I'm Just an Instrument

Hey!

Dad, just so you know, "pitchers" was intentional (i just wrote "intencional" and erased it), and sayed was an accident (Mike was giving Trevor a hard time about his poor English). I can no longer speak English. Oh well, don’t need it that much anyways. I think that it’s a bad idea to read your letters and Connor’s letters at the same time because afterwards I just have a ton of ideas bouncing around in my head.

Ricardo and Sobeyda

This was an AWESOME week. The Lord continues to do miracles. I don’t even think I’ve talked to you guys much about this family, but their names are Ricardo and Sobeyda and their daughter’s name is Luisa. Anyways, they had accepted a baptismal date before but we weren’t really sure about how serious they were about it. Well turns out that even though we’ve only taught them a couple of times (mostly just for lack of time and they aren’t home much), they were serious about it. We found out on Sunday that they weren’t married, which is usually a pretty big obstacle. We had a super awesome lesson on the law of chastity and eternal families. Long story short, they got baptized yesterday. I seriously love this family so much. We were waiting in the church for them when they called and said, "hey are you guys comin to pick us up??". So we went and got them with Elder Galvan (the one from AZ, who is our zone leader). All 6 of us crammed into a taxi which was hilarious. The driver was a pretty serious Evangelical so he says, "Why are you guys all goin to the Mormon church?" Ricardo, the husband, who is super hilarious, says “cuz it’s the best church!” and he went on to talk about how we have prophets, apostles, and how Joseph Smith restored the church. I can honestly see him being a stake president or something one day. The best was that Miguel, the guy that we baptized last month baptized all of them. :) He had to repeat a couple, or a lot of times, but everything went well.

Ricardo, Sobeyda, and Luisa's baptism

 I honestly can’t explain the joy that comes from seeing a family be baptized. Dad, what you said is right; if there is one thing that I’ve learned, its that missionary work is something very interesting. In a way, we are very important because if we don’t preach the gospel, nobody else will. At the same time, I’m just an instrument. I just have to make sure that I’m well-tuned and ready to be played, but the master is the Lord. It’s been a blessing to see His hand bless the lives of His children.

On a lighter note, I got pulled over twice in one day this week. Once was for doing an "illegal u-turn" and the other for turning left into the middle lane instead of the far left lane. The police are really corrupt here so they’re just looking for money. It was super, super hilarious though...the 2nd time they took my license and he asked. "If I gave you a ticket for 900 cords, could you go to the bank right now and pay it? Cuz if not, you could just give the money to me to get your license back." I explained to him that we were poor missionaries and that we had a special assignment to bring all the missionaries their bibles and take missionaries to the hospital when they get sick. I told him that if he took my license that there would be a lot of sick people spiritually and physically. He gave my license back pretty quick.

Not sure what else to write about, but I’m glad that you guys are doing well. Tell all my buds that I said hi. Mom, thanks for your reminder to give the best that I can all the time. We’ve got an activity for the whole mission this week, so it’s going to be a busy one. I love you guys a ton and choose the right!

Love,

Elder Ward