Wow this week was such a spiritual up boost it was insane! I had such a great experience watching conference this week and seeing/ listening to an ACTUAL LIVING PROPHET!! How cool is that! We teach it all day everyday, but I had never really understood just how cool and special it was that this day, we are the only church that has an actual living prophet called of God to guide and teach the people. I learned so much not just from conference this week, but also from the experiences we had.
I guess I will talk a little about conference. We all went to this huge chapel in Las Rosas, where the zone leaders are, to be able to watch conference because the reality is that practically no one has tvs in our area. We went a little bit early in order to help set up, and when we got there I was greeted by tons of families from my 1st area Salcaja!! It was so awesome seeing all of my old friends and leaders from out there in Salcaja. They are all doing super well and were really excited to see me too which was great=) For conference, us gringos decided to set up a tv in one of the side rooms in the church with conference in english, but here was the difference, we hefted the two big and super comfortable couches from the foyer into the room to watch conference on!!! Haha we had our own gringo room with tons of food and COUCHES!!=) Haha it was awesome, not just the gringo room but conference in general! For us missionaries conference is like christmas, we get to learn from the people that we teach about every day! I loved all of the talks, I loved the different languages and races of the speakers, and I also like the 2 or 3 shout outs to Arizona and the different temples that we now have!! How lucky we are! And how crazy that 3 more were announced, Haiti, Ivory Coast in Africa, and Thailand!! Whats crazy is the one in Thailand, a nation that is 1% christian with a crap ton of Buddhists!!! The church is progressing like crazy, and like one of the apostles said, the church has never been stronger than how it is today.
Because this week was easter, or semana santa here in latin america, everyone goes out of town or goes to the beach, making missionary work a lot harder. We ended up having a pretty good amount of lessons without members, but practically none with members, that was tough, but there was nothing that we could really do about it. This week, all of the people crowded the streets and made their crazy awesome carpets from fruit, rice, or colored sand. I attached a Pic below, they were super pretty! This week because of the semana santa, there were a ton of processions from the catholics, it was kind of a weird experience, but it was definitely an experience that I will never forget. Haha it really freaked me comp out, he thought that his life was in danger he had never seen things ever get that festive in his country=)
Speaking of my comp, his name is Elder Cano, and he is my son!=) Haha he is from Nicaragua, him and one of his sisters are the only members in his family, but because of his choice to serve a mission, his parents and the rest of his family are investigating the church right now! he is a stud, loves soccer............. that's about it, but ya he is a stud. He is super humble which is what I was praying for, he loves to learn and grow, he will be an awesome missionary some day. I am lucky that I have the opportunity to train him, it has been such a great experience so far! I feel that I am learning just as much as he is right now, haha he is definitely teaching me a lot. Below I attached a picture of him and I. The funniest thing is when people ask him how long he has in the mission, and he says 3 days, then all of us start busting up laughing=) he is a super funny guy, and I have a feeling that we are going to get along really well.
This week hermana Roselia and her extended family all bailed for sunday which stunk, but we were able to have an awesome lesson with them. Roselia recently had surgery, so we went to go and see how she is. While we were there we ended up teaching the plan of salvation and inviting them to get baptized. She said no, but because she didn't know that it was all true yet, this is totally fine because she promised us that she is going to read and pray with her kids every night in order to know if it is true. She is a smart lady, and I feel that as long as she keeps reading and praying, eventually she will accept baptism.
This week we went to go and visit a lady who owns a barber shop/corte shop, haha kind of a weird combo. The lady ended up not being there, but one of her workers was there, so of course we contacted her and gave her a little 5 minute rundown about what we do. She seemed really positive because she invited us to come and teach her the following morning at her house! The next morning we went and watched the new video that the church has come out with titled gracias a que El vive, and then talked a little bit about it. She seemed even more interested, and invited us back for early this next week, we will see what happens with her.
This week really has been a good week of learning how to train, and learning from the prophet and the apostles. It was a tough week because of the semana santa, but it was full of great experiences and lessons with my new comp. I hope that everyone enjoyed conference weekend like I did, it honestly was the best weekend every! Love you all, keep the faith, have an awesome week.
Elder McLeod
