Week 8 -- Letter

Week8

Familia,

 Thanks for the letters mom. I love to hear about all the things that are going on back home. Let the Petersons know that they are in my prayers always! I love the quotes that you send! 

This week has been a very interesting week! Probably one to always remember. First off. I had a great idea, call it revelation, but we finally posted our area map on our wall and with the little sticky notes I bought in the MTC we listed where all our members, investigators, and less active families are. It helps sooo much with planning. We have been doing good, we had 2 of our investigators come to church! We have the coolest family in our ward! The familia Del Angel. They consist of the papá (johnaton), the mamá (Hna. Del Angel) and there 2 sons (1 almost 8 years old and the other 6 months). The mamá usually attends church with there 8 year old, but the papá doesnt so we have been focusing on there family. During one of our family home evenings, johnatons dad ( David new investigator) decided to stay and listen. He is a catholic and has a strong testimony in God and Jesus. Well we taught about the plan of salvation and he had alot to say. He was very interested. The next day he was at church with his son jonathon!! We were so surprised! He attended all of church. Now I want to talk about the 8 year old son, because he is probably one of the most spiritually strong kids I have ever seen. First off his dad Johnaton shared his testimony and this is what he said about his son (the 8 year old) in his testimony. ''I was sitting in our house and a bad show came on. My son said, Dad please turn it off. Well I didnt because I was doing something else. When I turned around my son was crying. I said ''whats wrong?'' and he said, dad please turn off the tv this show is not good and I want to feel the spirit.'' Wow when I heard this I teared up a little sitting in the congragation jejej. His son also begged him to go to church, every week! He is so excited to be baptized. And I am so excited for him to be baptized by his dad! Now I want to talk about our other surprise attendant at church. His name is Rodolfo. Remember the boy that left on his mission about 4 weeks ago. Well this is his dad. He wanted nothing to do with the church before his son left on his mission. His whole family is members except him and his wife. She wants to be baptized but is scared rodolfo will leave her if she does. But rodolfo has been receptive to our message and the strength of his family’s testimony is helping him to choose right decisions! I can see the power of missionary service and the power of families. And that is why our goal, Me and Élder Rivera, has been to strengthen the families in our ward! We have been having family home evenings every night for the past 2 weeks, and are continuing to have more every week. I can see this broken ward starting to become strong! And I am so glad to be a part of it! And it all starts with the Family. The family truly is the building block of our church!

Now on the non-spiritual side of my mission. Yes it finally happened. It flooded here! We had a happy awakening Wednesday morning at 5:00. Our neighbors were pounding on our door! I didnt know what was going on until I looked out the window! Water everywhere. Apparently It had been raining all night and the river next to our house over flowed. So we packed up all our stuff and put it on our bed. Then we went to help our neighbors with their stuff. Then they let us put our stuff on the second floor of their house. It was quite the day! We didnt get to start procyliting until 5:00. We hung out with Emmanuel that day. :D Other than that, I am doing great!! I love to hear from y’all every week! les amo mucho y son en mis oraciones! We will talk next week!

Love

        Élder Parduhn