June 2nd, 2014 - Weekly Letter

Family,

Hey my great ole loved ones!!! I can't believe all the crazy things that have been happening out there in Utah. How crazy that everyone is pretty much separated! Jon is in Moab, I'm here in Mexico, Emma and mom in Manti, and so I guess that means dad and Sonic and Cupcake are back at home?! haha nice....oh and that's awesome that I have a new little cousin. When I return from the mission he won't be so little though! But yeah, and summer's starting for everyone! How exciting. I just have to say....it's HOT here!!! So the hottest it got here last week was 39 degrees celsius, which is about 102 degrees farhenheit. And everybody is saying that it still isn't even summer.....it gets even hotter in the next 2 months....so pray for me so that I don't melt while on the streets.

But yeah...so Monday last week was a very hard day.....very disappointing. So we got the same reference from like 3 people, which was an old widow, and so we were all excited to visit her because the people that gave us the reference were telling us that she would be the next baptism and that she was super cool, and so we arrived......and she rejected us. Yep.....didn't want anything to do with us. So after that I was thinking to myself, well at least we have the new investigator named Hermano Loya, and then literally 10 minutes later we found him on the street and he said that we couldn't visit him anymore because he didn't want us to. So that night I went back to the house just plain out depressed. But apart from that, we had a zone activity and we played dodge ball and soccer and this game where we had to pop the balloons that were attached to each other's ankles, so that was fun.

Tuesday was also pretty hard in the beginning because it is just super hot and we are very low on investigators so we were pretty much in the street all day. At the end of the day though we had a really cool lesson with a new investigator named Brillanda. We talked to her about God and her relationship with him and everything like that and it was an amazing lesson. It was a good way to end the day.

On Wednesday we ended up having a little more fun, and one of the members gave Elder Mendoza and I a sombrero. I now wear it not everyday, but when I want because it does protect our faces from the sun, but at the same time it makes my head and hair super sweaty.....ugghhhh.  So on Wednesday night Elder Mendoza got a call from the assistants! He got called to be zone leader again for the last little bit of his mission, so we got transfers.

So Thursday we spent the morning finishing packing for Elder Mendoza and then at about 11:00 a.m. we went to the offices for the transfers. Also, one of the other elders from Lagos, Elder Neuman, got transfers, so the other elders from Lagos went to the offices too. So, I received my new companion named Elder Newman, not the Elder Neuman that had transfers from Lagos, but Newman with a W. Elder Newman has like 6 1/2 months in the mission, and me and him are both senior companions......co-senior companions. It's kind of interesting because pretty much that means that neither of us is over the other, and so we share the cell phone and the keys and everything and we work equally, so that is pretty cool. Elder Newman is super cool too! He is from Sandy/Orem Utah, and graduated one year before me! But also on Thursday we had a ward party, the ward splitting party, and so we went and we pretty much just ate food and chatted with the members and all of that kind of stuff, so that was fun!

Friday and Saturday were just both hot days, but we made two baptismal invites and both the people said yes to the invite!!!!

Sunday was good as welll!!!!!! Very good!!! So we went to the new ward for the first time called Rio Sacramento, and it is a big ward, and they work really hard. So we brought an investigator to church named Elisa, and in this new ward there are actually young women, and so they talked with Elisa and everything, and so everything is going good with her! Today we are going to visit Elisa and we are planning on putting a baptismal date with her for the 21st of June, so pray for us!!! But yeah, so Sunday the meals weren't planned out very good, so we had to eat 2 whole meals in like the space of 2 hours...oh man.....I've never ate so much food in my life! But Sunday was very good!!!

But yeah......so everything is going very good here, apart from the extreme heat! I've really been increasing my own testimony as I've been reading the Book of Mormon. I started a few months ago and now I'm on 3 Nephi 20, just after Christ came to America and everything! All of what Christ says to all of the people is just amazing, and I don't know how people can not believe that Christ did not come here to America, because the spirit testified of the truthfulness so strongly to me as I read that part!!! The Book of Mormon is true, I know that without a shadow of a doubt!

Thanks for everything, and I hope you all enjoy where you're at this summer!! I love you all!! Have a good summer!!!

-Elder Loveless