Elder England: We Represent The Lord

"Holy" shoes

Hola familia ¿Como han pasado?

Sounds like it was a fun week! Congrats Kenz!!! Bo that is awesome that you guys pulled out the win, such a stud! Cute babies all over... when am I going to be an uncle? Kenna and Dalt everyone always asks me if you guys have any kids and I always sadly say unfortunately no. Guess what yesterday I was just singing Wicked songs, not really sure why they came to my mind but yeah. Sophie, Maggie and Bo just keep getting bigger and bigger it's weird!

This week was a good week. Guess what we had an investigator in church! Her name is Natalia. She is super awesome. I don't remember if I told you guys about her last week or the week before. But here's what's up. So like 3 weeks ago a man in the street named Ruben stopped us and told us that he wanted to talk to us, and that he had a friend that he thought could benefit from hearing the lessons. So we went by, but there was never anyone there in his house. Well we kept passing by and finally met Ricardo. Ricardo lives with Ruben (they are just friends) but they both told us that they had gone to church before and talked with missionaries. Anyway they told us to come back another day, so we did and when we went we met Graciela. Graciela apparently lives there too. Graciela is like 50 years old and is this friend that Ruben had told us about. She really was quite interested in the message of the restoration, and told us that she would love to talk more. So we set up another lesson, and when we went we met Natalia. Natalia apparently lived in Montevideo, we are not sure what happened but it got to the point where she didn't have anywhere to go. Well Graciela and Natalia are friends so Graciela told Natalia that she could come live with her. So there's that. All 4 of them are living in one house and we are trying to teach all of them. Ruben and Ricardo are very interesting, I might say a little crazy. It's kind of like not everything is there. They are really nice but just not very mature I guess. Like when we are in the charlas it's really hard to teach them, because they aren't very focused nor motivated to read or go to church. So we tried focusing more on Natalia and Graciela and they both told us that they were going to come to church, so we told them that we could pass by there house in the morning and go together because we live super close. So we went and Natalia was waiting outside for us ready to go with her Book of Mormon that she had been reading!!! Yessss! Oh and also Natalia is like 7 months pregnant. She is so awesome. She said that Graciela was tired and was resting. It was just kind of funny that the 7 month pregnant Natalia can get up and ready and no Graciela. Okay it wasn't funny, I was bummed; but Natalia really had a great time.

Yesterday was Children's day!!! I don't think we celebrate that in the states, cause I had never heard of it before. But it was a pretty big deal. There's a fun fact for ya... here they really celebrate everything. Seriously there is a day for everything, and everyone knows about these random holidays. Anyways yesterday in sacrament meeting all the adults that have children in the primary got up and sang I Am A Child Of God, it was really cool. The whole day was focused on kids. It really reminded me of when I was in primary, and all the primary programs and stuff like that. It really was a special day.

We also had a less active family that came to church. The Trindade family. De verdad just a part of the family came. The family consists of a single mother, and five kids. There are a couple of cousins too that live like next door that have been baptised. But one of the daughters is not baptised and we have started teaching her this week. We had an awesome family home evening on Saturday and everyone said that they were going to come, but only the mom and a couple of the kids actually got there. The daughter that is not a member didn't come :( We are going to pass by this week and help them to be able to get to church next week!

Elder Lizaraso and I are doing really great, we have gotten to the point where we know each other well enough that we can do weird stuff now... like sing Wicked music in the street. I think that he is finally realizing how weird I am, but yeah. And the zone is doing really well! We had the goal of 11 baptisms before the 17 of this month, and we got 10! so close to the goal. But we had another five baptisms planned for this month (including Natalia for the 30th) We have a zone with a lot of Hermanas. I think we are 22 in total. 10 sisters and 12 elders. Anyways every Monday morning we have a leaders meeting with the zone leaders and district leaders in our zone and we make plans and set goals for the next week. And we set the goal for baptisms in Agosto for 15, so we'll see if we can get it!!!

Thanks for all the support and love. The fact that I have your support pushes me to be the best missionary that I can be. I read Ti Voglio Bene this week... yep it made me cry like always. But I just feel a real desire to be better and to keep progressing. In a conference this past week president told us something interesting, (I guess I already know this but it just helped me to focus on why I am here). He said here as missionaries we do not represent our families. We do not represent our countries. But we represent the Lord. We are his representatives here on the earth, and that it what should move us to be our best!

I love you guys more than you will ever know!!!

Elder England