White Pants

Hello!

So the 15th is going to be a really big day for the mission. I havén´t really mentioned this, but Presidente decided to do an experiment. Instead of everyone doing their baptisms isolated on whatever day, the 15th was designated as the big baptism day for the mission. Everyone is going to mark their baptismal dates for this day and everyone will do the baptisms together. So it's going to be really cool.

On saturday we are going to have a big meeting, do a special musical number, special speaker, all that fancy stuff, and then have a ton of baptisms. It will be all of the Stake of Santa Maria together. By the looks of it, there will be about 25 baptisms here in Santa Maria, and 100 in the mission. It's going to be quite awesome.

So anyway, on Sunday morning, we were kind of bummed out, because we have been working really hard, but having trouble finding good investigators that were progressing that could be baptized on this day. When we left to go to church Sunday morning, Elder Albrechtsen said, ´´A miracle is going to happen today´´, and it did. After sacrament meeting, the young women's leader came up to us and told us there was a girl that had been coming to church with a friend the last few weeks that wanted to be baptized. So we talked to her, went to her house later in the day, and marked her baptismal date for the 15th.

On Monday during my free-time in the office I started looking up some family history stuff online on new.familysearch.org, Elder Bednar´s talk really inspired me. I wish I had more time so that i could actually do some family history work. That would be cool.

Lately I have been reflecting on my time in Quarai a bit. When I was there, a lot of times, it was really hard there, but thinking back, I have so many good memories from being there. It was such an interesting time because everything was new, I didn´t know anything, and I really worked my heart out there, but as I look back now, we worked really ineffectively there, haha. But it is really interesting to look back on things. It was a really good time there. I really do love that city.

This week we started to try to work in a part of our area that has never really been worked in much before. Principaly because it is a pretty rich area, which means its a lot harder to get in houses. But we have a lot of hopes for it. We met a guy last night who just got back from a trip toCalifornia, crazy huh? He went to San Franscisco and Los Angeles. We told him that we are both from california and he got all exited and interested.

We had an interesting visit the other day. We visited this woman named Marli, who after 20 years as a member, has finally quit smoking. She told us about how that is the greatest reason that she spent much of this time inactive. She understands very well the sacrament, better than most active members, I think. She recognizes how it is an important moment of self-evaluation, and she talked about how she would always feel so guilty there, knowing she smoked. It was an interesting experience. She has now finally quit smoking after getting extremely sick and basically being forced to quit.

Also, this week was the stake temple trip, and Victor went!

He is doing way good. He went with the ward to do baptisms for the dead, and we talked to him afterward. He said it was amazing, that the temple was amazing. He absolutlely loved it. He also bought a triple combination at the temple store, and some paintings. He even bought some white pants. I´m not sure why, haha. He said he just likes wearing white. Haha. But anyway, it was an awesome experience for him which is really good. We ran into the 1st counselor in the bishopric last night on the road and talked to him about the temple trip, and he said that in his 12 years as a member, he has not seen a convert as good as Victor.

Have an excellent week family, I love you all!