Good Week...‏

Hey Family!

Sorry for throwing you off another day. Tomorrow we have zone conference and so we had to do p-day today, or wednesday, but we have exchanges sscheduled for wednesday, so we decided to take it today. We started the day off early at five am. to go out to Phoenix to hike Camelback Mtn. Us four elders were the only ones there pretty much. It was chilly and dark when we got there. Elder Hernandez, the Elder from Cancun, was terrified at first to climb it in fear of bears, wolves, and snakes. After the first little rock scramble, he could not have enough and pretty much sprinted up the mountain. He loved it even more on the way down. He was bouncing from boudler to boulder trying his best to keep his balance. He fell once. I fell twice. Not any huge distances though, two to three feet tops. It was way good and I felt refreshed to get some good exercise out in the great outdoors. The sunrise was beautiful. We were the only ones on the summit. Elder Hernandez shouted out some Book of Mormon quotes about repentance and baptism. It was pretty funny. A guy was not too far behind us and told us that the shout was about enough to cause him to call 911! Ha. We are safe and healthy. I was in a lot better shape this time. If it was not for the other Elders, I probably could have done it in about a half hour. It took us about an hour to climb. We stayed up top and took some photos. It was pretty fun. It was a good way to start this week.

Last week's training was phenomenal. I learned so much that has already changed the way I approach missionary work. Often, it is pretty scary to extend a baptismal commitment to someone who you have never taught. The Brethren are now wanting us to invite people to be baptized in the first lesson unless we are really sure that the Spirit is indicating otherwise. I took some steps of faith and courage this week by inviting 5 of our new investigators to be baptized. All of them agreed, but none of them would set a specific date for now. We tried to resolve doubts and assure them that we would not baptize them until they were 100% prepared. They were still pretty hesistant. We are just going to keep baptism in the picture and keep on mentioning it. As we seel, and more importantly, feel their testimony growing, we will try once again to set dates. Taking these steps was pretty scary. I am a person that abosolutely abhors rejection. I do not deal well with it. The Spirit was working though, and these people all accepted. After this training, I really feel a lot more love for every person I talk to. I am more bold and open about extending invitations because it is only through keeping these commitments that our investigators can repent.

One cool event of the last week was with the Espinoza family. It is a couple, Eva and Jose, who are both in their 50's I would say. They have been without work for almost a year and their health is terrible. There is really not a ton of hope in their lives. They were refferred to us by a member of our ward who had a son dating their daughter. Sister Dominguez came with us to the lessons this last week and we taught them the Restoration. They seemed to understand the Restoration. Just to be 100% sure, we took them to the Visitor's Center to watch Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration. They loved the movie and told us how much they felt the Spirit. The coolest part though was that Thursday night, Jose asked me for a blessing of comfort because he was really stressed. They had nothing left to sell but their house for money to pay the bills. We gave him a blessing and I really could feel the Spirit while I was speaking. (Giving blessings is always weird because we speak in TU form which is informal. As missionaries, we can only use TU form while participating in Priesthood Ordinances...) He told us that he was sure that things would get better. Well, Saturday night at the Visitor's Center, he told us he found a job! Yeah. The Priesthood is real.

Moises and Graciela are doing great, but the Mexican mail system is awful. We found out the birth certificate was on it's way, but when it got to a major mail center, the computers said that the address here in the U.S. was fake and therefore this last week it showed up at the house of Graciela's sister in Vera Cruz. Her sister put it in the mail this morning, but through a private carrier that garunteed us that it would be here by February 19th. I really, really, really want that to get here. We are seriously running out of things to teach them and when we go over to visit, we are just reading out of the Book of Mormon. If there was any one thing that Moises and Graciela could do better, it would be reading the Book of Mormon daily.

President Ellsworth challenged us to read the Book of Mormon 30 minutes daily from here on out. I have been doing it and my testimony of that book has grown exponentially. Every day it becomes more and more personal and I feel so dumb for having missed out on this chance to learn daily earlier in life. I love the Book of Mormon and I know it is true because I feel the power of it every day while I ready about it, and testify of it's veracity. I am in the last part of Alma right now. I am taking it slow and making good notes. I had some fear of marking my scriptures. I do not know why. I learn so much more that way. And, when I am teaching it just makes it all the better.

The Cruz family is also doing excellent. Jose (Dad) has lots of work and has good health. The kids are behaving better. Thing are just going dandy. The only this is, Anthony is having some learning struggles in School. We are praying for him. Mom and Dad started taking Temple Prep classes yesterday and so they are going to be able to get sealed soon. They are planning on sometime late May. We continue to visit them often. They are a great family.

Number wise, last week was not so good. But, at our training I learned to not care so much about numbers. All I need to do is give it my all. Invite people unto repentance, and put my trust in the Spirit of the Lord. We had a lot of progress made with a lot of our investigators last week even though we did not teach 20 lessons. We only taught 9 in fact, but it was still one of the best, if not THE best week of my mission yet.

It was SOOOO cold here last week. My blood is thinning out and 40 degrees felt like by hands were being frostbitten. It was windy. In fact, we were riding through a neighborhood with lots of palm trees and a big palm branch feel off and knocked me off my bike. I am fine though. It did not leave a mark. It was just crazy. Yesterday it finally started to warm up. Summer is supposed to start rolling around soon.

I knew it was Grandma's birthday! I am planning on writing her, but today is a kind of crazy P-day. We have some lessons in the middle of our p-day because we want to teach some people that were only available today.

Oh, and Dad, we started teaching a lady named Xiomara from Caracas, Venezuela. She was reffered by a member. She left Venezuela about 3 years ago. She said when she was a child, her family was being visited by the missionaries, but then the father said they could not come back one random day. She said it was North Caracas in 1982. Any chance you were there? It would be super crazy if we found one of your formers out her. When I met her I just got so excited. She humbled me by telling me about the climate there. Sounds awful. I am glad you survived.

Maddy, Will, I am glad you are doing well in school and all. I miss having you pests around, but you still have a year and a half to grow up! If there is ever anything you want or need, I will try to help.

Well, it is time to go! I love you all and I fasted and pray for you daily. Seek out every missionary opportunity possible. Pray for these opportunities. They will bring a new sense of joy to your lives.

I love you!

Elder Pearson

Posted By Maddy