November 11, 2013
We had a really nice Sunday yesterday. 89 people came to church which is really good for San Blas, and 10 less active members from our area came. We had a fun experience this week. I went to Villa Hidalgo, a small town about 45 minutes from San Blas, the other 2 elders in our district are there. The week before, I had gone there to do a baptismal interview, and the man did not pass because he had smoked on Saturday and we had the interview on Wednesday. His wife is already a member, and he was really disappointed. We went again this Wednesday to do the interview again and this time he passed, he had not smoked for about a week and a half. G... works for Banco Azteca and works on Sundays, but just leaves for an hour to come to church. On Friday, we ran into a less active member in the street who also works for the same company but here in San Blas and we told him what Gerardo was doing to make it to church and he ended up coming to church as well, the one that lives here, and his wife as well. His name is Edgar, and his wife is Andrea. They are a really cool family, the elder who baptized them was Elder Bitter, who was an AP in the this mission and we also saw him when I arrived in Mexico and he was heading home to Texas. They have a little daughter that is about a year old and I often shake her hand and hold onto it for a second and she doesn´t really want to let go of my hand either and her parents always say things like, "nope he´s got to finish his mission first" and then they realize that I am a lot older than her and they say, "nope, you'll have to wait for his son" sort of things and they are really nice.
Many members accompanied us this week and I think that was why so many less active members came to church on Sunday. I think that a visit of 15 minutes from one member to another is worth more than one of our hour long lessons, when they can see that the other members really care about them, that seems to help them more than anything else. The tough news of the week is that Silvestre, Bere´s husband does not want us to come over there anymore and they are not going to get married anytime soon. Neither of them came to church this week. Gabriela came to church, she has now been 5 times and wants to be baptized, and could be baptized this Saturday, but she has to go to Vallarta on Sunday and would have to wait more than a week between her baptism and her confirmation and that is not a good idea, so she will likely be baptized the next Saturday.
Gordon Reid wrote a nice letter to me this week. We continued to run at the soccer field, there are a ton of dogs there, that usually just fight within themselves, I have gotten used to the dogs here and have realized that they don't tend to attack me, but this week, I started to feel very fearful of them once again and one of the dogs started barking at me, so I had to pick up a rock, but luckily did not have to throw it at him. I have still been doing my push ups as well, and am still just a big person, I still have my arms and have packed on a few in the stomach area. A member yesterday said that I look like a Mexican boxer, his name is "Canela" or "Canelo," so that was a nice compliment.
The branch President here is going to take out my ingrown toenail here in a little bit and I will make sure to take plenty of pictures of that. It is one of the same toenails that I had taken out before. Yesterday we had transfers and nobody in our district was transferred. A family of 10 that the other elders are teaching also came to church yesterday. Our investigators who came were Juan, Gabriela, and Ruben. Juan is the husband of a less active member, Alma, who also came to church yesterday, and Gabriela is the sister of Isabel who is member here. Ruben is the husband of Ofelia, a pretty much active member. The less active members who came were, Andrea and Edgar who I have already talked about, The Santos Sojo family, a family of 7, the parents and 5 kids, 4 girls and one boy. They have been members for a long time, are ostioneros and normally do not come because one of their daughters is handicapped and that makes things a little bit difficult. Also, Alma came, and Moises, a middle aged man who fishes for a living just like just about everyone else here in San Blas, Ofelia also came and a few others. Some of the new investigators who we found this week were Eva, who is a police officer, she works here and lives in a little town close to San Blas. She is like a guard and we went and taught her with Brother Manrubio while she was on duty and luckily nothing happened while we were teaching her. She works 24 hours and then rests 24 hours. Also, Nina, who is a substitute teacher and sells ice cream. We taught her a couple of times this week. We have to contact 10 people a day in the street, and only about 5,000 to 10,000 people live in San Blas, so I am thinking that pretty soon we are going to know everyone in town.
Yes,...the branch president is a doctor, he is pretty confident in his abilities as well, he says that he can do pretty much anything, he seems like he knows what he is doing. We always joke about the doctors here, saying things, "Well, you scraped up your knee, so I guess well just have to cut your foot off," like, what does that have to do with anything? They are an awesome family, we wash our clothes in the washing machine that they have at their business and they feed us a ton. This morning I wanted to buy cookies and Sister Artigas was not going to let that happen, she said "No, we have pan," and she also made us chorizo, juevos and pie.
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