Letter #66 8/27/12 Hanging in there in Mazatlan!

The view from Landon's house in Mazatlan!

Seems like a pretty nice place!  Big and fairly clean!

Where are the sheets?  Still... not too bad!

Hey family! Buenas tardes. Wow, interesting week. I read your letters. Thanks! Sounds like everything is great at home. Back in School!! Wow, how exciting! Mom, i hope that your kids behave themselves and that you don´t have too many "troubles children". Lexi and Mckel, i hope that you enjoy your classes, your teachers, your wards, and your roomates. And if you don't, hang in there!

Very sadly, LHey family! Buenas tardes. Wow, interesting week. I read your letters. Thanks! Sounds like everything is great at home. Back in School!! Wow, how exciting! Mom, i hope that your kids behave themselves and that you don´t have too many "troubles children". Lexi and Mckel, i hope that you enjoy your classes, your teachers, your wards, and your roomates. And if you don't, hang in there!

Very sadly, Luis didn't get baptised.. Wow, satan works hard. He had his interview thursday and passed! Everything was set, he was going to get baptised Saturday, but after passing his interview he said he wanted to wait until this saturday so that his family can attend. We told him it would be fine, then Saturday when we passed by his house he said that, for personal reasons, he wants to wait until November! After sharing lots of scriptures, and baring testimony he told us he'd pray and ask if he should get baptised this Saturday. We haven't seen him since but we're hoping for a miracle. We did a WHOLE lot of looking for new investigadors this week. Our strategic plan to find new people was to do a mix of going with less active members who have non-member family members, searching old investigadors from the area book, and talking with EVERYONE we find in the streets. We had many very interesting experiences and conversations with people. I can't believe how many Jehovas Witnesses there are in Mazatlan! We found several incredibly inactive members this week who have completely denied getting baptised and have now gotten re-baptised in other churches. We had to show them there names in the lists to prove that they are technically members of the church. Very sad.. We spent the majority of the week walking. Almos every lesson we had lasted no more than 15 minutes and was held in the doorstep of the person and basically consisted of trying to defend our beliefes with people who honestly had no desire to ever go to church or even try to understand what we share.

Right now we're just trying not to get down. ANIMO ANIMO!! Luckily, Elder Lara is really easy going and i've never seen him even the least bit depressed. We're trooping along with our heads held high and i now that we're going to find escogidos! Yesterday i spoke on patience. I talked about the sons of Mosiah and how they were stoned, beaten, and thrown in prison, yet they never got discouraged. At the end of everything, they baptised thousands! I know that patience is a virtue of Christ and that if we indure hardships with patience, never parting away from the gospel, God blesses us!

We had a great day today. President Cantu recently recieved some amazing revelation! We now have our District Meetings at 6 P.M. every Monday, as opposed to having the meeting in the morning. We now have a full day for P day!! Beforehand we usually returned to our areas at arouond 2, still needing to wash, buy, and write. Life is good, i'm happy to be a missionary and excited to work, work, work!! I love you all and i hope you have a wonderful week!! didn't get baptised.. Wow, satan works hard. He had his interview thursday and passed! Everything was set, he was going to get baptised Saturday, but after passing his interview he said he wanted to wait until this saturday so that his family can attend. We told him it would be fine, then Saturday when we passed by his house he said that, for personal reasons, he wants to wait until November! After sharing lots of scriptures, and baring testimony he told us he'd pray and ask if he should get baptised this Saturday. We haven't seen him since but we're hoping for a miracle. We did a WHOLE lot of looking for new investigadors this week. Our strategic plan to find new people was to do a mix of going with less active members who have non-member family members, searching old investigadors from the area book, and talking with EVERYONE we find in the streets. We had many very interesting experiences and conversations with people. I can't believe how many Jehovas Witnesses there are in Mazatlan! We found several incredibly inactive members this week who have completely denied getting baptised and have now gotten re-baptised in other churches. We had to show them there names in the lists to prove that they are technically members of the church. Very sad.. We spent the majority of the week walking. Almos every lesson we had lasted no more than 15 minutes and was held in the doorstep of the person and basically consisted of trying to defend our beliefes with people who honestly had no desire to ever go to church or even try to understand what we share.

Right now we're just trying not to get down. ANIMO ANIMO!! Luckily, Elder Lara is really easy going and i've never seen him even the least bit depressed. We're trooping along with our heads held high and i now that we're going to find escogidos! Yesterday i spoke on patience. I talked about the sons of Mosiah and how they were stoned, beaten, and thrown in prison, yet they never got discouraged. At the end of everything, they baptised thousands! I know that patience is a virtue of Christ and that if we indure hardships with patience, never parting away from the gospel, God blesses us!

We had a great day today. President Cantu recently recieved some amazing revelation! We now have our District Meetings at 6 P.M. every Monday, as opposed to having the meeting in the morning. We now have a full day for P day!! Beforehand we usually returned to our areas at arouond 2, still needing to wash, buy, and write. Life is good, i'm happy to be a missionary and excited to work, work, work!! I love you all and i hope you have a wonderful week!!