Monday, October 24, 2011

A Baptismal Date

Hey Family!!
Glad to hear that you enjoyed my latest email, the questions definitely help me to write better and to think about what I'm going to write.  I'll start off this week by answering the funny story question from last week since I didn't have one. 

So yesterday I was on a split with Elder Hermosa my ZL from Canada and we were walking through the Bronx on the way to an appointment, when elder Hermosa said "Is that a (mumble)?"   I didn't hear what he said, so I answered "what?" "I think I see a (mumble)" he replied, "What?!?" I asked again and finally I understood his response "Is that a chicken?!?"   Sure enough, there was a chicken just chillin' on the side walk minding his own business so we walk back towards it and it doesn’t even move, so we snap a couple of pics with it and then moved on, but we were just laughing over this chicken that neither of us could figure out how in the world it ended up where it did.  I mean, there's nowhere for a chicken to live in the Bronx.  I guess that mystery will never be answered.  I guess that’s my funny experience for the week.
So we've been teaching Alejandro a little more, he's way cool and really wants to learn it seems.  We planned him as a backup on Sunday and when one of our appointments fell through we weren't sure if we should actually go to his house because we didn't really have all that much time before our last appointment for the day.  After some discussion we decided that we could be a little late for our last appointment since it was a member lesson.  Anyways, we arrived at his house and he let us in, which is always nice when you've just dropped by and were only really expecting to set up another time to come by.  So we get inside and we decide to teach a restoration lesson in order to introduce the Book of Mormon and the lesson went great.  We bore our testimonies, ended the lesson and set up another time to pass by the next day, so that we could read a little more with him.  We also asked him to pray to know if it was true.  The next day, Monday, we passed by again and started reading some selections from 2 Ne 31 about baptism and after reading verses 5-12 we asked him if he had prayed the night before and whether or not he had received a confirmation about the book, to which he answered "yes" and "yes!"  So we extended an invitation to be baptized on the 12th of November, which he accepted!!! Woohooo!!!  So that's freaking sweet, all the hard work that Elder Hulme and I have been doing is really starting to pay off for us. 

As for the question about the language stuff this week, I haven’t really done all that much special stuff. We try and speak between each other as much as possible and I'm reading almost everything in Spanish. I was reading the Bible in Spanish, but that was just a bit much, especially in the early Old Testament (Leviticus and stuff) and then I'm always trying to learn new words, but I still haven't been able to find an effective way for me to learn new words.  I'm still learning a lot and I can definitely notice my Spanish improving, so when I get home we can plan another trip to Mexico as a family.

Anyways, that about all I got for this week, I love you all and miss you, and finally hope you all have a fantastic week.
Much Love,

Carson