Sept. 8 and Sept 15, 2014

Sept. 8 –

Brown-outs happen all of the time.  The electrical infrastructure here is awful.  All of the computer shops didn’t have electricity so I couldn’t email.  Sorry!!!

Sept 15

So first off I am sorry! I have not been good about emailing lately! 

Anyway. First off our work right now is going good! 3 weeks ago on Sunday we received a referral from a member here in our branch. We had an appointment the following day on Monday at 5 o’clock to meet with them. I was a little bugged at the time because we took a while to get back home from getting our groceries and when we got home, it was 4:45.  We had to rush so we could make it to our appointment by 5. I was a little bugged because we didn't get any time to chill or relax....Selfish right.....But now I am so grateful!  Grateful because the family we were referred to is ELECT!!!! ELECT means they are prepared to receive the gospel! They are the Salinas family. It is a mom, a dad, and 3 girls.  They have another who is a boy, but he is working far away so we haven't met him yet. But they are awesome! The mom and 2 of the daughters went to church the following Sunday and they always have such awesome questions! I enjoy questions because it lets you know they really are interested and are really searching for the truth. The father has not been to church yet but yesterday he said he would come this next week. If he does all 5 of them will be baptized on Oct 11! We committed the mother and 1 daughter to baptism and in the next lesson we will commit the rest of them!!:)  So I am so grateful we cut our P-day short that one day and went to them because they truly are prepared by God!!!!:)

Other than them, the work is good! But this area has a curse. Everyone we find or people that are receptive are not married yet. There is this thing that I don't think I have ever mentioned before.  There are a ton of live-ins here. It is because most people here are very poor.  They want to have a good wedding so they start living together with the intentions of getting married. Then many years pass by, they have children, and are pretty much husband and wife; just no papers to say they are. So it becomes a problem for us because they can't be baptized unless they get married or separate. So, we have about 12-15 investigators at church every week.  4-5 families and a few individuals but they aren't married yet. It is super awesome to see them at church but super frustrating because they aren't married.  We are working with them. 2 couples have dates but they are in October and November so hopefully I am still here haha.

As for this last week

MONDAY: Really strong storms.  So strong we weren't able to go out.

TUESDAY: District Meeting then we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. Have I told you that there is an Elder Jamison Walker here? He went to Layton HS.  He was a year older than me but we played football and soccer together. We were both goal keepers. We went on exchanges and it was cool to talk to someone I knew in high school haha.

WEDNESDAY: We got rejected a lot but had a good lesson with one of our IBDs. DanDan is 9.  His mom was a less active so he never got baptized.  Now he has to be taught the missionary lessons before he can get baptized.

THURSDAY: Taught an IBD named brother Denver.  He hasn't gone to church since we gave him the IBD. We told him if he doesn't go to church this week we will not be able to go back to him.  Guess what we did.  H didn't go to church. So, it was really sad and now we can't go back to him.  That was a not very cool part about the week.

FRIDAY: We had exchanges and I went to that Island again!:)

SATURDAY: We got rejected a lot again. And it rained hard sooo it was a frustrating day to say the least but one of our investigators that we taught gave us dinner!:)

SUNDAY: Were fed dinner again, by a member!:) We taught our Elect family!:) Then the Typhoon started.  

When we got home our roof was leaking and there was a flood in our house! It was crazy!

Well that was my week! It was a pretty good week even though it rained a lot and we weren't able to teach as much as I would have like to, but it is okay. We will do better this week!:)

Elder Ball