first email (public)

August 27, 2010

I got a record amount of mail this week. From friends and family. Abuela is winning though. i think she's sent me a letter through dearelder almost everyday since she found out about it. everyday she gives me encouragement, and updates me on family news. its really nice. not to mention the fact that she sent me Dr. Pepper. soooo nice. it ok to send that here. it's not against the word of wisdom. i promise. all i do everyday is learn about this stuff. so trust me when i say that you can keep sending me that. please...
I've also gotten all of kristen's packages with all sorts of home'made greatness. its always soo good. aslo its nice getting drawings from Isa and ellie. isa sent me an octopus made of construction paper. and ellie made one for me too, but apparently she ate it... that crazy girl.

Anyway, i cant remember if i told you about this thing that we do here called progressive investigators. real quickly, just in case, they are teachers that work here that act as investigators so that we get some "real" practice. there's this one investigator in french that Elder erickson and i decided to pick up. we contacted him for the first time last week. we knocked on his door, and started talking to him, but it didnt take long for him to slam the door in our face. it was incredibly shocking. but we recollected ourselves and decided to try again the next day. this time we were able to get him to talk to us for a little bit longer. but it did not take him long to decide that he wasnt interested, and then he slammed the door again. At this point, we didnt know what to do. we were both getting discouraged and frustrated. but we were determined to get a rendez-vous with him. so we started studying and praying alot for this guy. we prayed for the Spirit, and that it would be able to help us to be able to get to know this guy and so that we would appeal to his better nature. and we got wxactly what we asked for. the next day we had a nice long conversation with him at his door. we got to know him, and he liked us. the problem was that after we finished our conversation and he simply said that he just wasnt interested and closed the door. it was an improvement because he didnt slam the door. but we did not get what we wanted. that night elder holland came to speak to the missionaries in the MTC. and in his talk he said something very interesting. he said " [Apostles] literaly declare the word of heaven. So [he] was entitled to speak for, not only the first presidancy, but for our father in Heaven." Immediatley elder Erickson and i knew waht to do. earlier that day we had read that missionaries have the power and authority of god and therefore are ENTITLED to represent the Lord and speak for him. sure wnough, later in his talk elder holland said that "we have the autority so we must act like we have some" and that is exactly what we did. our next visit with this guy we went in and were bold. and immediately he let us in his house. and even invited us to return and visit with him. sometimes to soften a heart first you need to break it. thats waht the Lord did to us.

i wish i couls say more because there is a lot more i can say about that. but my computer timer currently reads 27 seconds. so i must close and say that i love you everybody! i hope you all know that. i'll write to you soon. i'll aslo include more of elder hollands talk.