3-18-2013

Hola Familia!!

The beginning of this week was really tough for me.  We weren't finding much success, our branch is hard to work with, and in general it was just really hard.  I learned a really good lesson through the middle of this.  When I was Emailing last week, Dad responded telling me to remember the tender mercies and to be grateful for the small things.  I've decided that in every situation you choose how you respond.  You can look at a situation and say this is really hard and only look at the bad things, or you can try and find the good things and concentrate on those.  After that day, I feel a lot better about my self, and I love my area.  I know this is where I am supposed to be! It still is really hard, but I'm loving it.

Anyways, things are going great.  Me and my comp get along really well, and I am learning a ton!  It is really tough to find new investigators.  None of the members will give us references and almost everyone we talk to on the streets doesn't want anything to do with the Mormons.  It really is a pretty cool place.  Right now we have about five investigators that are really progressing, and we should have a baptismal date with almost all of them by the end of the week.  The challenge is finding people to teach.  We only had three new investigators this week.  To be a new investigator, we need to teach them and they have to agree to have us return.  Three is not very many considering the mission goal is 11.  When we find the right people, they are great.  

Right now we are teaching a firefighter.  He is the one that had a baptismal date that dropped.  He is reading and praying and finally this week he went to church!! The mission rule is that they have to go to church three times in a row to be baptized.  We are going to ask if he wants to be baptized on the 13th of April.  We have an Hermana the lives in a town called Cobulco, which is about 30 minutes away by bus, that we now have a baptismal date for the 13th of April. She has a lot of challenges in front of her, so I pray that we can keep that date.  We are teaching a pastor of the second biggest church here in Rabinal.  We spent about 4 lessons this week teaching about the restoration.  It would be pretty cool if we could help him be baptized, then maybe we could baptize the other half of Rabinal. Those are the people we are really focusing on right now.  It is kind of weird getting so invested in someone else's testimony.  I want them to believe sooo bad, but all we can really do is invite and testify.  

This week at church we had exactly the same amount of people, 22, but we had one of our investigators come which means it was better than last week.  To answer your question Mom we teach a lot in church.  This week I gave a talk on Relief Society, passed the sacrament, lead the music, and me and my comp taught priesthood.  We are working really hard with the inactive members to help them come back.  If we had a bunch of them return, we wont have to do as much.  We hope that they can be pretty self sufficient. 

Something kind of funny, I found out that the mission address in my packet is wrong.  I guess they changed in like November, so it changed just a little after I got my call.  The New address is

Mission Guatemala Norte

Apartado postal 951-A

Guatemala, Guatemala C.A. 

I guess that that happened to just about everyone.  The people in my District told me they still got their packages, but it took like 3 months to get here.  so I will probably get them in about June.  Things I would like in the next package are an IPod cord so I can get some music from my comp, and a canteen( just one of those clear ones with the screw on lids.)

Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! NATHAN!!!!!!  

I Miss you all and think about you everyday.  

Elder Bashaw