Searching the Crevices of the Rocks

June 9, 2009

Hola familia,

This week has been great! I don't even know what to say about it. I think in general Elder Tracy and I are just working even harder and beginning to have more success. Yesterday, somehow we received 5 referrals and contacted 3 of them already. On top of that we got 2 new investigators. It was awesome!!!

One of the new investigators name is Maria. She has three little kids. About a month ago her husband or boyfriend, I'm not sure which, got deported. Apparently Elder Tracy and Elder Jones had talked to them quite a few times but had never been able to get inside and teach a lesson. Maybe this was just a humbling experience for Maria because she let us inside even though her house was really messy. Being alone now she has to find a job and was planning on moving to Pasco. That will be at the end of this month. The lesson was great though. We taught about the restoration. We got her and her three young kids and we all knelt in a circle at the end of the lesson. And she offered up a wonderful prayer. We had to help her a little bit at the end but it was awesome! We asked her how she felt afterwards. There was a definite peace present and she could feel it. We sent up a return appointment for tomorrow and she is really, really interested in coming to church on Sunday. Yes!

I'm a little bit jealous of you Amy. One baptism a week. That would be crazy. That's going to be a lot of new members in the church throughout 2 years. Think of the effects that will have on the eternities. Don't worry; I'm actually pretty content with the work that I have to do. It's lots of fun searching for the Hispanic people out of the crevices of the rock. Ha ha.

Francisco is doing super amazing. He calls Elder Tracy and I his angelitos, which means his little beloved angels. That's cool, huh. We have a lesson planned for tonight. Arthuro, a recent convert, is coming with us. We're going to try and set a baptismal date with him. So we're both pretty excited. The other thing that is really funny, Francisco's son, Orlando, always asks his dad, "papi, where are your friends?" It's awesome how close of friends we've become with those two.

The package for Elder Tracy came this morning. He was pretty excited about it. He thinks it's a little weird that he's going to be twenty. So of course, I always bug him about it. How did you know about the fold up piano thing? Did you know that we bought one of those and it broke? We tried fixing it. We succeeded but then it broke again. I'll send you some pictures of it. He'll love it.

Congratulations on your certification Jonathan. Did you really dive down 15 feet without scuba equipment? That's better than I could do.

Hey Matthew, don't get too good at tennis. I'm not going to be able to keep up. I've still only played once since the beginning of my mission.

I love you all; have an awesome week

Elder Benjamin Arnold