January 15th Letter

My wonderful family :)

Well first of all I'd just like to say if you guys were worried or what not that I didn't write on Monday, it's okay, cuz I'm writing now! So there's a lot, and I mean a lot, of crazy stuff that's happened this last week, and so we have been pretty busy. On Monday we had to go to Delicias really early, and didn't have time to write, or buy food, or wash our clothes. It was still a good day and all, but we didn't really get a p-day. So then we told ourselves we would de everything yesterday, but we only had time to buy food late in the night because they wanted us to go to Delicias again.....cool story behind this all though, here it goes:

So last Monday Elder Conklin's companion, Elder Norris, had transfers, so we went through the whole day like normal, and then met the new elder later in the night. His name is Elder Ruiz. Elder Ruiz is from Leon, Mexico which is pretty cool. I'm a little curious if maybe dad somehow knew his family, but who knows. But yeah, so let's just say that Elder Ruiz changed Camargo....and definitely for the better, because I don't think it could have gotten any worse. Elder Ruiz came to Camargo, and by the next day almost instantly found out how hard this area really was. The members don't help us, we have only a few investigators, and they're all ones that really aren't going to be baptized, and so just everything was going so bad. Elder Ruiz started thinking about this, as our new district leader, and he came up with something. Talk with everyone. Literally everyone, not just the ones that randomly we feel inclined to talk to.  So they started that, Elder Ruiz and Elder Conklin. I remember we got to the food one day about 2 p.m. At that point we have worked for 3 and half hours. When they talked to us they already had I think 8 visits with people, 6 of which were lessons. I was blown away, but it worked. Camargo has always been the way it was, and so a lot of people have never heard of the missionaries nor seen them......and that's where the story all began.

So we started to do this too....we talked to everyone, and the numbers in Camargo extremely rose. Instead of having almost 30 visits a week, we are having like almost 60 visits. Instead of 7 lessons, almost 30. Instead of 0 baptismal dates, 10. So yeah, when Elder Ruiz reported our numbers to the zone leaders on Monday, they couldn't believe it...how could this be possible, but it was. The reason for this success is this. If we can have about 30 people in enseñanza, or people that we are constantly going to and teaching lessons, we can have about 15 of those people baptized. So the more people we have to teach, the more baptisms. Seems too simple, but so effective. And it has helped a LOT!!!! I really don't have a fear to talk to people anymore. This is one of our many miracles that has come from this way of working.

So Elder Conklin and Elder Ruiz were just talking to everyone like normal, and they saw this guy sweeping over by his house, and so Elder Ruiz went over and took the broom and started sweeping for him. During this, Elder Conklin was talking to the guy about who we are and what not, and so they got his name, address, and set a date when we could come visit him....also sweet thing is he lives in mine and Elder Hansgen's area. So we visited him and his wife two days later, the 4 of us, and we just began to teach basic doctrine.....faith, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. They are the coolest family ever. When we talked about baptism the dad was super curious, and so I asked the question, will you follow the example.......yeah, the baptismal question, and they accepted....just like that!!! Later we asked about their kids, and they have 3 kids, 14, 10, and 8...all baptismal age. So we have a date with this family the 15th of February, and they are going to get baptized, I've never been more sure!!! Also she told us to visit them every day, so we visit them every day!!! Coolest people ever. But the next time we visited them, we asked them if they were married, and so we found out they're not married...but the cool thing about that is that Christ really does make things work out for the people that really want to follow His path. The day before their baptism, the 14th of February, the city marries people for free. Yep!!! So the day before their baptism we have a wedding set up for the fam. We are going to bring soda, food, cake, it's going to be sweet!!! But yeah, this is just one of the many cool stories we have. We also found a family of 14 people, who are very interested!!! And, first baptism for me and Elder Hansgen is on Saturday! The guy that we put a date with that I told you guys over skype is getting baptized this Saturday!!! So that is going to be sweet also!!

So yeah, it's been a sweet week, but because of it we have had to go to Delicias a lot to talk to the other missionaries and do practices with them about how we do the work in Camargo...cool, but not cool at the same time, because we haven't been in our area as much! So that has been my week last week, and the legend still continues!!!

Thanks for all the love and support from all of you! I love you and mention every one of you in my every prayer!!! Stay strong, and let's hasten this work :)

-Elder Loveless