Dear Family!
This week was an awesome week! Zulma got baptized yesterday and is doing great! At the beginning of last week, she had the goal to be baptized and wanted to, but we weren't sure if she was going to be able to make it or not. But the Lord made everything fall into the right place and she was more than ready this Sunday when she was baptized. The service went great and she's really excited to continue in the church. Right now we're focusing on teaching her two sons who are 19 and 13. They've both been to church twice and are really liking it and have some strong desires to be baptized. Zulma is going to be going over the pamphlets and lessons with them while we're not there, and I think that very soon we'll be having a baptismal service for the both of them. I'm super proud of Zulma this last week. She got anit'd by basically all her friends, and all her co-workers, and even experienced some family problems, but she knew it was right and that she had received an answer to her prayers. So she followed through and never gave up. She's also super ready to be an active member. She came to church on Sunday and didn't see where the envelopes were for tithing, so later in the week she went and bought her own envelopes so that she could pay her tithing! I'm so excited for her to become a big part of the church here.
We saw a lot of progress in all of our investigators this week and we were able to even find a miracle family last night. We had just left from following up with Zulma about the baptismal service and were biking home for the night when a family stopped us on the road. The mom asked us if we could teach her son and if there were any activities for youth his age that they could participate in in order to help him. We had a really good talk about church and then we testified to her of the doctrine of Christ and how it could help her family. She told us that she's never been baptized and that she and her son and her husband all want to be baptized. They invited us over on Tuesday for pizza and a lesson with the family. The wife from the beginning recognized us as representatives of Jesus Christ. She had stopped smoking four days earlier and has been clean from drinking for 5 months. At the end of the contact she asked us if there was anything that we wanted to drink at the dinner on Tuesday and we said, "well we don't drink alcohol, coffee or tea." She replied, "oh, well, I'm not drinking coffee or tea anymore then." ??What?? It was the best contact that I've ever had in my mission and I'm so excited to be able to go and teach them and help them become a forever family.
Elder Ross, my former companion (who still lives with us though), got his visa to go to Mexico and will be leaving today. It was sad to see him go, but he was able to see Zulma baptized before he left, which I imagine will be a really cool experience for him. One recent convert in Texas and many more to come in Mexico.
I can't remember all the stories from this week, and my time is pretty much up, but just know that this week was amazing and I really do appreciate all of your prayers. I got a letter off to James last week, but I don't know if it reached you before you left for Utah. I just sent it to our house since I didn't have his address.
Congratulations to Paul on his mission call! He'll be serving Spanish speaking in a U.S. border mission as well, so I imagine we will have some pretty similar experiences. It's sad to hear that he goes into the MTC just a week before I get home, but if that's what the Lord asks, that's how it'll be. Start studying all the Spanish you can, Paul. You'll want to know as much as you possibly can your first day in the field!
I love you! Take care!
Elder Wood
