08.11.2008-Hola mi Familia! (E-MAIL)

Hello again! How are you? I hope all is well for everyone.

First and foremost, I just got my letter back from my mission president, and he said that it is best that I only receive emails from my parents through email - that it´s best if I receive letters from siblings through pouch or regular mail. Entonces... that´s the way it will be! I´m thinking the Dear Elder thing might be fastest, but I really don´t know.On to my week!

Rocio was baptized! Elva needs more time, but hopefully that will take place before too long. The baptism was really neat. It´s the missionaries responsibility to fill the font, so we were at the church a good part of the day. The warm water actually isn´t working, and so we were heating up water in a huge pot, and then carrying it in buckets to the font. It was great. I hope it helped a little bit, but I´m afraid it was still very cold. Oh well, what can you do? Hermana Celis and I, along with two elders in the district, sang ¨Cuando me Bautice¨ I think is how you say it - When I am Baptized, the primary song.

Rocio and her Mom Rita were the only ones from the family at the baptism. We stayed at the church with them for quite a while, like one and a half hours, after the baptism because that´s when the bus came. Things I have taken for granted...

Hermana Celis... she has been on the mission for ten months. She has actually been sick this week, so we have spent a good amount of time in the apartment hoping that she´ll start feeling better (3-4 days). What can you do? It´s good though, I´ve had some great opportunities to study and so I´m grateful for that.

More about my apartment and living conditions... we live in a one room apartment (plus the bathroom). :D It has our kitchen, desks, beds, closets... everything! It´s a great little apartment. In our bathroom we don´t have a bathtub, just a shower head that goes out in the bathroom. It´s good.

I laughed the other day. We have lunch with members, but one day it was cancelled this last week. I decided to cook us pasta, and thus needed the stove. I had never had to light a stove before, and it was actually pretty funny. It reminded me of dutch ovens and made me laugh. You would have all enjoyed watching me.

I am sleeping in my sleeping bag, but it´s not because it´s really cold. It´s just very comfy! Dad, great job with that. Thank you so much!

I really haven´t seen any bugs. I saw a baby spider this morning when I was mopping. And that´s it! Pretty luck eh?Right inside the city the roads are paved, but most of the roads are dirt. They´re basically like the old dirt road by our house. So they make me feel at home!

The living conditions here are pretty varied from what I can see. Living here as helped me realize how blessed we really are in the United States - we all have very nice homes in our family and are very blessed.

Mom, I still haven´t received your letter in the mail. I don´t know! Also, how is your ear doing? Is it better?

Shari, I think a blog sounds like a great idea, since we´re encouraged not to write too many letters. I still would like people to know what is going on. :)

My preparation day is on Monday, last week I just wrote on Tuesday because we had zone conference on Monday. Sorry if that caused any confusion.It was so fun to get all of your letters. I am so so grateful. Thank you! The temperature here is good. It´s like fall in Pocatello. Mom, I´m wearing my hat this very instant. Thank you, I´m really enjoying it. For the most part, I just wear my rain coat around. It´s not too cold.

There are a lot of stray dogs roaming around here! We had a puppy following us around for a while the other day and it was pretty funny. Good times!

Did I tell you that we take a bus around Sunday mornings (driven by the Bishop of another ward) to pick up all the members and investigators? It takes about 1 hour and fifteen minutes.

Dad, I ate lunch with Familia Valenzuela the other day, and we were eating spaghetti. We were just starting to eat... and he cut his spaghetti just like you do! It made me very happy - it definitely brought a smile to my face. :)

Spanish is coming along. I understood more in church this week than last week, so that must mean something! It´s interesting though, because I really recognize that I understand more when we´re teaching. A lot of it is because I´m more familiar with the vocabulary, but really, I find that I understand more when the Spirit is really strong. It has been neat.

Here´s a neat experience... Andrea has her baptismal date for this Saturday. Her boyfriend Andres, and father of her two kids, hasn´t really been investigating the church. But they need to be married before she can be baptized. We were talking to Andres the other night, because he does not believe in Civil marriage - religious yes - but not civil. Thus, he doesn´t understand why they have to be married before she can be baptized. We talked for like 1- 1 and a half hours and it was fairly crazy. He just didn´t understand. Hermana Celis had a lot of scriptures about the importance of marriage and the family in God´s plan. We were talking how he can´t have these blessings, unless he does it God´s way... and he wasn´t relenting.

It was amazing, because I felt such a strong love for him. I was so sad that he was denying the blessings that he could have, because he had no desire to be married. I bore testimony as best as I could, about what God wants and desires for him, and how God can change his heart, after which Hermana Celis did the same. We talked for a little bit, and then instantaneously, his heart was changed. He suddenly said that because he has faith in Christ, and loves Andrea, that he would be married. He would also start going to church and taking the lessons so his family can be together forever. It really was a miracle of the Spirit. They´re going to try to get a date for their wedding today, so we´re praying that all goes well with that.

Thanks again for all your letters, and for keeping me involved in your lives. I love you all so much, and hope all is well. The church is true!

Love,
Hermana Pincock