But all is well

Haha, I have made great progress concerning my classes. However, I won´t give you a list until next week due to time constraints and other real world complications. But all is well.

So by the way, we got hurricane rain over here. The winds didn´t hit us at all and it didn´t rain that hard, but it did rain a lot and you could tell that those were not normal storm clouds. I´m pretty sure the fact that we´re comfortably nestled in a valley in the shadow of a volcano helped with that.

Have I todl you about Alma and her family? We found Alma about a month ago searching for someone who gave us a fake address, but it turns out that Alma lived in that house and she told us that she was a member. As we started to visit her we found that her daughter Alejandra used to love church and that her husband Francisco had a great interest in coming closer to God. Alejandra was baptized this week, but will have to wait until next week to be confirmed.

We filled up the font by bucket again, but this time it was even more complicated because first we had to EMPTY the font by bucket and then we had to clean it and fill it up again. Lots and lots and lots of buckets, and now my back is sore. We managed to do all of that in an hour and a half and had everything ready for the baptism on time, it was a fantastic and spiritual experience.

José María blessed the sacrament this week wearing a tie I gave him, and Irving passed the sacrament too. Next week Augustin will bless, and I´m super excited to see it. Things are coming along here, although its obvious that we don´t live in a magical fairy land full of cotton candy and where you can eat your soup right out of the ash trays if you wanna. It takes work, and we´re going to work even harder this week. So far Elder Vergara has been able to keep up. Time to pick up the pace.

We found a lot of new investigators this week as well. Some had seen us pass by and had alwayswondered what we do, and others had listened to the missionaries years ago but had never been baptized and asked us why there are so many churches. The trick is to find the time to teach them, help the converts pass into the hands of the local members, organize the long-promised house of prayer, and lots of other stuff. Totally right up my alley.

Gotta run, say hi to Chris for me.

Love you!

Wake me up when September ends.

So it was a crazy week. It started with the activity that we won (we got 2nd place this week by the way...the sister missionaries will be having a baptismal service for eight people this week). District class was done in our house of prayer which I rented. Then we went and sealed the deal for our new house and signed the contract...and had one of our investigators (José María) help us move. We were also running all over the place trying to visit everyone and invite them to conference.

Conference, by the way, is a thousand times cooler when you`re a missionary. I loved it. I found a precious treasure in almost every talk and actually recognized a good number of the seventies. Some of my favorites include President Eyring`s talk on training priesthood bearers, Elder Waddell`s talk about learning from a mission, and Elder Cornish`s talk on prayers, among many others. Also, what`s that about a temple in Paris? I thought that would never happen.

There was an overall spirit of progress and the importance of our work in the conference, which ties directly into our duty in preaching the gospel. We`re doing great and important things here, and every member of the church has that duty to carry the name and gospel of Jesus Christ unto every ear and every nation.

On Sunday morning José María was baptized and his family was there to see it. It was a very spiritual experience, and he`s very excited not only to grow in the gospel but also to serve. He wants to help people find the blessings God has ready for them. We`ll be working closely with him. This next weekend Augustin and his sons Irving and Kevin have their baptism planned as well. Everything went well with Augustin`s stay in the hospital and he should be all set. Please pray for them as we visit them and prepare them to take such an important step.

I`m progressing and growing and organizing priorities, and my companion is starting to fill in his shoes (and lose the weight he gained at the MTC). We`re working well together and he`s awesome. Say hi to everybody.

Gotta run.

Love you, Elder Lund

PS Is David getting my emails?

We won by a landslide.

Hello again!

So Kenia and Leslie were confirmed on Sunday, which was great. There will be more to come as well. We´ve been having a lot of success finding people and helping people that are hungry for the truth and that love Christ. Some have had greater trials than others, but they´re all fighting and we are doing all we can think of to help our friends.

We have the keys to the house of prayer, so now we´re just waiting to start having services a week or two after general conference down here. I´m really excited to see and help be a part of this new branch that is being organized. We´re really a part of church history here and these people really are and will be pioneers. It´s electrifying.

So tomorrow there are interviews with the President and house revisions. That means everything needs to be spotless, and that means taking apart and cleaning fans along with everything else. For that same reason last Monday the Zone Leaders decided that there was going to be a competition among the missionaries to see who worked the hardest, and the whole zone was going to go clean the house of the companionship that one and pay for their pizza. The plan was also to spend the afternoon in that companionship´s area and contact for them.

We won by a landslide.

So I´m excited to keep pushing and working harder. We´ll probably be changing houses tomorrow (that´s the second time I´ve found and rented a house in Mexico), so the timing is perfect. We´ll leave our current house squeaky clean and everything will be packed and set to go today. We´re also planning an activity to celebrate the inaguration of the house of prayer, which will help the members to get to know each other, be familiarized with the location, and so that we all are inspired to work hard to help build up God´s kingdom here and invite friends to be a part of the change.

Elder Vergara is doing great and working hard. He´s very willing to learn and the extra study time with the PMG videos is also a great learning tool for him. He was able to get along okay when we had to do divisions on Saturday to make it to all of our lessons and visit the references we had received.

I would enthusiastically accept the bowling ball. I remember bowling with Joe and our group of friends and those are some of my good memories, although I may not be the best bowler. He will not be forgotten, and I´ll probably keep up the sport.

I´m way excited for General Conference and want to invite lots of people to listen to living prophets this weekend (and Holley´s birthday too!). It´s probably not a good idea to do so through my facebook (because it would look bad), but you guys should invite everybody I know to check out the conference videos. It´s a huge opportunity to share what we love and what they´re looking for.

So what are the Christmas plans?

Love,
Elder Lund