Monday, July 26, 2010

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades

HELLO FAMILY!
Thanks for all the letters, and thank you Mom for sending Janna, David, and Derek´s emails. They´re so awesome. We have the greatest family in the world!!! And the best part is, we have an eternal families. I love that.
Sounds like everyone had a blast at Lake Powell! I´m a little jealous...but I did a different type of ¨swimming¨ this weekend too! Heh heh!! Mel, good luck with selling in St. George....I think it will be rough but you just have to work way hard. Mom, thanks for writing, and for your testimony. You don´t know how much it means to me. Is Dad ok? It´s been ages since I´ve received an email from him. Miranda, thanks for sending pictures!! They look awesome. I just received a letter from Sister Jardine and I remembered boating trips...and then I get all these awesome pictures! Haha. Who knows what it means.
Well, my week. To start off, we have eaten EXCELLENT food this week! I don´t know what got in to the members...but we ate some delicious hot dogs and hamburgers this week, along with mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, jello-o....aahhh I felt like I was in heaven. Or at least in the United States. It was pretty cool! But definitely not the best part of my week.
Our investigator, Azucena, has been progressing like crazy and continues to help us find people to teach! She does a lot more missionary work than the average member...and she´s not even a member! The reference she gave us last week, Sonya, along with her family, have been progressing a ton as well. We do have one or two minor hiccups with them...Sonya and her husband aren´t married, and her husband has to get divorced! That means...lots of money. They have their baptism programmed for next Sunday (the 8th), so we have to work way hard to get him divorced, get them married, and get them and their two kids in the water! I always love a good challenge. We took them to the Visitor´s Center in the city after Church on Sunday, and they loved it! I was a really special trip, and I had another little encounter with Alexa Thompson´s mom! She´s in a lot of Church movies!
We´re still working on Eva and Enrique´s wedding...it´s been tough. They want to find a new house before getting married...therefore: first, new house; second, marriage; and third, BAPTISM FOR EVA! It´s a lot of work, but when we are on the same side of the Lord, things tend to work out. I have 100% trust in that.
My companion and I contacted a way cool Lady last week named Diana, and had a really good ¨talk¨ with her in a park close by to her house, and we discovered that her life has been bombarded with seemingly endless problems. AKA: someone who needs the Restored Gospel. (Who doesn´t, right?). We taught a little bit in the park, made an appointment for the next day, and went to her house. We answered all her questions about the Plan of Salvation, she understood, inspite of her crazy loud children. My companion and I were praying silently for her kids to calm down, and suddenly they both fell asleep on the floor, and afterward we taught the Restoration. She told us that she had never seen her kids calm down so quickly...like I said, being on the Lord´s side has its benefits. She accepted her commitments to read, pray, go to Church, and to be baptized. We went back to days later...and she told us that she no longer wanted to visit with us. It was weird, and kind of out-of-nowhere. Thus the subject of this email...close.
NAYELI!!! We baptized her on Saturday! It was so awesome, and I was so happy to see the result of all of the hard work the Lord has done with her. It was really awesome...way better than swimming at Lake Powell. She asked me to baptize her, and it was just amazing. There was a really awesome Spirit in that room...you could just see the giant burden lift off her shoulders. Priceless.
We had interviews with President Hicken last week, and he was really helpful in broadening our horizon and helping us to know how to set better goals. So we´re putting that into practice. He explained to us that our norm of baptizing 1 every week shouldn´t be a goal, but a jumping off point. Lots of work to do!
This week, from the Book of Elder Budge: Having received the gift of the Holy Ghost should eliminate the phrase ¨What if...?¨ from our vocabulary.
I love every one of you, thanks for all the support. I´m sure your prayers are helping me to keep going.
Elder Budge

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