April 26, 2010

Hola familia,
The garden is super pretty, I really like the weeping cherry; it looks a lot fuller than it did before (We sent pictures of our yard this week--everything is blossoming and beautiful). The trees are blossoming up there and starting to turn yellow and die here, but what can you do? It didn´t rain this week, but it´s a little chilly. We´re heading into winter here. I think the coldest months are supposed to be June and July, and they say it´s deadly cold, but we´ll see. I´m excited to call Mother´s Day too; I don´t know exactly when we´ll call, but probably between 1 and 3 our time, which I think would be 11 and 1 your time but I'm not sure if the time difference is bigger, or if you guys have church during that time.

I´m glad to hear everything's going good with volleyball and soccer (-watch the yellow cards Mikayla, he he), and that there´s some major studying going on for AP tests, but how many AP classes are you in, Christi? Probably a lot more than I took, I was a little lazy.

That´s good to hear Keaton´s call is coming. A lot more kids from our ward ended up leaving than I thought were going to, but that´s awesome. We found out this week, that Hugo actually is married, but he doesn´t wear his ring, so that will make things a little easier. But he´s struggling a little with the principle of faith. He believes in the plan of salvation, and in the principles like agency and those things, but he struggles to acknowledge that he has to pray, even when things are good, and that faith isn´t believing in yourself for salvation, but in the atonement of Jesus Christ. It´s a common belief for people here, probably in the states too, that if one has the will, the confidence and faith in himself, he can do anything. But Hugo is really trying to find the truth, and this week, he´s going to really try to meditate these things, and pray to know that these things are true. And I know if he can do it, if he can humble himself to really pray and seek for an answer, I know he´s going to receive it. I´ve never taught a person that I know honestly prayed and read the Book of Mormon to know it was true and didn´t receive an answer. The problem is that most of them don´t take the time or the effort it takes to really meditate and talk with real intentions like Moroni talks about in Moroni 10. So we really hope this week, that Hugo can arrive at this point, and we really hope to take out a date for baptism. He´s come along way in not that long of time through his faith in the Book of Mormon, but he never could pray to receive an answer for sure from the spirit, and if he can do that, it´s going to go a long way.

We also found some other really good investigators this week. The first half of the week we were rejected house after house, and appointment after appointment fell through, but we just kept going, and it was like people found us the second part of the week; a little testimony of perseverance, even if it´s just a week. But I know that if we can always strive to just do the little things in our lives that we know are important, we´re gonna end up where we want to be, even if it doesn´t seem like it at the moment.

Love, David