From: Elder Joshua Freeman
Subject: baptism week!
Date: 18 April 2005 3:00:08 PM EDT

ÁHola!

This past week was kinda busy. We had Lourdes' baptism this Saturday, and it went pretty well, so that was nice. Also, for everyone's information, if you don't already know, I'm going to extend my mission. Until the 23rd of June, probably. So, yeah. It'll be a little longer before I see you all. But I really love the work that we're doing here, and I feel very strongly like the Lord wants me to stay. So, yeah.

In any case, on to the week. On Monday night, we went and finished teaching the lesson 4 to Lourdes and went over the baptismal interview questions with her. That was good. After that, we went and talked a little to Ram—n, and also a little with Carlso and Ada. Then we came home.

On Tuesday morning, we had our normal Zone Meetings. As we were eating lunch, it started raining pretty hard, and continued off and on all afternoon, mostly on. We went to Manuel's and read a little of Enos with him. Then we met some new people, which was kind of interesting. And we did a verification with Esmilce and JosŽ, who we taught a lesson 1 to last week. After that, we went to the church for Noche de Rama, but at that time, it was raining really hard, and no one came. So after waiting for a little while, we tried visiting a couple other people with no luck. So then we came home.

On Wednesday morning, we had entrevistas with Pte. Gavarret in the office. Those went well. After that, we all went and ate together. Elder GutiŽrrez and Elder Womack came back with us to do Lourdes' baptismal interview. That went without any problem. Then the other Elders went back to their area and we went and taught a lesson 1 to a guy named Bernardo that we met last weekend. It went really well. After that, we went to Ver—nica's and helped her prepare a talk for the baptism. It took a while for us to get her to do it because she doesn't like speaking in public, but she did a good job in the end. Anyway, after that, we tried visiting a couple other people that weren't home, then talked with a former investigator a little bit, just to find out how his life's going. Then we went to do a verification with a guy we left a Libro de Morm—n with last week. It was interesting, because we read him a few scriptures from the Bible with him, and he didn't think they were in his Bible. We assured him that they were, but he told us he's read the Bible and never noticed that part. So there wasn't much we could do with him. So we went and got our clothes from Celina's and then came home.

On Thursday, we went and talked with Sandra and her aunt. Then we tried talking to a few other people, but they weren't home, so we came home and had lunch. In the afternoon, we went and talked with Carlos Ayala. After that, we went and visited the Flia Alderete and talked with the Hna about why they go to the church they go to now (which is also the one they went to before they got baptized), and she said it's basically because when they started to drift into inactivity, people from the other church came and talked with them and told them to go back to their church, and so they did. So do your home teaching, before all the other churches do it. Anyway, after that, we went to a part of our area that we don't go to often and met a couple of new people, and found a reference that we had gotten, which was an adventure, because when we finally found the right apartment building, we discovered that the lady moved. But we found her eventually. After that, we went and read a little more with Manuel, Luc’a, Miguela and Lizza. Then we came home.

On Friday morning, we went to verify with Bernardo, and he had read, so that was good. But he hadn't prayed, so we talked about that. After that, we went to the Mendieta's house to talk to Orlando and make sure he would be coming to the baptism. Then we went and visited Carlos Ben’tez before lunch. In the afternoon, we went to Lourdes' and talked about the baptismal service and everything. Then we went to Salvador's and talked with him for a little while. Then we went and invited a couple of people to the baptism. Then we had time to look for new people, but we didn't find any good ones. Well, none good enough to let us in anyway. So we went and visited the branch president's family, the Flia Caballero. Except he was at the hospital with his mom, who had surgery on Tuesday. But we shared a little with them, then tried to visit a couple other people, then came home. 

On Saturday morning, we went to clean/fill up the font and set up chairs and stuff. After that, we went and talked with Arnaldo, which was interesting. He left his Libro de Morm—n in his other house, and every time we said anything, he somehow twisted it to talk about BASIC computer programming. He's an interesting fellow. Anyway, after that, we went and made the program and had lunch. In the afternoon, we went and turned off the water. Then we tried visiting a lot of people that weren't home, and we also met some new people. Then we went to the capilla. The baptism went really well, except we started late. But it was good. Afterwards, the Young Men were having a volleyball tournament, and they asked us to help referee, so we did. Then we came home. 

Sunday was good. Lourdes' confirmation went without any problem. The Hno. Ortellado and the 2nd counselor in the Stake Presidency, Pte. Cardozo, gave a couple of really good talks. And the meetings were pretty normal. In the afternoon, we went and taught a couple of lesson 1s to people that we had met on Thursday night. Both of them went pretty well. Then we tried visiting a couple of other people before going to the capilla for Correlation meeting. There were a lot of people that weren't there, but it still went okay. After that, we went and got our clothes, then went to Celina's and talked with Manuel about the Law of Chastity. Then we came home.

This morning, we went to Centro and played a little basketball and soccer. Then we did a little shopping. That was it.

Congratulations Catherine for your graduation!!!!!

That's really sad, and really surprising about Matt Showers. It makes me really glad about knowing about the Plan of Salvation and knowing so much about what happens to us after death. It's weird how things happen in life, but when you know that Heavenly Father is in control, it makes things a lot easier to bear. That's why we have prophets, and the Holy Ghost to help us out.

Mom, you would be right assuming that those travel plans are no longer valid. I'll talk with the office people, and I'm pretty sure there would be no problem if I go home to Salt Lake. Also, I was thinking of maybe staying with Chris for the Fall, if that's possible. Also, I'm almost positive that I have 22 credits from BYU, but I'm not 100% sure. Is there a way you can find out without having to order another transcript? Anyway, thanks for everything.

I Love You All!!!!

Love,
Josh