Another transfer come and gone (09/15/2009)

I can't believe another transfer has come and gone. The calls will come Saturday. We are expecting Elder Mendez to leave but who knows. I could get transferred again or we could stay together. Who knows?

Some updates on the investigators. We had a regional stake conference on Sunday and Elder Nelson and President Monson spoke. We actually had a lot of people go. I guess stake conference isn't a big thing for the Hispanic folks here in Washington. Alfonso Rodriquez came with two of his daughters. Alejandra Rodriquez did not come because their three-year-old son was sick. I thought it was just like life-long LDS Families that when a kid gets sick, one parent stays home and the other takes the rest to church. So they are doing well. They still don't have a date for baptism but they are currently praying for which date they should.

Samuel didn't come to church but we are about half-way done with the lessons. He is still set to be baptized on the 4th of October.

There is another man/kid (he is 20 years old) named Victor. Victor works with Hno. Gutierrez who is in the branch presidency. I guess one day at work they were teasing Hno. Gutierrez about paying tithing and he just bore his testimony to them. Then later Victor came up and said I want to go to your church. He has been coming for about a month and a half. We taught him the first lesson and it went really well. We are going back tonight to teach him again.

This is mainly for Dad and Scott but there is a train that goes through Connell. I have found that anytime I have time to watch the train I am always counting the cars. Something I picked up from my father and older brother.

The other day I was walking through Wal-Mart when I saw a Wii. I was wandering what happened to our Wii? Where is it stationed?

Another observation that I have had is that I have been taller than two of my companions and shorter than the other two. The weird thing is the two I was taller than were the gringos and the two I was shorter than were Hispanics. I thought that was a little backwards because I don't run into very many Hispanics who are taller than I am.

My Final Burn as Jim Rome would put it, or my last note, or my ending message for today is how to teach Hispanics to become Mormons. Yeah we can baptize many because they are so humble and have the blood of Israel in them but how do we get them to live their lives in accordance to Mormonism. They aren’t breaking any major commandments or anything like that. It is just not knowing that the bishop is in charge of the Priests Quorum or that the keys to the Deacons Quorum are given to the 12-year-old Deacons Quorum president not the adult leader. It’s little things like that. As President Whitby put it, a man I greatly admire, when he goes after the one lost sheep, the 99 are trying to get out and no one is there to help him keep them in. Anyone that is Hispanic and really wants to grow in this gospel learns English and goes to the ward. So how do we get the others to stay in the fold instead of trying to get out? Those are my thoughts. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Well, I better run. Que les vaya bien!