Hola Family & Friends
I hope everything is going well. Life here in El Paso this last week was one to remember. Not to mention that the weather is amazing (70's) perfectly sunny, with a light breeze. I hear it will get up to 120 here in the next few months so I will enjoy it while I can. Anyway, other than that, the missionary work here has been picking up.
I have a love/hate relationship with knocking doors. This week we started back up the knock at least 1 hour a day, because we were promised to have 1 baptism per month if we do that every day. The first few days at the beginning of last week where one of those hate days. We have a returned missionary (named Marshall) just come to our ward 2 weeks ago and he was in the San Jose mission (His mission president was President Watkins), and actually served in the Spanish ward in Holister. (small world) He is just golden for taking out because he is still in missionary mode and knows all the tricks, so I have actually been learning a lot of stuff from him. We took him out knocking Tuesday and it was super hard. Even though we had a pro with us and our approaches where good enough to convince Rocky Balboa that he was a woman, the people where just too hard hearted. Marshall asked us how we could even deal with the hardness of the rejection down here. The Catholic religion has a super strong hold on the people down here.
So the next day we decided that we would do an "Appointment with the Lord" which means we pray about the area and the street we should knock and we each choose 5 streets and see if they match. Well we had 2 the matched. so we prayed and told the Lord we would be there at 2 o’clock and asked that we find someone prepared to hear the gospel. Well we found 2 referrals for the english elders, 4 return appointments, and a lady who's mom was a member, but she never joined the church and is now wanted to have religion in her life. How great is that?
On Friday we had "Zone Conference" which was like a spiritual recharge. It was from 8 am to about 3 pm, super long. President talked about Christ and his Names in the scriptures. We also had someone come over and teach us table manners for 2 hours. I know know how to properly eat a 10 course meal. The funny thing is 99% of the time we get a paper plate and tortillas to eat with instead of silverware. So basically it was for later in life when I have the money to hire me a butler to make me really fancy meals.
After zone conference we had "Exchanges" where Elder Perez went to another area and I got a Greenie for the day. His name is Elder Krebs, and he actually knew Landen from BYU before he left. Anyway he has been out for only 3 weeks now and his Spanish is still pretty rough. It was my chance to see what I could do and also to see how much I have grown in the last 5 months. We had an appointment with our most progressing investigators which are also my favorite. Alicia and Raoul Castillo. They are an older couple who are just so amazing and actually remind me of Grandma and Grandpa Stewart. Just an older Mexican Version of them. She loves the Lord so much and all she wants is for her husband to be a worthy man of God and to be married in the temple. Now thats what I like to see. Anyway we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and when we got to baptism they accepted to set a date for their baptism. So I asked them is they had a calendar and we got it out, and I saw that there was only 2 Saturdays left (the 3rd and the 10th) until the end of the transfer and one of us may leave. And they have not been to church yet so it would have to be the tenth, but I decided to give them both options anyway, knowing very well that it would have to be the 10th. Anything the both decided on the 10th and even wrote it on the calendar. They have the feeling that "It is their baptism date and that they got to pick it. :)"
There was a flooding in our chapel a few weeks ago and so our ward is now meeting at a building that was 10 minutes farther away now. But despite of that we still had 4 people come to church which is my record so far on my mission. Alicia and Raoul came and also Olga and Moi. They where welcomed by everyone and really enjoyed church. I can see the effects of our hard work with this ward now and we are receiving the blessings from it.
Anyway thats all i have time for,
I love you all,
Elder Stewart
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