Holy Week

Hey all! Well, its hard to believe that March has already gone by and that it’s already almost Easter. Down here, everyone is getting ready for Holy Week. In Latin America, they take Easter a lot more seriously, mostly due to Catholic tradition. It’s funny. Back home, I always just thought of Easter as Sunday, but it’s a little special to think of this Marvelous event the whole week. Well, I guess now as a missionary I’m thinking of it every day of the year so it’s nothing different for me! It will be nice to try and share an Easter message with people this week, especially because there will be so many people at home.

I am so excited for General Conference! It’s so relaxing to just go and listen and learn how we can better ourselves. The last conference I felt was more directed at me than at any other time in my life. Especially as a missionary, General Conference is AWESOME! I can’t wait! Especially if our investigators go!

Well, this week was AMAZING!! We had a nice zone conference on Wednesday with President Da Silva, his wife, and the assistants. They showed us the miracles that have been happening all across the mission as we all have tried to be better at obeying the Lord’s commandments. It’s amazing to see the progress. He also talked about the Book of Mormon, and how we should make it the CENTER of all the commitments we make with our investigators. It really is VITAL to read from it every day, even when we are studying other scriptures. It is a special book that the Lord wants us to always ponder and read. We read a talk by Pres. Kimball about flooding the world with the Book of Mormon. If everyone would just try the book and pray to know if it’s true, think of how much the Lord would open the windows of heaven and how many would come to know the truth! The book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. It’s how we know that all of this is true. The president gave us the task of reading the Book of Mormon entirely in 6 weeks, marking every reference to Christ (In His many names) and marking when he is speaking. I’ve already started, and I have already felt a special spirit manifest. I’m excited to keep going!

After the conference, we had a companionship exchange. My companion Elder Delbar went with Elder Moffit, and his companion Elder Baum came to our area. It was a lot of fun. It’s always interesting changing companionships for a day. I’m still trying to get used to the idea that I am their district leader. It’s fun, especially when I get to call them every night. I feel more like there are other missionaries out there. It’s easy to feel sometimes like you are the only missionaries within 20 miles of where you are. It’s kind of funny. We finished the day and it had been awesome! Especially when Javier and Kelly (a family of AWESOME investigators) had made us empanadas filled with dulce de leche. It was so good! We finished off the night knocking on doors. Elder Baum and I were looking for a street I hadn’t knocked before. The first door I knocked on, the family came up behind us. We kind of awkwardly turned around and said hello and presented ourselves. The man looked at me and said... ¨¿Sabes què? En serio.............. me interesa......¨ (¨You know what?......... I’m actually really interested.) HAHA! We looked at each other with such a shock. We almost asked him if he meant that he wasn’t interested. HAHA! I said ¨Bueno....... uhhhhhh hmmmm...... ¿podemos pasar y charlar un rato?¨ (Alright... uuhhhhh... can we come in and talk for a little bit?) We went in and shared the first lesson with him and his wife. They were glued to us, and whenever the husband would be talking too much, she would interrupt him so we could continue! HAHA! I’ve never seen a more interested face. We didn’t even have to extend the commitments. We handed them a copy of the Book of Mormon, and she said she’d read it! Well see what happens. We are going by again on Tuesday. Sunday was amazing too! We had 9 investigators in church!!!!!!!!! We'll see if we can get some of them baptized soon. A boy named Frederico already has a date for the 24th of April. The work continues, and I really don’t want to leave this area. I