May 23, 2011 - Family Email

Hey soooo wooow,

This is sooo hard!  Cáceres is absolutely gorgeous; it’s finally what I pictured Spain to be.  It has all the Old Spanish buildings and the castles and stuff.  But with that comes all the Old Spanish tradition.  That means the people all are catholic and traditionalists, however, it seems to me they don’t practice Catholicism half the time.  It is kind a depressing though because we only have two investigators here. 

This is part of the castle stuff here in Cáceres

One is a nine year old girl we haven’t met yet and the other is this 50 more or less year old lady.  I will tell you about this lady later.  So pretty much all we do is contact for more than 6 hours everyday out in the hot sun.  My feet are tired!!! We really have been working so hard and have received 4 contact’s information.  That is pretty bad for like 20 plus hours of contacting that just goes to show how the people are here.  There are a lot more Spaniards here that is why. 

In our ward there is only one active Spanish member and that is our branch President.  He has only been a member for almost 2 years!  That is crazy!  What’s even crazier is his wife wont go to church.  However, he is a strong man.  But I counted this Sunday and there were 23 people at church including Elder Shaver and me.  There are only 3 men in the ward that have the Priesthood and one other male that is a recent convert and will be getting the priesthood.  The men in the ward are super strong.  All of their wives are not members.  There isn’t one single family in the ward were both of the spouses are members, or active members.  So clearly there is a lot of work to do in the ward itself.  It is super sad and breaks my heart.  Our ward mission leader is 25 years old and from Honduras.  He served a mission in Guatemala, and he and his older sister (that is like 26) run the ward.  They moved out here with their two younger sisters. I guess the parents still live in Honduras...weird?  But they are super strong.  I guess they are the only normal Mormon family minus the parents.  So yeah, the ward consists mainly of South Americans minus the President.  The others are mostly Argentinean!! 

So yeah, this week has been rough but the Lord has promised blessings.  We just have to show our faith in Him and His Son.  That is one thing I have been learning because I am in the beginning of Alma right now, and it talks a lot about patience and long suffering. The Lord always blesses you if you remain faithful to Him!  So I am doing just that.  I just finished Chapter 17 where Ammon cut off the guy’s arms and gave them to the King. Gotta love Ammon, he always gives thanks to the Lord and Boasts of the Lord, like in Alma 26 or 27:12, "For I as a man I am week, but in the Lord I am strong," I love that scripture it is one of my favorites.  I just love the Sons of Mosiah.  Mosiah chapter, uhh no I forgot, I think its 28:3 they trembled at the very thought of a soul not receiving eternal life.  I hope I can get to the point of trembling when my investigators choose to not be baptized.  I hope I can have that much strength and love for the Lord and his children where I fall and tremble if a soul shall perish. 

Anyways, after all these hard trials and not having anyone to teach we taught the lady that is 50ish.  It was super good and I am almost certain a baptismal date will happen.  We will teach her again I believe tonight or tomorrow.  She loves to read and all of her questions can be answered by the lesson we are about to teach her.  So she is from Argentina, and her mother is a strong member that is how we met her.  She moved in with her mom a month ago and so it’s easy to teach her and get a hold of her.  We have a lot of work to do and fix a lot of the families in the ward.  I love this place even though it’s really hard.  The President trusts us here for some reason haha, he knows this area is difficult. 

Well I love you all and it was good to here from you.  Dad sorry I am making you busy haha.  I love you Mom.  I can’t believe Zac is walking already, well, is he walking with out holding on to stuff??  Tell Jer to send me some recent pictures of him. 

I love you all!!!