Sunday, November 11, 2012

Email 09-17-12

¡Hola mi familia!
How's everyone doing up there in the US of A? Everyone's started school and work I'm sure by now. This is really funny right now because as I'm writing this letter, the computer is programmed for Spanish so every word I'm writing is underlined in red because it's not in Spanish.
This past week has been pretty cool and interesting. On Monday we had Pday and that was very nice and well needed. We got permission to go to WalMart (because it's out of our area) and wouldn't you know it, here in Mexico it's not the store with the cheapest prices. Especially on clothing. When I do clothes shopping it'll probably be in the tiangis or in the centros. So I went to WalMart to get more short sleeve shirts and they only had long sleeve shirts. That makes total sense right? We're in Mexico and they only had long sleeve shirts. Weird. Anyway on Tuesday, when we were walking around trying to find people to teach, we saw this man standing on the sidewalk. We decided to go talk to him. His name is Manuel. He has a wife and baby. Knows the bible EXTREMELY well and wanted to know more about what we believed in. So we set a return appointment for Wednesday. That night we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went with Elder Fuell to his area, Constitución. That night we taught a mom and her son. That´s also the night that I gave away my box for my scriptures. The little boy was so excited to have it. Wednesday came and we had a full day. We taught a lot and then had nothing to do. So we visited this man named Ramón. Ramón has a family with two kids and a wife. His relationship with his kids is bad because they are doing drugs. He wants to improve his life, come closer to God, and help his relationship with his kids get better. During this lesson he is telling us all about how hard it is to his kids having done drugs and how he has been searching all types of religions for an answer, Catholics, Jehova´s Witnesses, Mormons, everything. During the middle of this I was filled with the Spirit. And when I say filled I mean filled. I looked at him straight in the eyes and said Ramón do you have faith that God can heal your family. Do you have faith that he can improve the relationship with your children. Will you do whatever it takes to fix the relationship with your family. To all of these questions he answered yes. Then I bore him the most powerful testimony I have ever borne and I promised him as a servant of Jesus Christ that if he would get baptized his relationship with his family would improve and his kids would stop being the way they were. And then at that very end I asked him this question: Ramón, seguirá el ejemplo de Jesucristo al ser bautizado por alguien tiene la autoridad de Dios. The man looked like he was going to cry and then........he switched back to his old catholic self and came up with some lame excuse as to why he wouldnt get baptized. REJECTED. Pero está bien. Thursday nothing too much happened. I was with Elder Ruiz in our area. Friday we had splits with the Tláhuac missionaries who are in our district. That was fun. That night we had a stake activity for independance day. Way fun. To make it even better.... Manuel and his wife Belen showed up with their baby!!!! Saturday we had another visit with Manuel y Belen and we talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. Our goal was to set a date with them for baptism. So the time came for me to share my experience with the Book of Mormon and Alma 18:34-35 and then I also shared 3 Nephi 27:19-20 and then it was time to ask the question. I did and wouldnt ya know it......they both said yes!! This past week we have set 5 dates for baptisms. Pablo y Carolina 13th of October, Bernardo, way cool story for another time, 27th of October and Manuel y Belen 13th of October.
We have noticed a big problem in our area. Every one of the couples we are teaching has to get married before they can be baptized. This is kinda tough because we have to then tell them why being married is important. Tough.
Love you all. Until next week.

Elder Austin Frazier

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