Greetings from the City of the Mountain Kings where, as [my brother] Truman described BYU, "Spring is on the air." It is beginning to warm up again, bringing with it extreme temperatures, the ever-present mosquitos, and the humidity. The truth is, I love it.
It has been a great week. This transfer we started a new way of doing things. (I love President Mendoza--he is always looking for ways to do things more efficiently). Instead of doing transfers on Monday, we did them on Tuesday. Monday we recieved the Valiants [new missionaries] and taught them all day. Tuesday we had transfers and the afternoon with the Heroes [departing missionaries], and Wednesday we said goodbye to the Heroes in the airport. As always, it was full of great expereinces.
Once every six weeks in the transfer devotional my companions (Elder Dudley is once again in the offices) and I get five minutes to say whatever we want to the whole mission. I love that time and spend weeks in anticipation, thinking about what I can say that I have learned or that the mission needs to hear. Also, with our new plan, the transfer devotional features the presentation of the tutors and disciples, and the heroes have time to share their feelings and their testimony. It is always a great expereince.
Wednesday after the airport we went to Reynosa, to bring some needed furniture, proselyting materials, and packages to the missionaries, and yesterday we went to Linares, which is about a two hour drive to the southeast. I love roadtrips (largely due to the fact that I always remember our family roadtrips, particularly our Church History tour.) I love seeing the beautiful scenery, having time to think, and having good conversations with my companions. I brought my journal along, hoping to catch up, but ended up bringing the wrong one. (I grabbed one that was already full). But it turned out all right. My companions and I chose random dates and I shared with them some of the experiences that I have had on my mission.
Our change of [proselyting] area . . . has been an interesting experience. Our priorities have been to meet the members and gain their confidence, work with the bishop and ward mission leader, and use the area book. Opening an area has made me better understand the importance of keeping good records in the area book, so that those who come later can build upon the foundation we lay.
We left a lot of good people behind in Victoria. One of them is a young man named Jesus Chaides. Jesus is 16 years old and came to live with his newlywed cousin in Monterrey, in order to go to school and get a job. His cousin is a member and invited him to church. That is where we met him.
When we first started teaching him, he was just like any other of today's youth: not very interested in God--in fact, he didn't believe in him. But after talking with him, we found what he was interested in: he likes helping people (he told us that he wants to build houses for poor people some day.) So we talked to him about the best way that he could help people: serving a mission, and he expressed desires to accompany us and see what we do. Our next lesson, we talked about the Plan of Salvation and caught his attention. Never has an investigator asked so many sincere questions as did Jesus.
Little by little he has been changing. Now, he has the desire to be baptized. It was hard to say goodbye to him. We went with the new missionaries in Victoria to introduce them to Jesus a few days ago. Jesus asked us if we could come to his baptism. We told him that we would. I love seeing how the gospel changes people.
I have no doubt that there are people just like Jesus in America (my new area) and in all parts of the world, people who are waiting to hear the message of the restoration.
Gracias por sus oraciones y su amor.
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