FAMILIA!!!
This week was crazy amazing and ridiculous. I guess I'll start with the beginning. Tuesday night,. P-day and the day before Elder Tracy's birthday, we took Arturo, a recent convert of about four months, with us to an appointment with Francisco. The whole lesson was super spiritual. There were many times where all of us cried and shared some very personal stories. There was one scripture that we shared that still stands out vividly in my mind. Francisco, it turns out, has to overcome a small smoking problem. He is frustrated that he can't just give up everything bad. He wants to do what's right and gets frustrated at himself for not being perfect. So, we read 2 Nephi 4:28-31. "Awake my soul, no longer droop in sin." It hit him so powerfully. He read the whole thing while choking back tears. I have never seen a scripture mean so much to any person before. At the end of the lesson we again talked about baptism and set a baptismal date for the 27th!!!!
Francisco has not smoked since Elder Tracy's birthday and has even got his hours changed at work so he doesn't have to work on Sunday's!!!
Now Elder Tracy's Birthday. We started off by doing a little celebration. We opened up his presents and of course I sang him Happy Birthday. He absolutely was thrilled with the things that he got which included all of that piano stuff, which he uses all the time, and a GPS from his family. Which we also use quite often. He couldn't have been more happy. Thank you.
His birthday continues. At 11:00 am we went out to work just like we normally do. We went and visited Maria. Who is the person I told you about last week. And we also committed her to be baptized on the 27th!!! Dos bautismos!!! So as you can tell this week Elder Tracy and I have been on a super high.
Recently we've been doing a lot of service outside in people’s gardens. It's fun to see the trust that we're beginning to get from the members as a result.
We had interviews yesterday, which is why I'm emailing today. Elder Tracy and I did a small training again about teaching using the scriptures. I also enjoy getting advice from President Belnap. He is a very spiritual man. Later on that day we saw great success. I don't know what the difference was. None of our appointments fell through. That's probably the first time on my mission. I guess that the Lord is just beginning to bless us for all of the hard work we've put in the last transfer.
I'm glad you had a great birthday, Jonathan. It looks like you enjoyed the card. Feel lucky, because I thought about getting you one with Dora the Explorer on it that sang in Spanish and English. haha. Sounds like you're going to have fun with the zip line. Don't get hurt, otherwise mom will never let me do it when I get back. haha.
Washington D.C. I've never been there. When you get home Matthew you need to write me and send me some pictures. I'll look forward to hearing all about it.
Thanks for the advice on tracting, mom. I'll work on incorporating some of that into the way I do my door approaches. I guess in a sense that's how I try to do it anyway. But I've never tried using people's names before.
Strawberries. I have eaten lots of strawberries with members for dessert and things like that. We were going to go strawberry picking with our Ward mission leader today but that fell through because our p-day changed. We were going to go yesterday. I guess we'll have to wait ‘til next week.
I love you all
And I look forward to hearing from you next week
Elder Benjamin Arnold
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