Dear Family,
This last week in Laredo has been an interesting week, filled with a few adventures. Overall, nothing crazy has happened. Something that I learned over the past two weeks I've been here in Laredo is that the people that drive in Laredo are the worst drivers, seconded only by the drivers from outside the Edinburg city limits. I guess that's what happens when nobody is legal and doesn't go through drivers ed or anything. We haven't had really any close calls or serious crashes, but the number of times I've seen people run red lights, pull out too far and cut in front of other drivers is just a little too high. Nonetheless, Mom shouldn't worry because we're driving defensively and so forth and haven't had any problems so far.
This past week has been kind of rough because we spent a lot of our time with investigators that are not progressing. I figured that it might be a problem when I came into the area and learned they had been teaching people for six or more weeks who had never come to church. Spending our time with people that are willing to listen to us but are not willing to act and begin their repentance process seems to be a concern in this area. I hope that soon we can overcome it. It is difficult because my companion loves these people so much and really wants to help them as best he can, but at some point we have to decide which is a better use of the Lord's time. I brought this concern up with President Trayner when we had interviews this week, and he confirmed to me what I thought we needed to do. He said that one way Satan can slow us down is by having us teach people that are not willing to take the actions they need to bring themselves closer to Christ and make progress. We could be doing something ultimately more effective. He encouraged me to have a lesson with these investigators telling them that we couldn't come by anymore until they were willing to keep their compromisos (commitments). I felt that this is something we should have done a while ago, but I brought it up with my companion and we had a good talk about it last night. He is still unsure about what he wants to do, but hopefully soon we can work past this concern.
Everything else has been going well here in Laredo. There is a Spanish branch and a small English branch as well. The English branch has been struggling in terms of active members for a while now. Just this past week we had an amazing meeting with the Branch President where he gave us a large number of less-active members that he wanted us to go and invite back to church. We had a lot of success this last week with a good seven or so less-active members coming back to church at the invitation of all the missionaries. For just having two days to go and visit them and invite them to church, that was an amazing number of returning members. Hopefully, they will continue to come and help strengthen the branches here.
Today during P-day we're headed off to a store to try and buy some longhorn bull horns. Apparently, they are amazingly cheap and you can get a set of six foot horns bought and shipped to Utah for $50 - $60. So, if Christian has a large package show up to his house in the next few weeks, just throw it under the stairs for me, please =).
I'm excited to be here in Laredo and I'm certain that soon, we will find someone who really wants to progress towards being baptized. As of right now, our investigators are either in the early stages or are yet to be found.
I got the pictures from Khand's wedding. It looks like it was a great occasion and that they managed to overcome the weather difficulties, too.
Also, congratulations to Nathan and JoAnn on finding out that they are having a baby boy. That's awesome! However, I must admit that I'm not a huge fan of the name, Riggins. I have little say in the matter, though, so I'll just stick with "congratulations"!
I hope everybody has a great week. I'll write again, soon.
Love,
Elder Wood
