Monday, November 2, 2009

Week 42 Ixtapaluca

HOLA HOLA!
Hope everyone enjoyed Halloween, here they celebrate "Dia de los Muertos", that’s today! Everyone puts on their costume before Halloween! On Thursday and Friday kids were already in their costumes!

This week was amazing! We baptized an awesome family, The San Andres family. I know Ive told you about them. They weren’t sure last week if they were going to be baptized this Sunday, because they were going to go on a trip. We went last Monday after we reported and went to teach them. We went praying that we could convince them to not go on this trip. I guess I have to explain the trip. They wanted to go to this weird retreat thing, its a thing sponsored by Alcoholics anonymous. Basically they make the people that go write their whole life story down and they make them feel bad about it until they have an emotional breakdown! It’s crazy! Antonio (the dad) wanted to go because he said the last time he was there he asked Heavenly Father to show him the right way, the next day he said he saw us walking down the street and that’s when he said "Good luck!" We of course contacted him, and he said that he felt like the needed to go back and finish what he started. We talked to him about baptism and the importance of it, we used President Bullochs "Baptismal Invitation" and when we had finished, Antonio was in tears. This family is really special, they know the Book of Mormon is true, and they really wanted to be baptized. So they decided they were only going to go Friday, Saturday and then come back early on Sunday. We were by their house on Saturday and we saw their little girl, Sammy. We said hi to her and she said "Hey, my parents are here!" We went ot visit them, and they didn’t say anything but we suspected that they didn’t really like their trip. Later, after their baptism, Antonio told me they didn’t like it anymore!! Later last night we went with the bishop to visit them, Antonio told us how he used to think that living under commitments would be worse for him in his life, but he told us how he felt free to make choices, more free. The Lord really does prepares people to receive the gospel, especially families!

We found about 3 or 4 families this week. The Lord is truly blessing this area!! The Lord blessed us to be able to bring 17 people to Church this week too. Elder Martinez and I really saw the blessings of the Lord in the work. It's so amazing to see the people that the Lord is preparing. For example, we checked a referral from the Visitors center and it turns out the mom of the family has a sister that is our stake young women’s president. We figured she gave us the referral, but it turns out she didn’t do it, and nobody in the family left their name in the visitors center. They don’t know who gave the referral! This family is awesome, and they’re excited for their baptism as well.

Yesterday we had Stake Conference. Presidente Bulloch came to the conference, and gave a great talk. He basically told the members how important their job is as members of the church to help us in the work. It affected the people so much, that the San Andres family even commented on it when we visited them with the Bishop! They said how important their role is now as members of the Church to help the missionaries. It was a great talk!

This Friday President and his wife are going to come to our house to check it our and make sure its clean! We’ve been working hard because the missionaries before us left it a mess complete with skateboard marks on the floor that will not come off!! In two weeks Elder Johnson the Area President is coming to speak to our mission! We are getting ready for it! It's going to be awesome to hear him come. The Area Presidency mailed a letter about two weeks ago, inviting the members of the Church to pray and fast for the leaders of Mexico and for the members of the Church. It’s a powerful message, hope you can translate it on Google.

Mom, you are right! Its hard to think in English now, I know my letters aren’t as detailed as they were, its just really hard!
I don’t know if I was able to describe this week well enough, but it really was amazing. It was one of the most successful weeks I’ve had in my mission, and it all came because of the Lord. He gave us all of our success!! This work is the most important thing we can do, I hope you are still inviting everyone to come unto Christ! Don’t get discouraged if they say no, just think of all the people the Lord is preparing to hear the gospel!!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Rasmussen

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