Monday, November 17, 2014

HACE MUCHO FRIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week has been COLD!!!! At this moment it is snowing pretty hard outside! I love warm libraries!!!

Learned something really interesting from one of our members this week. So he is a regular laborer in a factory. He told us that he makes as much as someone who has 2+ college degrees in Mexico. Now it makes so much more sense why Hispanics want to come up here, because as a person with no education, they can make as much or more working in a factory than they could if they went to college for YEARS in Mexico!

We have finally been able to contact Juan our investigator with a baptismal date. We have a lesson with him this week. I don’t know if he will be ready on Dec. 13 because we would have to meet with him 2 or 3 times a week, and he works a lot. But I’m keeping my hopes high.

We are also going to try something different to teach Mary Rios because her husband is never home. So instead of doing like a 30-40 min lesson we are going to just stop by every day and teach maybe one or two points from a pamphlet on the front porch. Hopefully we can get her progressing to baptism. She is so solid and would be an awesome member!

Super cool experience this week: There is a couple, Jose and Maria (surprise) that the English sisters ran into down in Lafayette and they live up here in South Bend. We have been trying to get a lesson with them for almost a whole transfer, and we were finally able to teach them this week. The night before I felt like they needed to be told about families. So the next day we figured out a lesson in like 10 min, and it was really cool and spirit led. So we go in and they didn’t seem super interested. Then the conversation kind of moved over and we were able to leave a Family Proclamation with them and they totally opened up. Super cool because that is what they needed. So we have a lesson with them again this week too!

Also same day as Jose and Maria we went over to Elba’s to teach her son Jose and we were guided by the spirit to prepare a lesson about temple ordinances for the dead and the spirit world and stuff. He said that he wants to go to the temple and be baptized for his dad and stuff! So hopefully we can get him on track. But he will have a lot of work to do. But then on Thursday we took him to addiction recovery in the middle of a blizzard and then no one showed up to the class. So he was pissed and said that he doesn’t want to go back because no one cared enough to show up for him. I hope we can get him to go again. I don’t want to be transferred out of this area because I feel like I’ve got a connection to some of these people and I want to help them, even though this area is really hard at the same time. 

I am very happy to say this but I feel like my Spanish is improving now! I am getting more and more (not much by all means yet) but I am definitely understanding more! Super pumped!!! Sometimes I catch myself thinking a sentence or two to myself in Spanish too :)

Love you!

Love
Elder Porter

In letter to mom:
I love your food! I have been spoiled by being able to have everything homemade. So....yes I would like some!! And I am being better about letting snacks and candy last me a long time too :) haven’t even opened the trail mix yet, because I want to have snacks for a long time :)

Things are going good. I’m really glad dad sent me that book because I think that it is what I need to do, to learn how to handle things better. Thanks for the CD too! Spanish music is awesome!! Maybe I will send you one of my favorite songs that I have found out here someday :) 

Ya there are challenges to every mission, no matter where you go. . . . Ours is finding people. Just work through them the best you can. 

I have actually not done your cooking tips because on p-days we go to the church and hang out with all the other elders. Have actually slept at other elder’s houses for two nights now. It’s a party actually! 


We have been invited for Thanksgiving with one of our members. The mission doesn’t do anything for Thanksgiving, but they do a whole mission conference for Christmas.

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