November 9, 2009

And now today's letter. A 2 for 1 special!!!

Tuesday after our great day at the capital we went on divisions with a set of missionaries from our district. We got a lot of stuff done and even found some new investigators. It was comforting to see how much I have grown. After 4 weeks I finally know my way around Chiqui.We contacted a reference that we recieved at chruch last Sunday from one of the members of a 13 year old boy named Luis who wrecked a motorcycle and broke his leg in a few different places. He is 100% bed ridden because his screws in his leg have to heal. Poor kid. When we visited him he had a Book of Mormon next to him on his bed with a really old pamphlet from 15 years ago. His mom and cousin have been listening to the lessons with us and his aunt has been reading the Book of Mormon.

Later that night we went and set a time to go by the house of someone that we met contacting dorr to door. Her name is Argentina and her husband, Gelman said we could return on Tuesday night, so we did. They are really nice people - a younger couple with a little boy who is just a few months older than Ariana. They are very interested in the gospel and Argentina went to church once when she was a teenager. I can just tell a difference between them and other people. They actually listen and respond and ask any questions that are on their minds. It is so refreshing to talk to real people who actually listen and respond to our message. Hopefully they will continue to progess.

Most of the other things we do are visit members and have family home evenings with them, visit less active members to try and excite them about the chruch, visit eternal investigators to try and spark thier testimonies, and go door to door contacting. We did divisions with the stake president and some other people and Elder Hall observed that his calling is so real and that he can truly discern what the less active members need. He explained that although we help as much as we can with them, our calling is mainly focused on finding those who are ready to learn about the gospel and get baptized. It was a huge relief to hear that.

Our comedor is great. I am satisfied with our choice to switch. For lunch we go to her little restaurant and we always have choices for what to eat, which is nice. Then for dinner we usually have something very spectacular. Flour tortillas are rare here, but she has fed them to us 2wice and they are extremely delicious.

Sunday church was a great pick me up. We had a lot of less active members and investigators and our overall attendance was 20 over the average... we had 105 and we normally have 80. It is always the best feeling when people walk in that you really didn´t expect to come and that happened with about 20 people. It was so exciting. On top of that, the talks were amazing. The bishopric talked about Preach My Gospel all of sacrament with a big emphasis on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. How much better can it get? Also, in priesthood they talked about celestial marriage and now Alfredo wants to get baptized with his wife. We will start teaching her this week. Valerio´s 20 year old daughter came to church and people that know her said that she was WAY friendlier at church than they have ever seen her. Thats a good thing, right?The only iffy thing was that one of our newer families that came to chruch asked for money from us. They seem really pilas and interested, but it is hard to tell if they just heard about our welfare program and know what answers to tell us during the lessons. We will do some more investigating and discerning this week.

Life out here is the best. It has made me reflect about the kind of member that I want to be when I get back. Seeing how important home teaching and giving references to the missionaries are, it makes me want to do better. I want to be a missionary the rest of my life.We made a ward mission plan and presented it at ward council yesterday. We initially set a goal of 25 baptisms for next year, but after discussing it, they boosted that goal to 40! That made me more excited than I can describe. The ward here is getting excited about missionary work and has been helping out a ton. We recieved quite a few good references yesterday that we are excited to check out.

Well the church is true. The best thing about being out here is that I get to bear my testimony multiple times a day. I DO KNOW that this is the church of Jesus Christ on the earth today and that God truly loves us and wants us to do the things here that will bring us to live with him and our families for eternity. I am so happy to be able to share that with the people here.

Love you all,

Love,

Elder Goodman