gettin' it going in Laurelty

3/17/14

Well another week down and toppin it off yesterday with a baptism!

Lunes: Well today was a good one. We went and dropped the laundry off and then nobody that we planned to teach was home. So that was a bit frustrating... except for Lorena Ilsa and Matías. So we taught them and found out that they had lied to us and that the grandma (Ilsa) smoked still, so we sat down with her and told here that if she smoked this week we would have to change the baptism date, but that we were gonna help her quit. so we left and i was pretty sure we were gonna have to change the date of the baptism.

Martes: Had a district meeting this morning and taught about finding peoples needs, and the importance on focusing that the gospel helps with everything, literally what ever need or doubt we have in life. It was good, i also picked up a watch i saw on a corner, since ive came here ive boughten 4 watches.. they are super sick!! and like 12 bucks a pop.. ill try and get a picture of them all too you next week. after words we ran to lunch and found out the owner had a bunch of little service projects she needs done around her yard and stuff.. so we are going to have to help with that hee pretty soon. then we did some studying and finnally got out to teach.. tuesdayd go by so fast now! We taught the soto family who seem to be reallyclose to coming back to church, and after we helped our investiator family get started on the basics with english.. so hopefully theyll be able to use the book of mormon to learn it soon. afterwords we had a good noche de hogar and turley got a cake for a late birthday celebration... i like when my comps have birthdays haha :)

Miercoles: Well not much to report from today, not too many people were home or would let us in as you probably hear way to often, but we did have one lesson with a less actie that should totally be a missionary. but he is 26 and said that it is not the thing for him anymore... hopefully we can help him change his mind... then we went and taught eva and here family.. her dad is almost always drunk and is really quite a funny old man.. he went off with questions about joesph smith and how elijah is a second god and spent some good time talking with elder turley which was awesome practice for him! it was a good time. afterwords we went to see matías and ilsa to check on our smoking problem to not find them at home so that made things a little scarier... but we went home and just kept praying.

Jueves: We had zone meeting today.. it was a good one, we found out we get to go to the temple on april 15th and that may 2nd we have a general athourity coming. so thats super awesome! We ocused on plannign better and getting more baptisms as a mission during zone meeting. It was good. then we had lunch with the family lopez, got our studies in and headed out into the rain! but we got out and it stopped pretty soon after.. then we taught fmailia soto which went well and after ariel.. a missionary who returned after 4 months and came back because he lost his temper and asked to leave. he said it was one of his biggest mistakes but that he wants to work with us now.. he also hasnt been released yet or gone to church since he has been home because he works a ton but hopefully we can get his mind set right here pretty soon! we werent able to get a hold of matías or ilsa or lorena again so we went home and are a little concerned if she would have actually stopped smoking or not.

Viernes: well we cooked our own lunch today, we made fries and each ate 1.1 pounds of choriso or those little sausage things.. they are super good... it was awesome. after that we did a ton of contacting which wasnt fun but it was good, then we visited soto again who keeps showing more and more intrest as a family which is super awesome. after that i had to go to the hermanas area and do to baptism interviews for a 15 year old gil and an 11 year old girl... its so crazy to think that they put the trust of knowing if someone is ready for baptism in the hands of 19 year olds like me and then my comp quickly  reminded me that joesph smith was 14 when he had the first vision so its not like im doind anything impotant hahah it was funny. bbut it went well they definately wanted to be baptied and seemed to have a good knowledege of the convanent that they where making. after we swung by and talked a little bit in the door way with the dad of the family we are trying to hlp get baptized, it was really good and he said he would do all he could to go to church but coming from a paraguayan its more of a believe it when i see it kind of thing. Then we had a good lesson with a less active and went down and finnally found lorena and matías and they both said that they hadnt seen ilsa smoke which truely was a miracle, after we talked to ilsa herself when she got home and she confirmed it and said she hadnt smoked at all! which means we are having a baptism this sunday!!!! it was super awesome!!

Sabado: Well the day started by pouring down a ton of rain and we had to leave in it because we had a couple people we said we would visit in the moring. but no one was home so that was kind of frustratin. so we went to lunch at the bishops house and that was pretty good. After that we went with him to fill up the baptismal font and clean it out. That took a while but i think its cause the ward hasnt seen a baptism in a long time. Then we went and finished our studying and afterworeds no one let us in util we had to go to the stake center to stat a division with elder behymer the zone leader. We went thee made sure everything thig was good and set up well for the baptism and then we headed out, but elder turley wanted to see if elder behymer could get pizza delivered to our area so he gave us his card and the challenge.... we got back and went and did the interview, and they both passed just fine!! he said that they were super awesome! so that was cool then we got a call fro the hermanas saying that one of the girls didnt get baptized because her feet popped out and she was too embarresed to do it again, but they talked her into doing it next week and she said yes, if someone with more expierence did it, they asked if i could, and that means i have to do antoher interveiw again too, but we will see, if someone else from the ward can then that would be better but otherwise i could have to baptize someone else as well. then we got home, elder behymer successfully ordered pizza and we enjoyed.. it was a good night and one of the best divisions ive been on!

Domingo_ Well got up in the morning and made the switch back with my comp, then we came home and got our baptism stuff ready and headed to church. WE had a good frist two hours and then for sacrament meeting we had 64 people there with 2 lss actives and our 2 baptism canidates as the only investigators there. I had to give a talk in church on missionary work which was nice. It lasted about 12 minutes. Than after church we had ourselves a baptism!! my comp went first and killed it! and then i went and it went well as well. it was sooooo awesome! afterwards we got some studying in, had to cook our own lunch, and then went and visited lorena and eva, they said that they loved the baptism and that they felt amazing, and eva has been sick and her husband still drinks... alot.... so that an area we will have to fix. But it was a killer sunday!!

Lunes: Today we tried to play football but the field we went to was closed, so we went to the office and got some stuff we needed and then we went to burger king and then headed to the cyber to write you guys!

Overall it was an awesome week and awesome to get a baptism so fast in this new area! hope all is going well with you guys and that tanner isnt dating too much now!! haha

Love you all soo much!

Elder Jace Gummersall