Jan 5, 2015

This Christmas wasn't as festive as last year. We had half decent tamales and tomatoes with feta cheese. I loved seeing and talking to you again :) Calling home has changed since the first Christmas, but I still love it! I'm feeling good about things. We just had interviews with President Sweeney and he gave me some different information that I'm a little nervous about.  In the interview I had, he asked me about going to English work. He think it will be a good change for me and I would have to agree with that. He also told me that big things were coming, which I translate into training again or maybe a zone leader or something of that degree. Other missionaries have been joking with me and saying I'm going to be the assistant, but I'm pretty sure that's not a thing. The zone leaders we have right now know something that I don't and won't tell me--haha. I guess I'll just have to wait. We get our news on the 17th.  The elders that I'm with are awesome! The ward is great, but I'll be sad to leave. I'm having all the members write in my little book, and everybody is saying I'm their favorite missionary because of how long I've been here. It'll be like leaving home probably!

I had a little surgery on my toe for an ingrown toenail.  It's feeling better now. I'm supposed to soak it every night and clean it in the morning. I got surgery with a different elder named Elder Walter. He is in the mountains now. He put like 4 shots in the toe to numb it and then just did it in front of me. It was nasty to watch, but I didn't feel anything. He just pulled back the skin and cut it out. I think it was straight down. Then he did something to it so that it wouldn't grow back.

Dad mentioned some things about following the promptings of the spirit.  I've found some great things about it. One of my preferred scriptures to share with members that also goes along with the Spirit and the Spirit of conversion is in Luke. I believe it's 22:32. It teaches us that once we've been converted, we are to turn to our brethren to strengthen them. I think there is a focus there on our brethren who have already joined the church but that are struggling. I look back before my mission and never once  looked around the congregation to see who was missing. Now, that is my entire focus and I'd like to bring that home with me. ALSO, a sentence I've come to hate when our bishop asks a member how another member has been, is, "That's not my family." Just because you aren't assigned to them means you can push their welfare and well being off to the side? Not in God's book.

 

The area is going ok. We don't have a lot of progressing work right now, but we DO have a date for THIS Saturday. O's son who is like 20 is getting baptized in our ward! We began to teach him when we were teaching his dad, but he is married to a native woman who doesn't speak Spanish so we transferred him to the English ward. They taught him the majority of the gospel, but he then decided to switch to Spanish again. I'm so excited, especially because I was one of the first teaching missionaries! Pictures to come. We'll have to come back to their sealing hopefully. It will likely be in January or February of 2016.

                                                                            P Day!

                                                              Had to have toenail surgery

                                                        Great baptism with family of 3

                                                         Elders Pilkington and Strike