Email 09/23/09

For starters Germany looks so AWESOME. I´m really excited for you guys. That looks like the trip of a lifetime. I love the pictures. I´m really excited to hear more about what happened. I´m so jealous about Notre Dame. Did you see Quasi?
This was a very CRAZY week. One thing that´s been very fun about having miracles in your area is that everyone is willing to help. I drew up maps of our area and Friday and Saturday 6 Elders came to help us out. They went and visited our investigators so we could get the baptisms taken care of for the weekend. We baptized Berna´s son Hugo and two brothers, Karl and Juan. It was so beautiful and the spirit was so strong.
One thing you´re not going to believe is who has been helping out so much with our investigators. Elder Barate. After I left Republicano he became a Zone Leader and now he´s an AP. Neither of us is the same from back then and we´ve both forgiven the other. Every night he´s called my up and asked me about my investigators and seeing what they need or I need. It´s funny how some things turn out.
Thursday we had a zone conference with Elder Aidukaitis. It was just for the missionaries and not all at once. He broke us up into groups of zones, just like a normal zone conference so he would talk to everyone at the same time. It was AMAZING. He talked for about 4 hours and it felt like a good five minutes. He was animated. He showed us how we could do practices every day as a companionship so we could better our teachings. He was VERY direct on how we have to be as a mission, as missionaries. He threw out all the old traditions, meetings and things we did that had no reference in Preach My Gospel. He was VERY direct that PMG is the ONLY manual we have as missionaries and that is the only reference we need and that we have to follow that book to the letter.
Last week somebody asked what President Callen was saying about our success. So start of this conference, like tradition, we all went up and shook his hand. He grabs me, gives me a big hug and tells me "here´s the machine". We had a bit of an intermission during the conference and he took me aside. He asked me what I was going to need for this week, baptismal clothes, membership forms, anything. He asked me how I felt about what we were doing and I told him that I´d never felt this good in my life. He told me that I had gone from a good mission to a holy mission and that I was "akin to the prophets" and that I had earned an interview with Elder Aidukaitis.
The interview was AMAZING. I walked into the room and both Elder Aidukaitis and President were there for the interview. They are both VERY large men. President Callen is like Brother Carr and Elder Aidukaitis is like Brother Marx. The spirit was so strong. It was such an honor to be there with these two men. Elder Aidukaitis to start if it was alright if we had the interview in Spanish because he said his Spanish is better than his English. He´s from Brazil. Elder Aidukaitis asked me what I´d learned from the conference and I told him that I felt that the practices he talked about could really help me and my companion teach with unity and prepare us for our lessons. At the end of the interview we got up to leave and he grabs my hand and won´t let me go. "Elder Wills, will you promise the Lord that every day for the rest of your mission you will do these practices with your companion?" Remember, Brother Marx standing VERY close to me and I was looking very far up. "yes" "President Callen, in a year he´ll finish his mission. On his last PDay I want him to send you an email that he kept this promise and then I want you to forward that to me." No pressure.
In short it was AMAZING. In church on Sunday we had 50 investigators, we´re going to have baptisms almost every day this week.
My new companion is Elder Blake. He´s from Las Vegas. It´s really nice to have an American again. He has a month in the mission. Life is going SO good.
Thank you SO much for the recipes. We´re excited for them.
Marian, the picture thing is great, keep on doing it and it´s really funny about the milanesa because that´s a very common food here.
That is so wonderful about Zane´s wedding. Please send my love. I was thinking about him the other day and how far we´ve come since Shaving Cream at scout camp.
I love you all so much!
Elder Frank Wills