Wow my first of 2 9/11 holidays has past in the mission. Every missionary will have 2 of every holiday in his mission because his mission is pretty much 2 years exactly, it's weird to be able to say that by next 9/11 I will have my flight plan........... ehhhhh not going to think about that AL ALL. The time is flying by, in 2 weeks i will be hitting 1 year, but it seems like just last week that I got to the provo MTC, weird stuff. Well I hope you guys all had a great week like I did, honestly we didn't have a ton that happened, but the stuff that did happen was really cool.
This last week we had our monthly meeting with president in Xela. This meeting goes from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, and it is PURE REVELATION!!! Haha not kidding, our mission president could secretly be one of the 2 new apostles that will be announced in 2 weeks, wouldn't be surprised. Ya so I love that meeting that we have with him because what he talks about for hours and hours never gets even slightly boring, what he talks about he usually receives through study prayer and fasting at like 3 or 4 in the morning, you can literally feel that power when you enter the room! They always give amazing lunches too which is a nice bonus on top of the spiritual overhaul that always occurs.
This week we visited Eveline and she is reading the book of mormon!!! So pumped for her, she didn't read a ton, but what she did read she liked. She forgot to do her personal prayers to see if it is true, but she said that by the next time we visit her she will have read and prayed for a couple of days in a row. The other ward that meets in our building had a baptism this week, so we invited Eveline to come, and she came!!! It was great experience for her to see what the baptisms are like and also how our church building/ members are.
So we returned this week to visit a young family named Santiago and Vivian. We have visited them like 3 times, and every time it seems like only the husband has been paying attention or taking interest in what we are teaching. BUT, something crazy happened this week. So we went back to go teach some more and see how their book of mormon reading went. Santiago had read the introduction of the book of mormon and had some awesome questions that we were able to answer. But as we were finishing up, I turned to the wife and asked her if she had had the chance to read a little bit. Her response blew my mind. She responded and said that she had read chapter 11 of 3rd nephi, the chapter when Christ comes to the americas. She said, ¨oh ya, so this chapter talks about when christ came and visited the nephites and then gave Nephi the power to baptize.¨That was when my comp and I just looked at each other, both minds blown!! Haha We didn't even think that she had been paying attention in the earlier lessons, but apparently she is more ambitious than her husband! They are progressing well and we will see if this sunday they will come to church with us.
After lunch on Sunday when we were going home to drop off our suit coats, we had a cool experience in the street. Some random little old grandma walked up to us and said that she needed to talk to us, that she had lots of questions and that she wanted to talk to us the next day, (today). We of course said ok, but when we tried to ask her for her name and number she just said that she would tell us that stuff tomorrow in the morning, we just needed to meet her at a random street corner at 10 o'clock this morning. Haha super weird, but we said yes out of curiosity. So this morning we went to the random street corner to wait for her, and what do you know, she arrived not 2 minutes later super excited to see us! We walked over to her house where she had three little plastic stools set out in the front yard. We sat down and began addressing the questions that she had, she was taking notes on a little scrap of paper that she had!! We ended up teaching her for 2.5 hours no joke!! Longest lesson of my life, from 10 to 12.30, but it was a crazy awesome lesson. She asked us to come back tomorrow the 15th and we said yes, she really wants to visit with us!! She is a single old little grandma that lives by herself, super nice but weird lady, we will see what happens.
So we have been teaching Glendy lately, she is a single mom with three kids and she is super poor, and only 24 years old! Last night was a huge night for us because we were able to visit her and we challenged her to be baptized............................. and she accepted!!! She accepted to pray and ask god if our church is true every night until she receives and answer. She told us in the beginning that she didn't like the mormon church cuz we can't drink coffee, but at the end she said that if God tells her that the mormon church is the right church, she will give it up for good. Now it all comes down to her prayers and diligence in going to church/ reading the book of mormon, we will see what happens this upcoming week.
I guess i kinda lied, this week a lot of really good things happened to us, it was probably the best week that we have had here in Calvario so far! We are super excited to work here and see what happens, we understand that it is tough, but this week definitely gave us a boost knowing that there are some people who are willing to progress. This week i learned a lot personally what I need to improve on which is good. I know that if i can change my weaknesses to strengths that miracles will happen, it's a process. Love you all and hope that you all have an awesome week! Email me if you've got a second, I always love hearing from you!
Love,
Elder McLeod
ps. tomorrow morning at 4 I will be on a bus to Xela, tomorrow are changes, but I will lot be having changes. We always have to go down to pick up the new members of our zone every time there are changes.
