Dear Family,
I was excited to hear that Ruby was born! I loved the picture of her and Josh. He and Brenda must be so happy. I can´t wait to meet Ruby. I´m also slightly dismayed with you to hear about the ward boundary change, but I am sure it will be for the best in the long run. Do you think the Nielsens and the Carmans will still be in the ward with us?
Sister Pullan and I had a pretty great first week together. We´ve found out we have a lot in common: a love of hiking and cooking, really liking the Lord of the Rings movies, etc. I think I will have to share a Sister Pullan quote weekly, she is really funny. This week´s quote: "I wish the dogs here were intelligent so we could teach them the gospel. I would tell them, 'Don´t freak out! It´s okay! You´re going to be fine!'"
Speaking of quotes, I just got the letter mom sent with Elder Morse´s email about the top 10 reasons senior missionaries shouldn´t go trick or treating. I couldn´t stop laughing.
Highlights/News of the Week:
* I don´t know if I mentioned that this transfer our area was divided in two and the assistants to the president now share the area with us. They conveniently drew the area boundaries so that they have the Carlos Gardel Villa (aka government housing project) where ALL our investigators live. Elder Godfrey, one of the assistants, who is usually really sweet and spiritual, is not able to conceal a demonic gleam in his eyes whenever he mentions it. At any moment I expect him to break into a villainous cackle and squeal "La villa es mia!" while greedily rubbing his hands together. Well, to be fair, the villa is in the half of the area closest to the mission office where they spend most of their time, so it just makes more sense for them to have it, but it´s kind of a bummer for us. However, Elder Baudon (the other assistant, from Cordoba) and Elder Godfrey decided we could keep teaching our investigators in the villa until they got baptized. So for the last couple weeks we have been running back and forth between our half of the area and the villa. But the assistants told us to stop looking for new investigators in the villa, which made it really difficult to reach our goals for new investigators and lessons because we had to spend most of our time in the villa with the progressing investigators and didn´t have time to work in our half of the area. I got fed up with the situation and accidentally complained to my district leader, who held some sort of over-the-phone council with the zone leaders and the assistants, who decided for us that we have to give all our investigators to the assistants, except for Andrés, who is getting baptized this Saturday (WOOHOO!). Anyway, I´m relieved because now I can focus on finding new investigators in our half of the area, but sad because I won´t be able to keep visiting my convert César or his awesome family (the Monserrats) or teach Andrés the lessons of retention after his baptism. I can only imagine Elder Godfrey´s grin.
* Andrés becomes more amazing every day we visit him. Every time I ask him how the quitting-smoking process is going, he says, as if he doesn´t know why I bother to ask something so obvious over and over again, "I never smoked again!" He says he has cravings but that he can hold them off by eating caramels. A favorite moment with Andrés this week:
* Teaching about the importance of scripture study using the story of the iron rod in Lehi´s dream: Andrés has begun reading the Book of Mormon from 1 Nephi 1 and is determined to read the whole book. We brought him the extra large one with enormous print (he has vision problems) and he loves it! After we taught him about the iron rod and the tree of life, we had a conversation that went something like this (forgive my meager translation):
Andrés: Can I ask something?
Me: Of course
Andrés: What kind of tree is the tree of life?
Me: (laughing) Well, it´s symbolic, but I think. . .probably a peach tree, because I like peaches.
Andrés: Could be. Or maybe a cherry tree. Yes, I think it is a cherry tree.
Me: (still laughing) Why not? A cherry tree.
Andrés: (seriously) Listen to me, sisters. I have to heed what you say, so you have to heed me too. We are going to become closer to God and we are going to find out what that fruit is. We will be there with God and we will see that tree. (reflecting) I have to read this whole book, to find out what the fruit is!
It was a funny, tender, beautiful moment. I am impressed by the strength of Andrés´ budding testimony. I have every confidence that he will arrive at that tree and taste its fruit. I´m joyfully anticipating his baptism on Saturday.
Well, I´m out of time to write. Thank you as always for your many emails, letters, and prayers. I´ll try again to send pictures next week. I love each of you! Have a successful, interesting week!
Love,
Ellis
P.S. César update: CÉSAR STOPPED DRINKING! And he went to church on Sunday! He is still smoking, but I haven´t bothered him about it because I figure he has to tackle one vice at a time. I am really hopeful that he can keep working through his problems, hopefully with the help of a church psychologist. His mother, Arminda, prays for him every day. I think that is really helping him.
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