Letter # 10 - Pure Happiness

¡Buenas tardes!

Well, this transfer flew by! We are just starting week 6 of this transfer. Crazy. I love it here in Longview and would not mind staying here for another transfer or two. The people are amazing here.

Let's jump in.

Monday: we went and raked some leaves for a less active family in our ward. That was fun! Then later that night we split into trios in our district. There are only 6 of us in our district. So Elder Judd and I took our district leader Elder Wankier with us to give Rodrigo his baptismal interview. It was fun having him with us. All three of us then went to dinner at Lucero's house! We had these really good enchiladas in salsa verde. They were really good. Her sister Yaneth left right as we got there and said she was going to the library, but came back with a tres leches cake for us. It was really nice. When she was slicing the cake, she gave me like a fourth of the entire thing.... in all honesty, I didn't mind. It was really good cake.

Tuesday: As always, you have a ton of things planned and they all fall through... it was a rough day haha. But it was great at the same time! We had dinner with a less active member named Silvia and her "husband". Her "husband" isn't a member but wants to get baptized. All he has to do is file a divorce with a different girl that he is legally married to, and then get legally married to Silvia. They want to start coming back to church and he says he is ready to fill out the papers and be baptized so we will see what happens there. After dinner, we took Manuel Alba out teaching with us. He is an older member of our branch, but his conversion story is powerful. He used to be a catholic bishop. But he discovered the Book of Mormon, read it, and KNEW it was true. So he left the Catholic church. He is an awesome guy and has this really deep awesome voice.

Wednesday: we had a video lesson with our top investigator Lucero. It did not go as planned, but we basically talked about the importance of repentance.

Thursday: we had dinner with President Johnston and his wife. Afterward


, we took Hermano Herrera out teaching with us. It was a fun night.

Friday: Friday was an interesting day... we woke up and drove an hour west over to Tyler. This whole week we have been doing "sacrifices" to help the work here in Texas and to help missionaries get baptismal dates for our goal of 200 this month. So our district decided to sacrifice a full day of work and get permission from President to go help a different area. So he approved and sent us to Tyler because they were struggling to find baptismal dates. So we helped in the Spanish branch in Tyler. Elder Judd went with Elder H. all day, and I went with Elder C. Elder C is on his last transfer. He goes home next week. It was awesome getting to work with him, but their pace is really slow... I guess I didn't realize how hard Elder Judd and I work every day. It is weird going into another area and just feeling like you're being dragged. It was kind of a long day, but it was nice learning some tips from someone who has been out for forever. Plus, Elder C. is a piano master.

Saturday: the morning was extremely slow... however, we had the baptism of Rodrigo! (Picture below.) It was an awesome experience. When he came out of the water, there was nothing but pure happiness on his face. It made me want to go baptize the world. After the baptism, while they were changing, we were going to share a video, but the tv wasn't working! So I had to bare my testimony to a group of people who did not know a ton of English. So in Spanish, I talked about the life ofJesuss Christ and that I know He lives. I talked about how each day we invite people to come unto Christ. I talked about the importance of baptism and that I was very thankful to be serving my mission. It was interesting. It went better than I thought it was going to. After the Service, they fed everyone tamales. They were so good. Pretty spicy, but good. Fun fact, The Latinos out here love grape soda.

Sunday: Church was great! No investigators though... Lucero had family commitments elsewhere. However, we ate dinner with Ramon and his family and then went to go visit her with Ramon! Elder Judd and I made this Sweet Book of Mormon reading challenge for her. It is a daily challenge thing. She texts us each night the answer to the day's questions too! She loved the idea and it really made her realize how much we care for her and want to help her out on this new journey. The lesson went really well. Ramon helped calm a lot of the worries she had about being baptized.

Well, not a whole lot else to say... Spanish is coming along. Estoy muy agradecido por la oportunidad que tengo para aprender Español. Here are a couple of pictures. We found this giant Book of Mormon in the Church building, so naturally, I took a picture with it standing in the middle of the road. We also were tracting one day and came across a house with 7 signs about no trespassing or beware of dog. The other picture is a picture of Rodrigo and his family. His dad baptized him.

Love you all!
Brandon