Family of Gold

Hello Everybody!

Has Dad been getting my emails?  I think that this is the address he gave me. 

Cecilia Calderon, Freddy Patiño and their two children

We had a good week.  We have two or three families that are progressing.  We have a new family, Patiño, that have come to church for two weeks now.  They are really excited to come.  This week only the wife could make it and had to stay in the Nursery with her son, but made friends with the whole Primary Presidency and is now anxiously waiting for us to visit her accompanied by the Presidency tomorrow.  They have been willing to obey all the commandments and have retained all the doctrine we have taught them really quickly.  It makes a missionary very happy when we show up for a lesson and our investigator has the scripture passage we left more or less memorized.  A family of gold.

Hernan has still been having trouble getting to church.  This Sunday, the Jehovah Witnesses showed up to try and visit him in the morning.  Since our first visit, Hernan has not been shy about telling us he does not like the JWs.  Hernan’s wife, who has wanted to return to the church for several years, answered the door.  She told Hernan that if he did not want to go to church, she was going to let them in.  Hernan decided to go to church.  I am still not sure if it made me worried or happy when he told us the story in Gospel Principles.  We had our branch President talk to him about preparing to bless the sacrament.  I am hoping if we give him a little responsibility, it will be easier for him to come to church.

I had a companionship exchange this week with our Zone Leader.  We found this cool family after they almost ran us over in their drive way.  They invited us in and we introduced ourselves as missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  The wife said, "Oh you’re Mormons."  She told us she had taken classes from some sister missionaries several years ago.  She brought out her old yellow-paged Book of Mormon and told us she loves the Book of Mormon.  She also had the institute manual for the Old Testament.  I am not quite sure where she found that.  She told us she loves the maps.  Anyway, yesterday, Elder Johnson, the Zone Leader told me that he returned to visit them with his companion and they accepted a baptismal date.

Elder Salvioli was surprised to find that you had written him, Mom. Apparently I haven’t been quite feel-y enough and you would like a little more information.  He’s sorry, but he can’t remember any of his Buenos Aires jargon any more.  Today was supposed to be transfers, but we probably won’t know until tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll be writing to you next week from the Galapagos.  We’ll have to see.

Hasta ver familia--