Wooh!
What an exciting week with all the news, I'm super excited for all
the people going on missions now, including my little brother Jordan,
going to INDEPENDANCE MISSOURI! Holy cow! All the church history! Wooh!
Super super exciting, and I'm happy to hear it. A little sad to
know that I won't see my brother for another couple years, but we'll be
together in the Lord's work for a few months still, which is really
special and I wouldn't trade that for the world.
Anyway though, as for how things our down here in San Juan, they go
well! This week we had some interesting days for sure. On Tuesday
President López came to our district class and said that he liked a lot
the way I taught about how to work with the members and the new formula
for missionary work here in the mission and all that, so it was good.
The weird thing was that I'm comfortable now. I didn't really get
nervous at all with President López, Elder Holland (assistant to the
pres.) and his companion Elder Marín there. It was actually nice because
I felt like it was an extra support of the new spirit of the mission,
and to have the very leader that received the revelation present while I
was explaining it to my fellow missionaries was more than enough
support for me.
Then, the other days we had some interesting times running far and
wide to find referrals that the members had given us with a few
challenges and things there, seeing as how our area is really big and
sometimes people aren't home, but it was a good week in spite of that.
We did have a cool experience with some new people. Remember Didier
from the picture last week of his baptism? Well, in the picture (don't
remember if I sent the picture with the whole family), there were three
cousins and his aunt that went. We had a really cool experience in the
baptism with them that I'm sure I mentioned, and when we went to visit
them this week, they were all really excited and very attentive (if
that's a word...). Actually, when we invited them all to baptism, they
all accepted and Blanca (Didier's aunt) told us that her daughter had
already told her after the baptism that she wanted to be baptized too!
Haha so it's looking like this family is all getting pretty excited with
the church and all. I'm sure there will be trials and all, and there's
never an easy moment, but with faith and a lot of effort, we should be
seeing another picture soon like the one from last week, but with Didier
in normal clothes and the other four in white. =D
Then on Friday night they asked us to prepare talks for Sunday in
the ward, and I told them that it was possible that we would do splits
and one would go to Altotonga, our other ward, for the services seeing
as how we had some investigators that said they would be going there.
But I told them that if that was the case, whoever stayed would just
talk long enough for the both of us. Usually they only give us 7 or 8
minutes and it's REALLY hard not to take more time, but this time was
funny.
Well, my companion went to Altotonga and I stayed in the ward, and
as I was up on the stand to bless the sacrament, I was looking through
my talk as well and decided to take out a lot of parts, scratching them
out with my pen, seeing as how I had again prepared a talk WAY longer
than the amount of time they'd given me. Well, after that, sacrament
meeting started and we had the sacrament, and then they announced the
speakers. First, Paula (a young woman of the ward), second, Leslhey
(another young woman), and finally, me.
Well Paula got up looking a little nervous but gave a really good
talk. A 3 minute talk, but it was good. =) Then, Leslhey got up and gave
a 7 or 8 minute talk, which was really good and impressed me a lot. But
during that time, I looked at the clock and realized that with such a
small ward, sacrament had only lasted about 5 minutes, and the meeting
wasn't even halfway through yet, and I was next! So, I pulled out my
agenda and replaced the scripture references I was going to use, and
then got up there at about 12:25. Well, I shared a lot of scriptures,
gave personal experiences, testimonies, and commitments to the ward so
that we could all be better ''examples of the believers'', which was my
topic.
When I sat down, it was about 12:50 pm, and we were able to go
straight to the closing hymn and prayer. It was a pretty fun experience
and I've really surprised myself at just how much I can talk about the
gospel with passion and not need to write down anything more than some
scripture references! The mission is such a great, life changing
experience. I have been loving and continue to love it, and will
continue to love it to the end and for the rest of my life. It was a
pretty special Sunday.
Well well, time to go, but I love you all and I hope you enjoyed
reading a little tiny bit of all the many things that happen in these
happy days of the mission!
Love you all,
Elder DeFreese
Pictures:
1. Wooh! The package from Uncle Chris got here! Loovin' it! Or... Should I say that we loved it... That's the last bag. =P
2. Tlayoyos! These are like... Hmm...Like bready tortilla thingies
with a pea mush filling thingy and sauce and cheese. I dunno how to
describe it, but they're the size of my hand and cost 2 pesos each
(about 15 cents probably?)
3. I decided to also ask for a quesadilla that has sausage, steak,
something like bacon, cheese, nopales (ask Adam, but I dunno if they eat
them up north), and other things with more cheese and sauce! Mmmmm. 15
pesos and the size of my head. =D
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