Hola! :D 08.24.2009 (Email)

Hola mi familia! ¿Cómo están? Espero que estén bien. Yo estoy bien acá. :D I don´t know when you´ll actually be able to read this, but here goes anyway. Shari and Orrin, good luck moving into your new house! And I hope everyone is enjoying the back packing adventure. Be careful, and enjoy.

Things here are going well. Where to start? Eduardo and Maríahelen are doing well. We have had some important lessons the last little while. The word of wisdom and the law of chastity. Some changes need to be made, but they´re starting to understand everything a little bit better.

Nelida and Mario (Nelida and Eduardo, from above, are brother and sister) are doing well. Nelida is really progressing well. She has such strong desires to keep learning. She wants to be baptized, but she also has some changes to make first. We want to put a baptismal date with her our next appointment. But she either needs to get separated from Mario, or married. We´ll see... big decisions to make.

Ester has basically disappeared into thin air. We´re a little worried about her. She moved into her other brother´s house. We were able to talk to her a little the other day on her cell phone, but we have no idea when, or if, she´ll be moving back. We´re going to pray for her. We would like to set another baptismal date with her because she´s not going to make it for September 12th.

Belen is doing better. She did go with us to a baptism on Saturday night. I´ll write more about that later. However, we also need to change her baptismal date. They have good desires, but need to act/change a couple of things. But it´s okay! It´s part of the repentance process. We all need to change things. They just need to do it before baptism.

Good news! We have another baptismal date! Mariana Medina, the 16- yr-old. She had told us our appt. last week that she would talk to her mom, and ask if she can be baptized. Neither parents are members of the church, but her dad´s side of the family has several family members who are members. Anyway, we had an appt. on Thursday and she had talked to her mom, and her mom said yes, she can be baptized! So she chose her own baptism date - September 12th. :D We talked to her yesterday a little bit about what she needs to learn and do before being baptized and she´s excited. It´s neat too, because she and the others are working towards going to the temple to do baptisms for the dead still. And now she´ll be able to do the baptisms!

Lets see... Pablo is still doing well. Pablo and Monica. Monica is a little more hesitant to make commitments, but little by little. We need to help them get to church. It´s a very necessary step.

Oh, here´s a good story. We were walking one night this last week and it was like 8:45 so we had a little more time to work. So we were trying to find people in the street. Hna. Porter started a contact with a lady, and she informed us that she had been baptized like 15 yrs ago. She told us she had two kids - one was baptized with her before, but the other was too young before, and has since gone to another church. So anyway, we set an appt for a couple days later.

We went to the appt. and she wasn´t there! We thought it was kind of strange, but what can you do. So Saturday night we decided to stop by and see if she was there to put another appt. We talked to her son, Thomas, who is 19, and said we´d pass by Sunday (yesterday). We went yesterday, and it went really well. She said that as she had been walking that first night, she was upset, and wondering why she had stopped going to church and everything, if she had been baptized in the LDS church before. And then, all of a sudden, we stopped her! She said yesterday that we were like her ¨little angels¨ that night. It made me so happy! I know we didn´t do anything. The Spirit just put us in her path. So Thomas totally listened yesterday as well, and had a lot of interest. We have another appt. this week and I´ll keep you updated with what happens with them.

Saturday the Elders in another area had a baptism, so we were inviting people all week. We thought we could walk there. But Saturday, it was VERY rainy and snowy. So we decided we´d atleast go part of the way in a bus. So we invited several, and a couple came: Andrea and Brian (a less-active member that we recently found and her son), and Jovita and Nico with their baby Nicole (Jovita is Andrea´s sister), and Maríahelen and Belen. It was quite the experience trying to round everyone up. Luckily, they all live very close to each other. The baptism started at six, and we ended up boarding the bus at 6. Yikes! But after trecking together through the snow and slush, we made it! Luckily, they started late, and we missed very little. :D I think it was a good experience for all of them, and it was another good experience trying to get them all back home afterwards. Good times.

So this next Saturday is the talent show. It should be good. We´re trying to get everything organized. I think it´ll turn out well. We have to just invite, invite and invite. And the members need to invite!

Last night the two sisters from El Bolson came and had a sleep over because we have a zone activity today. I don´t really know what we´re doing but it should be good. I´ll have to let you know next week what we did.

Shari and Orrin, you should send me pictures of your new house. And Lisa and Jordan, the pictures you sent before I couldn´t open up. And I want to see pictures of the hiking adventure!

I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I´m so grateful for the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. Yesterday in a class we talked about all the truths we have, thanks to the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It´s so true. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ live, and that they are very invovled in our individual lives. They love you, and I do too!

I love you!

Love Always,
Hermana Jana Banana Pincock