Email 10/19/09

Dude those pictures are awesome! It´s amazing the how fast we can pass the information around. Right now in our mission, EVERYTHING is electronic. With President Bradley we physically wrote a letter every week. Now we send an email and then the next week he responds to questions or concerns or to reprove. With President Bradley I really felt removed from him but with President Callen I hear his voice at least twice a week now. As a mission we report our numbers (people with baptismal date, # of lessons taught, etc) Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. We usually get a call from him on Fridays to see what´s gonna happen with the baptism and Sundays to see how the confirmation went. Elder Lytle and Elder Rucker (our Zone Leaders) usually call me up to see what´s going on in the mission. Quite frankly I´m just loving life. I really love and respect President and Sister Callen. He really manages the mission hands on. When I started my mission we had 4 mission vehicles: 1 pickup for the AP´s, 1 pickup for the office elders, a van and the President´s SUV thingy. Due to bad driving, bad luck and budget cuts the mission lost the two pickups. Right now the mission is really expanding, new areas are being opened, old areas are being split and we gain about 15 missionaries every transfer. It´s usually President Callen now that hauls the furniture (basically just beds and a fridge) to the new apartments. We love that man. Next transfer we´ll be getting a new companionship (that´ll be the first week of November) and they´ll move in to our apartment. It´s not an apartment, it´s a house. Three bed, 1 bath, kitchen and living room. So we´ll have some new buddies in two weeks.
I guess in all the fun stuff that´s happened the past couple of months I´ve never talked about my branch here. President Corti is our branch president and he´s wonderful. Very shy guy and he got baptized about 3 years ago. He´s a very organized, secretary type and he helps us out SO MUCH. His only counselor is a VERY large man named Raul. He has gone with us and personally met all of our investigators in their houses before they got baptized. The four of us REALLY work well together and Priesthood Executive Committee is always really fun because it´s just the four of us and it involves much laughter but we also work. They have been so wonderful at grabbing our new converts and making sure they have a place to be and people to take care of them.
Speaking of baptisms we had another heartbreaker. Danny and Ramona want to get baptized but they don´t want to get married. It´s kinda sick. They´ve lived together for 2 ½ years and there´s no romantic feelings whatsoever. Lytle came over and he and I were going to get this fixed. He and I have not taught together since our fun experience when we were newbies. It was the most spiritual lesson I´ve ever been a part of. And we taught so fluidly, the spirit just went from one to the other without stopping. We know that they know for a fact that the church is true and that their living situation isn´t right and needs to change. We walked out of their completely spiritually charged. Ramona´s daughter Najeli got baptized though. Cute little girl.
Miguel is my miracle man. In the MONTH that we´ve taught them they´ve changed completely. His girlfriend is a member and they´ve lived together for ten years. Right when we met them she was NOT happy to see or talk to us. Their two kids, six and eight, were the biggest brats known to man and Miguel was not interested in the least in getting married. In this MONTH, all of that has changed. Completely. They will be getting married Saturday and he WILL be getting baptized immediately thereafter. Their kids are the sweetest little critters and the wife welcomes us in every time with a smile. Life be GOOO-OOOD.
One of the funny things about this week is that it has not stopped STORMING since last Sunday. CRAZY. And I´m not just talking drizzling, I´m talking that every time I see two animals together I take them home to put on the ark. Elder Lytle said that because I look the oldest of our zone I´ll be the designated ark captain. It made getting people to church VERY interesting. We borrowed lots of rain jackets and umbrellas. The Lord blesses us SOOOOOOO MUCH every day. I´m blessed to be here, now, with Elder Blake and with President Callen and all my other leaders (especially Elder Lytle).
And our little German family has been doing wonderfully by the by. The wife got baptized and so did a few other relatives. The father killed a man so he´s gotta get that taken care of. And I pretty shocked when we received that news. But he comes to church every week and he´s meeting with President Callen next week to start that process. President said that he´ll be needing approval from the first presidency to get baptized. He asked me (with a big smile by the way) if with the time came if I´d like to make the call to Salt Lake to ask for approval. I said I´d pass. He laughed. “Next time you´ll have to call them though.” The cool thing about the Kaufman´s is that they teach me German every time I go out there.
Elder Blake said to tell you that he loves the recipes you send and the recipe book from home. A lot of things we don´t have but it gives us good ideas and we are now having rocking FHE just about every night.
I love you guys so much and I´m just so excited for this week.
Elder Wills