To: Mom

It´s good to hear you all had a good trip in Washington and made it home good.  Happy Birthday to Erik! hope it was a good one for him.  I forgot to tell you in the last emails, but I sent home a package about 2 weeks ago. But it´s not too exciting.  It has some things of mine that I wanted to send home and i included some juices and a few other things.

 

But this week was really good.  Yesterday was the baptism of F.  The sweetest old man I know.  He´s a little deaf, so teaching him the past few weeks was sometimes really interesting.  But it was really endearing and sweet.  Most of his children and some of his granchildren are members, but he was never interested. But we started to teach him, he went to church, then he quit coffee, then he committed to baptism this week.  We had some really special moments with him and his family this week.   One of the sweetest moments, was when we were in the church when the elders came for the interview.   Elder Jensen (our district leader) was saying how it would be an interview to see if he was ready, etc.  And Francisco replied, Yes, I´m ready.. AHHHH it was so sweet.  We were so happy for him and it's really been so special to get to know him.  His son, who´s about 16, was able to baptize him and it was a really special baptism.

 

In our meeting with our leader of the missionary work in the branch he was sharing a message with us from the scripture in Matthew 5 about the salt of the earth.   He was talking about how we can be the salt of the earth.   He talked about how if its not good, don´t say it.  If it's not good don´t do it, and if it´s not good, don´t think it.  It was a really neat message that he gave that we thought about a lot this week as we worked and taught.  That if you want to do or say or think something, if it´s not something that will benefit or help someone, just don´t do it!

 

We met some really neat couples/families this week.  That helped testify of the importance of the Gospel in our homes and in our lives.  One of the people we met this week was talking about some of the difficulties in their marriage.  But we could testify for him, that when Christ is the center of the home, when gospel principles are taught in the home, and when we serve and love one another, our relationships can be saved and strenghthened.   Maybe we are young and single and don´t really know anything about raising children or being married.  We do know that Christ has taught through the scriptures and through modern revelations that the home is a happier place when all work together to help one another learn.  That service of small and simple things make a big difference.  Repentance and forgiveness needs to be given and received.  But we had some really neat moments trying to accompany and teach some families.

 

Today (right after the internet) S. Huinao and I are going to catch the bus that will bring us to Londrina for our monthly meeting there. But our meetings are always really neat and it´ll be nice to have the teachings and talks from President and Sister Genaro and some of the elders.

 

love you all! have a great week!