August 15, 2011

Hola familia,

How is everything going over there? Seems like everything is pretty normal as of right now. Looks like the midnight run was super fun and that the Utah bike marathon was great. Everything here went a lot better. After last week, we are starting to get everything back on track. All of our investigators are doing a lot better. The only problem this week was that we had to go up to Santa Ana for 2 days. The first time we went cause we had a training meeting for the new missionaries and trainers. It went super well. Our new president (president Cordón) really is super smart. I learned a lot that I have been able to apply in my teaching. We left at like 6 in the morning and we didn't get back til 5. It kind of sucked. We also had really short interviews so that we all could receive our recommendations for the temple because the El Salvador Temple is getting Dedicated THIS WEEK!!!! I can't even believe time is passing by so quick. Saturday of this next week is the cultural event and we are hearing rumors that we will be going. So I am praying we get to go.

Well this week brought a lot of good. We started out the week really wanting to overcome all that happened last week. Like I said last week we had 2 investigators come to church and one is named Gabriel. We went and talked to him and his brother this week. We went and talked to them all about how Sunday went. We started talking and they had some great questions. Gabriel is 14 and his brother Alberto is 20. SO we talked to them for a while and it all got lead to baptism and they had some good questions about baptism. We invited them to be baptized this 28 of august and they both accepted. We have been visiting them all throughout the week and in the end Alberto came to church this week which was amazing. He said he probably couldn't come because he had to work. In the end he left work for an hour to come to church cause he thought it was so important. They both are doing really good and have been keeping the commitments of reading The Book of Mormon.

One of the investigators that was suppose to get baptized named William wasn't doing to good at the end of last week. This Wednesday we went over to his house and he looked super down. We talked to him and his brother Walter about what was going on and we found out that life just wasn't going to great. We talked about The Word of Wisdom and The Book of Mormon a lot and we made a promise to the both of them that if they would read every night and not drink coffee again for the next five days til Sunday, and then on Sunday go to church, that they would have a great joy on Sunday night and from then on. So we left them that night after they accepted and I went out and bought them a big thing of hot chocolate to help them and motivate them. We came back the next day and they both started talking about the headaches they had, bought how they went the whole day without drinking coffee. I told them as a reward for that one day and for all the days they would go without drinking coffee I would bring hot chocolate. I then gave it to them and they were so like stunned and happy. We then went on to talk about the priesthood. It was an amazing lesson and by the end they both asked for blessings. It was an amazing experience. Elder Trump (my comp) was super nervous to give a blessing in Spanish but it went amazingly.

Sunday came and in the morning the both said they would come to church. In the end only William came to church. We went and talked to him last night and he is in 1 Nephi 8. He explained to us all about The Tree of Life. How Lehi wanted to share this amazing fruit. He was so happy yesterday and really had changed in such a short amount of time. We talked about that and he said just after 5 days that he can see how much the coffee really was hurting him. He said he will pray to see if he should be baptized the 20th.

We also are teaching a family and they weren't looking very positive at all. Then yesterday they came to church and LOVED it. Now they are talking that they will get married and baptized the 27th of this month. Great miracles this week.

I really do love this work and am learning so much. I am sorry I don't have a whole ton of time today. I really don't have too much more to write actually this week I feel. I am super excited for this next week. We get to have a meeting with President Eyring and Elder Christofferson. I am super excited. This should be an excellent week. LOVE YOU ALLLLLLL!

Elder Gillette