration and also answered some of his questions and then set up another time to see him. Elder Valenzuela then had to do an interview for David, an investigator of the Hermanas [sisters]. He´s ready for baptism so it´s pretty exciting for us and the Hermanas! YAHOO!!!!!

Today we had the visit with Samuel and it turned out really well!! He talked most of the time, but at least we got to know him a bit more because of that. Now we´re here doing internet. Not much, but Samuel is our little miracle for the week!!! I love visiting with former investigators! Super cool!! I hope that your week is awesome again this week. Take care and I´ll talk to you soon. Love you all

Elder Bauer