I just got through looking at all the pictures, they were awesome. I think they show Melissa in a light that I have never seen. She looks so happy. I can sense that there is a lot of excitement for the wedding. I glad that I can at least see the photos and I look forward to hearing about the the plans and seeing the invitations :)
It was also very cool to see the pictures that jacob sent. I feel cooler just seeing the snow. He looks pretty funny in the snow coat. Im pretty sure I would melt if I dressed liked that. I think I would be happy if we recieved a change in our sector, Ive been with Elder Lizama for five and a half months. We get along but after being together for so long Im looking forward to a change of scenery. And there are certain things about Elder Lizama that I get frustrated about. Changes happen for us on the 25 of february. After that Elder Lizama has to return to Mexico for a surgery (Something small but salt lake says he has to return home for it) so we will be seeing a change for sure. I wonder if jacob has had more companions than me too, I havent had too many, two for my time in Los Andes and Elder Lizama here in Quilicura. We were also with Elder Glazner for two weeks and with Elder Jenson for a week and a half. Five in total.
I finally got the package yall sent. That was completely unexpected. Im sure I will never get bored again for lack of music. It was cool to see some cds that I havent seen in ages like the cumorahs hill cd, the lord of the dance and the disney music that chris wright made for me. The tie and the flashlight are great too. I am currently pondering what creations I will be able to make with the chocolate. Thank you so much.
This week was a pretty exciting week. We are preparing four investigators for baptism this week. It will be a big week. Two of them are Karen and her Husband Alberto who I talked a little about last week. We are also preparing a young girl named Romina and a hatian woman named Fabienne. We met Romina a couple months ago when we were teaching her brother Rafael. Rafael also had a goal to be baptized but when he started working at his parents shop he stopped meeting with us, because of time issues I imagine. Romina is his twelve year old sister and she participated in with the lessons with Rafael. She came to church and she really liked it, she developed some strong relationships and began to come every sunday. One of the friends she made helped us arrange the lessons so that we could teach in her house. Rominas parents are in the same boat as Rafael in that they work all the time and cant spare even five minutes to talk with us about her baptism, but they are supportive about it and are glad she is following a good path. Its unnfortunate that they arent participating in her progression but we are sure that with time they will come to see the importance. The only problem with Romina is that we arent exactly sure how seriously she takes what she is learning. As we teach we have to review the same princples over and over again to make sure she understands and Im pretty sure she doesnt read unless we assign specific paragraphs. The good thing is that she is here and she is making these relationships that will be a blessing for her whole life.
We met Fabienne a couple weeks ago. There used to be a french speaking program for missionaries to teach the hatians but the area presidency recently closed that program to encourage the hatians to learn spanish. So we recieved a reference from her neighbor who are members (unfortunately were not so organized to hear it from the Elders who were teaching her before). Fabienne has been studying with the missionaries for several months and has already received a testimony from the holy ghost that this message is true. When she shared her testimony with us I felt grateful that we were able to be a part of her progress as well. We than talked about baptism. She said that she has "hate in her heart" and isnt ready to be baptized. We assured her that taking these steps will allow her to feel alleviated from whatever feelings she has and she accepted a conditional date. If she feels ready, she will be baptized on the seventeenth. We later found that she was harboring some feelings against somebody who treated her badly in the past though she didnt share the details. We shared a little about forgiveness and how that can help us feel less weighed down by such feelings. The next time we met with her she said that she was ready to be baptized and will do it on the seventeenth.
The experience in the mission is never what you expect and its certainly interesting. I will send pictures from the baptism soon.
I love you all very much.
Until next week
Jeremy