February 3, 2010

Hey family,


It´s been a pretty good week. The good news for this week would be that our investigador Claudio finally got baptized! He was supposed to get baptized for the last 2 weeks but didn´t come for various reasons. We finally figured out what was wrong. He seemed to think that he could never receive forgiveness because he thought he had denied the Holy Ghost. So we talked to him about that for a while and what it means and that seemed to reassure him. He has had to make some really big changes in his life in order to be baptized but he was kind of over-exaggerating when he thought he had commited the unforgivable sin.

So on Saturday he was baptized. We work in 2 areas and he belongs to the ward that we don´t work in as much. The baptismo went well and some of Claudio´s family came. We´ll see if we can start teaching some of his Brothers and sisters.

On Sunday my companion and I did divisions with the members to go to both wards that we have, and I went to the meeting where Claudio was confirmed a member, and they asked me to perform the ordinance. That´s the second time I´ve been able to confirm someone and give them the gift of the Holy Ghost, and of course it was a good experience.

The only other cool experience I can think of was yesterday. My companion and I prayed in order to pick streets to knock, something that we should probably do more often. We prayed and seperately picked 5 streets in our area to knock at a certain hour, and when we compared what streets we had written down, we saw that we had 4 in common. That was cool. So we went and knocked and didn´t find anyone, and when our time was up we were about to head back to the apartment when we ran into the former bishop who´s inactive now. We set up an appointment and I assume that must be why we were supposed to be at that place at that time.

Another cool thing that happened was we went and visited a part-member family in the ward to meet them, and the dad said that he had been praying the last few days that we would come, and there we were. This guy has an interesting story. He´s in a wheelchair because he was shot like 9 times in the stomach. He wants to be baptized but he´ll have to get married first. We´ll see what we can do.

Ok well that pretty much wraps up my week. The war with the cockroaches rages on as always. Today´s P-day so my companion and I are gonna look for some bigger weapons to battle the cockroaches.

Oh and we´re not allowed to email anyone other than direct family, but Brother Figgat sent me a really nice email. Tell him thanks for me. He was my favorite teacher in church, and that shows that he´s a great teacher by trying to keep in touch with his students. The new Priest Quorum Teacher is gonna have a tough act to follow. I´ll have to write him a big email once I get home.

Thanks for the update on the family. Sounds like things are going well. Seems like Brad is getting to be pretty studly. Is every Saturday night a dinner and a movie night or was it just something special for that night? That´s good to hear that Brad enjoys spending time with the family over airsoft with friends. I regret the time I missed before the mission that I could have spent with the family.  I seemed to think that having a girlfriend was much more important than it really was. Honestly if I could do if over again I wouldn´t have had a girlfriend before the mission.

Sounds like the Pinewood Derby was fun, celebrities and everything :).  Yeah actually this last week I decided that the time had finally come to set my New Year´s Resolutions. Which was weird because most of this year I won´t be spending in the mission. I´m planning on going back to school in the fall. Which means during the time in between I´ll be able to work and do some other things. I´d like to spend lots of time with the family, those things you mentioned all sound like fun. And I want to get in good enough shape again so that I can compete on the Ranger Challenge Team again when I get back to school. Maybe I could even practice some martial arts with you and Brad.

Oh so since you mentioned work when I get back, I´d love to do something that I could use spanish with (speaking of which how´s your spanish?). I really have no idea what I´d be able to do besides that. I guess if you and Mom kept an eye open that could be useful for when I get back.

Ok well thanks for everything family. I love you all.
Un abrazo,   (a hug)

Elder Boice the 2nd