3rd Week in Lobos

Whooo....we finished the week and I'll explain it in a brief review. Maybe that will be a little bit more interesting than "wow what a long week." There you go mom :).

Monday. We went to capital and waited at the visa office for about 3 hours. The power went off for a half hour so that was a bummer. I felt bad for our driver that had to wait for us by himself. I think he just slept though. Random note: i heard about a new business in the state where you can rent a puppy for a day....is that true? But that was cool to be at the visa office and hear all of these people speaking in different languages. We talked to a lady that speaks mandarin, english, spanish, italian, and french. Crazy. Just resparked my interest in going to Italy after the mission :) 

Tuesday- we woke up and traveled to Marcos Paz....long 40 minute bus ride. We got to district meeting and I talked about methods of finding new people to teach. I suggested that you have to make it easier for the person to say yeah come on in, than to say no go away. If you just kinda say hey we're going to come sit down and share a quick lesson with you, instead of hey can we do this or would you maybe have some time for us to talk to you, they will say no all of the time. Its kind of a psychological game with people. It works though trust me. Then we took the long train ride back here to Lobos. Slept a little though so that was nice. Got back here and we Got right to work! We had a lesson with David....always the best :) He is progressing fantastically. Then went with the Fernandez family to Gustavo and Liliana, and just kinda chatted about what they think about the church. It was really good. Hna. Fernandez and Liliana actually work together now so thats pretty cool. They are really good friends already and now just need to get married and will get baptized basically. We need to work with them a bit more before that happens though. Good day overall though!

Wednesday- We did a bunch of contacting that day which was good though and we found two families that let us in! One was not terribly interested but let us in out of respect more than anything. We went back but they weren't there and the kid hid in the house. Not too hopeful for them wont lie. We did find another family that was really good though. Juan Carlos and Sara. THey are both evangelists and have a huge belief in Christ which is good. We shared the restoration but they havent been there the times where we went back. So we will see what happens. 

Thursday- Weekly planning. Good day we always make homemade pizzas which are fantastic :) We had another lesson with David but it was more like him showing us all of the cool stuff around this place he is staying at. And he just likes to talk and is so interesting. But we had a good time and talked to him about how his baptism will be. He is so great!!! After we found a lady named Leticia. She is good but also not married and we couldn't really teach her a full lesson because she talked a lot. But she is good. We will see what happens with her. That was it....haha.

Friday-We did a TON of contacts that day. More than 50. that was like 3 hours of contacting. way too long. But we found a guy named Gaston who was cool....not terribly interested though. Just a really long day overall and I just crashed into bed that night. SOOOOOOO TIRED. Yay for the mission because I dont think anything else has ever made me that tired before.

Saturday- We went in the morning to Elder Smith's convert Maribel to help her come back to church. She came so it was effective :) Then we found a family! WOOO they are good. Jose and Mirta. They are about the same age as mom and dad and are great and were really loving the lesson of the resto. Way good and we felt the Spirit for sure. We ate lunch, then had a lesson with Gustavo and Liliana. That went well and we talked to them about Baptism and Confirmation. They are pretty excited about the church overall. Just great to see that. Talked to David and he came with us to Lucas house. They are good friends and will help each other stay active, which is really good and important. And the rest of the night we finished doing contacts. Also important. 

Sunday- Definitely the best day of the week. We were in charge of sacrament meeting. We had Hna. Fernandez speak and it was great. She talked about how she helped the missionaries in her old ward and gave the example for members here. Then Elder Smith talked about the importance of missionary work in the plan of God. Then he and I sang a two part duet to Brightly Beams Our Fathers Mercy. It went really well. And then I spoke about Lehi's dream and how we are the ones who are holding on the rod on the way to the tree of life, and we have to grab our friends hands that are right there wandering in the darkness and help them find it. It went really well. Then we sang the final hymn and I just felt so happy to be a missionary. I love this work :) We had a lot of people there for our branch. 19 in total. 6 of them were investigators but it was just great. Its a lot better as far as friendshipping the investigators because everyone wants the branch to grow and its much more personable with less people. Great end to the week :) Love it here

Now that I have only 9 months left here I am really starting to appreciate this short time I have to be a full-time servant of the lord. I love this work and am sad I have so little time to be here with this wonderful people. I love the lord, I love this gospel and this church, and know that my Savior lives. Love you all so much and have a fantastic week!

Chau, Elder Wells

QUESTIONS about your email from last week:

Don't you have a second photo card you can start using to take more pictures? I have a second one and I'm using it. I tried to send photos last week. There were like 5 but they didn't go through I guess....I will send more next week I don't have my camera.

Is the place where you get your scriptures covered close by and how long will it take, and will you get it ordered fast? It will take like a week to do them. I have to have the scriptures though to be able to give her the measurements. Also I have to get her number. I'm working on that still

Won't you miss your old scriptures and all the markings in them? No they were like too marked up. I have a new system I'm excited to try. It will be a lot more understandable.

Did you get your bathroom clean?  I've been pretty worried about it, haha! yes finally today! We just need to buy a new shower curtain and then its better! Still not perfect but a million times better.

Did your Comp find David before you got there as an investigator? yeah like the week before I got here he contacted them. I was there for the first lesson with him though.

Is David married or has he been? he was married in italy but got divorced and then a few years later moved to mexico then here.

Why is he out of a job and what happened to his job at Xango? Argentina has a ban on imports from america. so they cant get xango here. They should be building a factory here though soon from what he told us.

How did that family respond to your stories about Alma, Amulek, and Nephi and his brothers? pretty well. we haven't been able to get in again though they have been super busy this week.

Did you ever hear any more about that Bolivian girl you taught with Elder Lee? yeah she went to church an her and her kids have baptismal dates now.

When you took that long train ride, did you do any contacting on the train? yeah but not till the end. we use the time to study mostly. or sleep depending on how tired we are.