This week was probably the craziest of my whole mission.

Letter to Shelby....

We were teaching one of our families about the temple.  His wife died last year and they have 4 kids.  As we shared about it, the oldest one, who is 12, asked if it would help her see her mom again, We promised that it would and that families really were forever.  The spirit was really strong and as we were testifying, the clear thought came into my head "she is here".  Elder Cortez said that he felt their mom's presence too.  It was awesome!

Letter to Mom...

I asked him if his mission was still hard.

Ya it's hard a lot of the time, probably 99 percent of the time, but the 1 percent more than makes up for it many, many times over.  I'm grateful for every hard thing that I have made it through, I feel that I have changed a lot and i can't really imagine what my life would be like if I didn't leave home.  I love you so much for helping my get here.  I know that this church is true.  I know that I can make a difference in the world now and not just get rich for my self like my plans were before I left haha.  I love you mom.  I already said a lot to dad but we found some cool new families this week.  They all have a lot of kids, so we have like 40 people in our teaching pool right now and they are all awesome!

Letter to Dad....

Hey dad, I'll pray for bishop.  This was actually a crazy week for me also, probably the craziest of my whole mission.  We were able to teach 47 lessons, find 4 new families and have 12 people at church, we are leading the mission again, but everything changed when we found out that one of progressing investigators, Den Den Mordido was murdered.  He disappeared on Tuesday and they found his body with two gun shots in the head on Sunday.  We went to his funeral and comforted his 18 year old wife, Lea, with her two kids, one 2 and the other 2 months old.  It was crazy to see his body, I really wanted to use the priesthood to raise him from the dead.  So I grabbed Elder Cortez and we went and prayed about it and both of us felt that that would be the wrong thing to do.  I did not know why, but the feeling was very clear.

They were supposed to be baptized on December 17.  We are going to do everything we can to get Lea baptized and get Den Den's work done in the temple.  It's really weird to think that I talked to him last Sunday at church and then I just saw him in a coffin...

Everyone else in our area is doing good and we are seeing immense amounts of miracles.  I know that this is the Lord's work dad, I know that this church is true more than I know anything else and I know that Heavenly Father has his plans for each of us.  Sometimes it's just hard to reconcile with those plans.  I am starting to love the scriptures a lot.

Any advice haha?  This email was supposed to be awesome cuz other than den den, this was easily my best week ever.

I love you Dad