INVESTIGATORS
Luz Elena - Really awesome lady that has a cool story around her. She's going to be baptized my last week in the mission. Super awesome. Progressing super fast, and just straight up gold. I'll tell you guys the story here in a bit.
Pablo - We put a baptizmal date for him, but haven't been able to localize him for a few days. We're going to try today to get in contact with him again.
Alfonzo - Pablo's dad. He's a cool guy we found yesterday. We hope to be able to get him to church. He seems really interested in what we have to say.
MIRACLES
Yeah, that's right. Pure miracles this week, honestly.
1.) There's a HUGE story behind Luz Elena, and let me relate it to you.
So, for a long time, I've been praying for an investigator that I could baptize on my last week in the mission. It's been my greatest desire for a long time, and I've been praying a ton.
Well, two weeks ago, it was the last week I had to find, because they have to come 5 weeks to church, and that week, if I didn't find, I wasn't going to baptize in the mission.
I worked super hard with my comp, and we found no one. We managed to get 70 contacts that week, and man, we were exhausted, but at the end of the day, no good new investigators. I was kinda bummed.
But, that week, on Sunday, a lady showed up, and she said she had been to church before. Which meant that that Sunday was her second time, which means:
SHE WAS GOING TO BE ABLE TO BE BAPTIZED ON MY LAST WEEK!
I was just so stunned. Like, honestly, of all the things I've asked for, I was not expecting such a blessing.
It was an honest-to-goodness miracle. Straight up miracle that other elders found her, that she came to another church the week before, and that she showed up to our church that next week. Just incredible. I'm so grateful to have been witness to that.
2.) That's just 1 of 2 awesome things with her. So basically, we put an appointment with her, but she lives SUPER far away in a place called "El Roble" which is like, 20 minutes away by bus. We put the appointment to visit her, and were like, well, that cuts out 2 appointments because we can't actually teach someone in like, 10 minutes.
We had a Zone Conference this week (MY LAST ZONE CONFERENCE OF THE MISSION) and we got into a taxi to be able to get there.
I contacted the guy who was driving, and he told us he was pretty interested in what we had to say, and that we should visit him. I asked him where he lived, and he said:
"I live in El Roble."
It blew me away. He works all day and is at home at night, when we actually go to El Roble, and he doesn't work on Sundays. Just a straight up miracle again. We didn't find him because he had to leave to pick up his daughter, but we're going to find him this week. He's a cool guy, honestly.
3.) I gave my final testimony in my last Zone Conference. It was pretty powerful if I do say so myself. I mean, when I bore it, I felt pretty normal until I got to the parts where I was trying to be as sincere as I could. It was so powerful, that I almost took a step back. I surprised myself, honestly. Pretty cool.
4.) Elder Diaz, my old companion, is actually here in Ensenada, and one of the first things he said to me was:
"Elder Carter, have you gotten skinnier and taller? You look skinnier and taller."
I really have no idea what's going on there. I feel fatter but everyone says I'm skinnier. We'll see what the final results are in a month.
5.) So, there's been a drastic change in rules. Ready?
Missionaries have to pay tithing on the money they get from home.
In other words, money that you withdraw, you have to pay tithing on it. It's a rule they put so that we could testify with more power about Tithing. I guess it's a good idea, because now, it's either testify with more power, or live more frugally. haha
Also, yesterday, they called to let us know that we are no longer knocking on doors again. They're getting rid of that. They realized how inefficient it was, and they're getting rid of that.
Also, they are getting rid of the daily calls from leaders. He realized that wasn't helping much either. Just Thursdays and Sundays.
Those announcements made me so happy.
I think it's funny though, because I actually predicted this from the moment it started. I knew he was going to retract that rule again because of how President Carreon ran the mission.
You see, everyone thinks President Carreon was a dead president, but the thing is, he was always getting 110 baptisms and above every month, but President Garcia is getting below that.
The reason was beacause President Carreon knew how to run a mission. President Garcia still doesn't have the experience that President Carreon had.
Anyway, I knew it would go back to how it was, because it's the most efficient that we have in terms of finding and working, so I figured that it would be in force about 6 months, and then he'd realize just how inefficient it was, and then cut it.
And it just happened.
So, I just kinda laughed a bit and realized just how blessed I was to have been in the offices to be able to get to know President Carreon and understand how the mission works. I know now what I would need to do to run a mission (kinda. Not really, but in part, yes.) It was a cool thing.
6.) There was a house that caught on fire yesterday! I was sitting there, explaining how the Atonement and Sacrament are related to this lady, and all of a sudden, I look out the window, and BOOM! There's a bunch of smoke coming from a house up on the hill. It was pretty insane. We don't actually know what happened to the house, but I'm pretty sure it was just a small fire. XD
That does it for this letter. It was a cool week this week. We had a good Stake Conference with a 70 named Lester Johnson who looks like Brother Cooper mixed with Steve Martin from Cheaper by the Dozen. And he speaks perfect spanish. Crazy guy.
I hope you all have a good week this week. Sorry for the lack of photos. I'm not really trying too hard on that front, am I?
See you next week!
Elder Carter
