I Thought I Was A Pretty Patient Person

I forgot to take pics this week, sorry, so I just took

one right now - hope you like it!

Hello Family!!!

Sounds like Thanksgiving was a blast with the Sister missionaries. I actually didn't say anything last week about Thanksgiving cause I wasn't quite sure if it had already passed or if it was coming up, but sounds like it was a great day. HEY I'm soooooo excited for Christmas! I think that we have to ask one of the members if we can use one of their computers to skype, so I am hoping that we can find a member with a nice computer. But I'll try to figure everything out there.

Wow it is starting to get soooo hot! The humidity here is ridiculous. I don't think that there is a time in the day when my face is not drenched in sweat, but I think that just might be me. Elder Cruz, Gallacher, and Canete say that I sweat an unusual amount on my face. But other than the heat everything is going pretty great.

Elder Cruz and I get along pretty well, he might be right about me getting a little mad haha. I thought I was a pretty patient person, but I don't know - Elder Cruz is so annoying sometimes! He is always TOUCHING me, either poking my zits and asking me if it hurts (which obviously it does, it's like the worst pain ever!) or he is pulling the hair on the back of my neck. Apparently he thinks that having hair on your neck is weird or something. But I really feel like we get a long quite well. I think it might be just because he is new, but I feel like Elder Cruz isn't that excited when we leave our apartment to proselyte. But I have been trying to help him be more excited to go out in the heat and talk to people!

We had an interchange of companions (I don't know how to say that in English) and I think that it helped him to see how another missionary works. I know that I learned a lot from it, I was with Elder Schill my district leader. He is a hardworking missionary and I learned a lot from him this week. But Elder Cruz is a good missionary, I just want to help him be the best missionary he can be. He said he hasn't read The Fourth Missionary yet, so I'm going to try and find a copy in Spanish for him, I think that Elder Canete has one. 

Okay things with Alejandra are or were really confusing. It is a really long story, but I'll try to explain it. So we had taught everything to her obviously, we had been teaching her for forever. Anyways so the week that Chandler passed away, we were trying to get a baptism set up for that Saturday. Well we got everything set up, just barely in time, (we had a little trouble trying to find clothes that could fit her but we finally found some). Well that Friday night the President of our branch called us and told us that he had heard a lot of things about Alejandra from some of the members about how she has had some problems with the law of chastity, yeah - it turns out she was a prostitute. Her whole situation is so sad. But we have talked to her and the zone leader has talked to her, and she passed the baptismal interview so we are sure that she doesn't have any problems with that anymore. Oh so yeah because the Branch President had heard all of that he decided that he would have an interview with Alejandra before the baptism to be sure that there wasn't a problem. Well I was pretty sure that he couldn't do that, but I didn't say anything. Afterwards I talked with my district and zone leaders and they said that yeah he can't do that because she is not a member in his Branch, (that is why the interview was done by Elder Schill). Anyways we ended up not having the baptism, the whole situation was super awkward. After that Alejandra told us that she wanted to talk to us. We have had like three or four lessons with her since this, but she explained to us how she felt so bad. She had felt like the members were judging her and talking bad about her, which they had. Anyways we have talked with the Branch President about all of this and I think that he was just trying to help obviously, and Alejandra says that she still wants to get baptized but wants to wait a little bit. The whole situation was so uncomfortable and difficult, but I really have faith that she is going to get baptized this month. 

Other than Alejandra we don't really have anyone that is progressing. We have some new investigators! We actually found a bunch of people this week. The week before this week I was a little down with the whole Chandler thing and the Alejandra thing and just the fact that we didn't really have any investigators. I felt that we had knocked on every single door in our area, (which is almost true), but I just felt that we couldn't find anyone to teach. But this week, I don't know why we found a lot of people to teach. However it often happens that we find someone and they seem really interested but the next day they tell us they don't want to learn anymore or we can never find them. I am just hoping that we can help the people we have progress. Also we are trying to work more with the members, which is really difficult. I often feel like we are just a burden, because I feel like the branch just doesn't really want to help us that much. But we are trying, and I feel that we have really gained the trust and love of a lot of the members. So I'll let you know how that is going next week.

Well that is pretty much it, oh haha Elder Cruz says he wants to learn English so I am trying to help him learn some. He often starts mumbling and just saying random jibberish, then asks me what he said after. I'm not quite sure if he thinks that he is saying something or not, but he difinitley isn't. 

Well I hope you all have a great week, I love you more than you will ever know! 

We got a new fridge, and it is the best thing in the world