January 11th, 2010

Mi Familia =)

Well if you didn’t get my letter then I don’t know who did because I sent one!! Sorry about that, there is no need to worry mom. Sounds like you are all staying busy especially Rachelle Jeez! Just remember what is most important, your brother Monson! :)

So this week has been the best week of my life!!!! I had my first baptism Saturday. An 11 year old girl named Giselle. I think I already told you about her, but maybe that was in my letter you didn’t get. We had quite the experience getting water for the baptism. I’m going to try and attach a video to show you :)

So our church building has been having problems with the water lately. So we prayed a lot this week that we could have water for the baptism, and well our prayers were answered. We also decided to try and fill the font a day in advance so we could have time to fix any problems we came across. Well the problem we came across was there was no water in the whole building. We called the 1st counselor and he said it’s just because people have been using a lot more in the city because its warming up and that there would be water in the morning. Well there wasn’t. For about an hour we were calling around and doing everything we could. There is a big water tank outside the church but you need a ladder to get up to the top. The member who had the ladder (who lives across the street) wasn’t home and had a big dog guarding the ladder. I ended up climbing the fence next to the water tank and swinging over to get to the water to see if there was anything I could do. Once I was on top I could see in the tank and it was full!! But for some weird reason it just doesn’t flow to the church. We asked around until we found a member with a good hose and just sucked the water out (I don’t know how to spell siphon?) The hose couldn’t reach the font so me and my companion spent many hours hauling buckets and finally filled the font! The good thing is the way the water is warmed because after you have water in the font you turn on the pump and it cycles the water through a hot water heater. Everything turned out great!! We finished and mopped up all spilled water right before people started arriving :) It was such a blessing!!!

But there wasn’t water yesterday for church so they canceled all the meetings after Sacrament, very sad :( Our investigator Rubén (who is progressing like crazy!) came to church for the first time last week but couldn’t stay for the classes. This week he had been telling us all week he was going to stay the whole time but of course there wasn’t any yesterday. It was also sad because another investigator (Yazmin who we found my first transfer, the 18 year old with 3 and 2 year old kids) came for the FIRST time yesterday but came an hour late, so she missed all of church. But we showed her around and taught her a lesson in the nursery with a member while her children played, so it was pretty good. She seemed pretty excited to come next week.

Our investigator Rubén has been doing awesome! He is preparing to be baptized the 23rd but he keeps saying that’s not enough time. He has had so many awesome experiences though. I wished I could tell you them all because they are amazing! I love every lesson with him.

Tomorrow we have our zone conference with Elder Bowen. Everyone keeps saying he is going to "bajar la caña" (drop the can) I’m pretty excited =)

I’m going to try and attach the videos and maybe a picture real fast because I’m almost out of time. Love ya!

-Elder Tryon

P.S. to study for the GRE, the only recommendation I have for Rachelle is daily study in advance, not the week before (Only I can do that!)