Elder England: I Was Reminded of My Baptism

Eating icecream!

Howdy folks!

The GT3 is awesome!!! This past week has been really great. It's kind of weird that Elder Miles goes home in like a week, but we are working really hard and seeing so many miracles. Thanks for the update on the old folks, I love hearing about them. I got an email from mamma D, she is so great. I am so blessed to have such wonderful grandparents. They will always be my heroes. Ben is back, that is so crazy. I'm sure he was an amazing missionary. It seems like it was just yesterday that he was teaching me to play basketball at Albion in 9th grade.

Yes mom, that would be great if you could see what's going on with the U. But I want to pick my classes! I talk to my friends very little. However, I did hear that Brandon is AP I think that Marsh is as well. But I'm not sure. I dream of the day when I can hug all my friends and give them a good beso and talk about our missions together. That also applies to you guys as well. It's going to be so fun. Hey mothers day is coming up!!! HELLO SKYPE YOOOO! I need to write Preston and Matthew. I did wish mooj a happy b day in March, but I think that was the last time I talked to him. I'll try and write him today.

Mags and Moph keep moving forward. You're so close!!! I often think of those weird videos that you two sent me. It gives me much joy to know that you two are still psycho. I miss you both very much, but don't worry we´ll hang out lots when I get home.

Guess what!!! Elder Perry just sent me an email saying that Marcela is going to be baptised this Saturday in Rio Branco. YEEEESSSS!!! That makes me so happy. I'll send some pics today, I have my cam and I have the chord. As I think of my past areas I realize just how much I love all these people. Oh get this! We were talking to a man at his front door on like Wednesday when I heard behind me a man yelling ELDER! ELDER! So I turned around and it was a member from Florida. I just about screamed HERMANO COMO ESTA? The guy that we were talking to probably thought that I was crazy, but it was so amazing to see him after so much time. He was in his car stopped in the middle of the road, but he just said hey how are you? It was nice to see you... and then he drove off. I have no idea how he recognized me from behind. It was weird too, because I didn't feel like I got to know him very well. I definitely wouldn't have expected him to remember me. I love these people so much and I seriously can't wait for you guys to meet them.

Speaking of meeting people, we had an activity where we watched Meet The Mormons. Karen went. I think that it was an amazing experience for her to see the life of the missionary mom and how her life completely changed. Elder Miles and I were talking about how it must have given her a lot of hope. Karen will have her interview with president this Wednesday. I think that everything will go great, and if it does, she will be able to be baptised on Saturday. She is so amazing. She is kind of shy. It was super funny, she showed like five minutes late to church and she felt bad so she didn't want to enter and interrupt the Relief Society class so she was waiting outside the class. Well we saw her and started talking to her. She was then like no I don't want to interrupt, but we were like nope sorry and just opened the door and said hi everyone Karen is here. She said after that she loved the classes. Oh and she showed up a little late because she was at a birthday party all night. Literally all night! I don't understand hispanics at all. First of all, literally everyone is invited to the parties even if you don't know the person. Also they start the parties at like 10 at night and they are there ALL night. I don't think that Karen slept at all. It's ridiculous, but she definitely understands the importance of going to church that's for sure.

Our mission has been changing a lot over the past 6 months. Oh the conference with Elder Oaks was amazing!!! Geez there are so many things to talk about I just keep remembering how great this week was. I totally saw Elder Devashrayee and some of the other missionaries from the other mission that I met in the MTC. I also was talking to Elder Smart (Parker Smart who went to Brighton with me) for like the whole trip down to Montevideo. It was really fun.

So the changes have a lot to do with seeing real results or eternal fruits, not just baptizing and then having those people fall off the map. Our retention went up again this week for the zone. We are now at about 40% in Durazno. We are very excited about that. But I definitely can tell that my vision is being highered. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think you understand. And I think that because of our rightous desires to see real results the Lord is blessing us. We have been able to find some really great and prepared people this past week. We will see how they progress.

Also a cool experience from this week. On Thursday we got a call from Pres. Cook. Right as I answered the phone I could tell that something was wrong... it scared me so bad! He then explained to us that the sister of one of the missionaries in our zone had died in an accident. He told us that he was going to call the missionary right then, but that we should try and give this sister missionary a blessing. So we stopped everything and went and caught a bus miraculously that took us to where this sister was. I called the sister when we got to Trinidad and they said that they had a charla then, but would call us after. So we said okay we'll wait for your call. Then we went looking for the church. We found the church so easily which was interesting because neither of us had been to Trinidad before. Also the charla that the sisters were going to have fell through. So they came to the church and we were able to give her a blessing. It was such a spiritual day for me. And as we were traveling back on the bus I felt the spirit so strongly. I was literally as if I was wrapped in the spirit like a blanket. I then for some reason was reminded of my baptism. I remembered that Kenna had made Porter and me a blanket... I assume she was refering to the spirit when she gave us the blankets but it was so interesting to me how well I remembered that. I then started thinking of memories that I had when I was really little. It was weird how specifically I remembered some things.

Anyways we have to travel to Trinidad today and the bus leaves like now.

I love you all more than you will ever know!

Elder England