The Best Week Yet: 11-15-10 Elder Laws

Mom and Dad,
This week has been one of the best weeks that I have had so far in the
mission. Probably THE best. But first how are things going at home?
How is work going and the girls? How are they doing in school?
Thanks for the emails. I love hearing from you guys. Whats been
happenin with the family lately? Hope everything is going awesome.
Well just like the everyweek in the mission. Things have there ups
and downs. Luckily this week had some sick good times. But we
started out with a lame P day. Everyone wanted to do something
different and so me and my comp just bailed out to the peatonal. We
didn´t really buy anything but we still had some good times. But
tuesday was a rough day. All of the leaders had a big training with a
member of the seventy, Elder Aidukaitis. So me, Elder Gardner and
Elder Nuñez were stuck in a trio. Trios royally suck out here due to
the fact that you appear like a mormon army clapping at your door.
But we some stuff done anyways. We went and visited Unc Ronnie´s
converts Irma and Mercedes. They showed us the place that Ron used to
live and they talked and talked and talked. Their brother mago showed
us some lame magic tricks. But we took some sweet photos and stuff
with them. But we decided to try and program their brother for
baptism. He rejected on the excuse that none of the members of the
church have money. He thinks that people should be instantly blessed
with riches which was pretty sad. Anyways this week we had a goal to
reach the standards of excellence since we had a baptism set up.
Standards are rough to get but very worth it. So going into wednesday
we didn´t have what we needed to reach our goals so we had to
basically kick butt without a failed appt to make it. By the time
thursday came we were pretty far behind our goals and pretty
discouraged. But thursday we had a half day meeting with elder
Aidukaitis. The man was freakin unbelievable. So in tune with the
spirit and knew exactly what we needed to hear. He started off by
saying that he was proud of the fact that we always had our purpose in
mind. But he said that he is disappointed in the fact that he is not
so sure that we have our purpose in our hearts. He then began to talk
about faith and works. James 2:14-18. He tore us up a bit. But then
he asked us something that i absolutely loved. "Elders and sisters,
do you weep when you don´t baptize everyweek? Because God and the
Angels in heaven do!" It hit us all pretty hard. He taught us how to
program people and to set goals. At the end of the meeting he dropped
cane again by telling us that we are not going to reach our goal as a
zone to get 18 baptisms this month. We all took that as a challenge
and said oh yes we are. When we left that place we were so pumped to
go out and work that we set up some teams up to get more work done.
We ended having a bomb night and programming a couple people for
baptism. We were on a high. That next day was also an awesome day.
We work our butts off to get our goals and we ended up the day hitting
all of our daily´s. But what happened that night was just awesome.
We talked to these people drinking mate outside their house. They
gladly invited us in and said whats up. We began to tell them a
little bit about the plan of salvation and how we can be truely happy
in the faith of christ if we fallow him. One lady named Noelia
stopped us and said. "chicos, before you got here. I was sitting
here with my 1 year old daughter thinking about all of the fake
happiness the world has in material things, i began to pray to God to
tell me how I can be truely happy with my daughter." at this point
she was crying and said," and you chicos just show up out of no where
and tell me the answer that I was looking for." Later that lesson she
committed to baptism. It was awesome. One of the greatest blessing
of being a missionary is being an answer to people prayers. People
really need what we are carrying. But wait the week gets better.
That saturday we had a baptism of Yael Farias. She is 13 and an
awesome girl. She is the sister of Hermana Retamal and our
investigator Noelia Farias 26(not the same noelia). So at her baptism
we had investigator in Carlitos, Noelia, and Yael´s mom. I had the
amazing blessing of preforming the ordinance. When we came back and
heard some of the testimonies of Yael´s member friends we looked back
and saw Noelia and Carlitos Crying. They were feeling it. We talked
to them after and they are so ready to take the step in for
themselves. They committed to gettting married and getting baptized.
Its amazing what a change in attitude can do. If you go after
something and bust your butt. The Lord is gonna come through. We had
a great week because we had faith AND WORKS. I love this work. Love
you all have a great week.
Elder Logan R. Laws