Dar Family,
Another week has come and gone here in the mission field, and this one went faster than most it seems like. I'm sure that trend will only continue and before I know it I'll be running out of time here in the field. We haven't had too much in the way of news here in Edinburg, but we do have a few stories to tell that I'll try to get down.
The first story is with Alex. She has been preparing for her baptism this Saturday and is doing very well. This past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and when she showed up to school she was surprised to see so many of her friends going around with crosses on their foreheads. One of her friends during the day asked her, "Why don't you have a cross on your forehead? You're Catholic aren't you?" To which she replied, "Not no more. I'm getting baptized as a Mormon." Needless to say I had quite a smile on my face when she told me the story. Also this past Sunday she had her baptismal interview which went over very well. The Elder who conducted the interview was very impressed because Alex brought her goal of re-activating her inactive husband and getting him to the temple so they can be sealed as a family. She came to church by herself even when the rest of her part member family didn't come because they chose to sleep in during the change to daylight savings time.
Other than that the only great story from this week that I have is that we have been teaching this eight year old girl, Esmer. Her mother is a member, so really she is a child of record baptism, but her Mom wanted us to teach here since she hasn't had the chance to go to church much and learn about God. So, as we've been talking with Esmer she has managed to say some pretty funny things. For example, when explaining what commandments were, we told her they were like God's rules for us. Later in the lesson she told us that she enjoyed following Gods' "commandrules". But, I think her quote that takes the cake is just from yesterday. We were talking with Esmer about prayer and how we can ask God questions and receive answers. When we asked Esmer, "Have you ever asked a question of God when you were praying?," she replied, "I've asked Him how to get skinny." I pretty much lost it and just started laughing, and her Mom who was sitting next to her just followed suit. Oh the world we live in where eight year old girls are asking God how to get skinny!
We found a small hidden neighborhood in our area which is mysteriously populated with a lot of inactive members, so we plan to be working in there a lot during this week. We also found some new investigators in that area. If we get everyone in this three street neighborhood active and baptized we'll have a little Zion on our hands here, soon. I should have pictures and stories from Alex's baptism and confirmation for this next week, which should make for a bit longer letter.
I'm glad that Mel is continuing to do well, that Dot is still growing and I hope everything goes well for mom's trip to AZ. Strangely enough, my companion lives in Mesa as well. Maybe Mom could go visit his parents for a kick. Anyway, I hope that everyone continues to do well and has a great week! Oh, be sure to send me some notes from James' talk if you can. Thanks!
Love,
Elder Roland Wood
