Hellloo Family!
I was very happy to see my inbox very full this afternoon! It always makes me feel all warm and tingly inside when I know that people sill remember about their little mexican missionary out here in the field. We had a pretty eventful week, so I'll just "get to the grain", as we say in Spanish. (That's "Llegar al grano"...get to the point. I'll get to the point now.)
Well I don't know if I mentioned in my letter this week about a very interesting drunk man we met on the very first day of the year of our Lord, 2011. If so, here it goes again. As we headed to eat lunch with some members, a drunk man's family stopped us and asked us to help Raul Quiroz (the drunk man) with his drinking problem. He's had 25 years of drinking A LOT and we talked to him to see if he wanted us to help him. He said yes, gave me an uncomfortably long hug, and we set up an appointment.This week we went to that appointment, and found him very drunk again in his house. We talked to his wife and said it would be better to speak to him when he's sober, so we went back the next day. He was still a little hungover, but was at least able to have a coherent conversation with us. We set the goal for him to stop drinking completely. He accepted, and we went back a few days later to check on him, and he had stopped drinking for four days! Needless to say, his family was stoked at the idea, so we invited all 5 of them to church and invited them all to be baptized, and they accepted! They were looking pretty spiffy with their white shirts and slacks on Sunday morning ready for Church!
We've also been working with a guy named Marco Antonio (we call him "Mark Anthony" haha), who has been progressing a ton. He read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it, and told us that after he prayed, he stood up, got dizzy, fell down and hurt his foot. And he took that as his answer that the Book of Mormon is true! hahaha! Hey, whatever works. He'll be baptized this coming Sunday.
We baptized Juan Carlos this past Sunday, who is the husband of a recent convert whom we baptized a few weeks ago named Mari Carmen. He's progressing a lot as well...right before his interview, we made him take off his earrings...he was kind of bummed but knew that it was the right thing to do. On Sunday his wife was sporting his earrings! It was funny and we giggled at it.
I interviewed a really awesome lady last week for some other Elders in our Ward, who had received an absolutely amazing testimony of the Book of Mormon. She said that while she was praying, she felt darkness all around her and couldn't speak; she then starting calling out God's name, and the darkness went away and said she felt an "immense light" inside of her. I was like..."Are you sure you're not just reading Joseph Smith history?!" Ok I didn't really say that but it's what I thought. She was baptized sunday night as well.
This past week we had an awesome Zone Leaders' Council at President's house, where we enjoyed a house with carpet (imagine that!!!), and delicious american food (Shepherd's pie, waffles, scrambled eggs, carrot cake...aahhhmmmm...). The Assistants gave an awesome training called "Key Indicators: Trust in the Process". They talked to us about how the U of U football team was able to have an undefeated season because they were able to trust in the process, that is, do the basic things they knew they needed to do, realizing the importance of every play and every player, and trusting that they would come out on top inspite of setbacks. They compared that to our Key Indicators, and how in order to increase the number of baptisms, we need to increase every other key indicator as well, and trust in the Process that the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency has established. It helped us out a ton, and we were able to have a lot of success this weekend because we were able to just trust in the process. Sweet!
Anywho, that's all the "what's up" from my end. Until next week!
Elder Budge
PS, I'm sending photos from the ZL Council, from bowling and ice skating this morning, and I think a few other surprises.
