June 18, 2012

hey mom!

well sounds like it hasn`t been the best trip ever, but at least you got a little bit of a vacation! i think just chilling in yellowstone for a few days would be great! we`re working way hard down here, and every night i come home and i`m just dead. it`s all i can do to get out of bed in the morning, but things could be worse so i`m not complaining :) and i did hear there was another af kid coming from elder clarke, he said a kid named i think tanner smith is coming, but he wouldn`t know me by jordy so i don`t know who it could be that grandpa met, but that would be sweet! there`s already 3 of us here, i guess there`s also a sister that i don`t know, but elder clarke said he met her, so it sounds like af is just gonna own the mission! and ya know i haven`t seen too many gardens. we went to a member`s house to eat the other day and i noticed the dad outside working on one, but i really don`t know if i`ve seen another. there`s lots of vegetable and fruit stands though, and i assume it`s cheap, and so probably most people just do that.

my shoes are doing ok. i think my first area took a good toll on them, cause almost all of the streets were just rocky. this area is better and most are paved, but they`re still doing good. i`ve noticed i walk really funny though. i walk on the outside of my left foot, but the inside of my right, weird i know, i don`t know how, but now i`ve been trying to be self conscious of walking on the outside of both. they`re both rockports, so i assume they`re supposed to be good, but the little cover thing on the inside of my shoes is coming up. i mean just like the little felt thing that covers the foam part, if that makes any sense. so i`ve started to wear through the foam cause there`s no protection, but other than that the bottoms are holding up fine and they should last me for awhile. the shoes that guy gave me definitely aren`t missionary shoes. they`re a lot dressier and so they`re not very comfortable. i`ve worn them a couple of times now but they`re not great. i think i`ll just push them to sunday use now. i guess that`ll probably give my other shoes at least a little bit more life huh?

but this week was a bit of an interesting week.  monday we went to the beach again, but it was pouring like all day so it wasn`t that fun. we played some ultimate frisbee and soccer though so it was ok. again there was no one on the beach, but these two guys showed up after awhile and wanted to play with us so that was cool. one of the guys busted out some clubs too and so we juggled for a bit. he wasn`t very good, but i wasn`t either since i haven`t done it forever haha, but it was fun. more on juggling in a moment...

so wednesday was pretty relaxed, not too much happened, and thursday as well, but thursday night we had a visit with sabrina and her family and boyfriend, and it was an interesting visit. so we asked a member to come along with us, hermano guerra, and he`s the teacher of the investigator class in church. he`s a way cool guy, and served a mission in costa rica? something like that, maybe 30 years ago, but he always teaches well and had seen sabrina and everyone a few times so we thought it would be good. and it did turn out to be a super good lesson. sabrina was telling us all of her doubts and stuff and how many different opinions she`s gotten about her baptism, and she just wasn`t sure anymore. hermano guerra did an awesome job telling somewhat similar stories from his mission, and we just had a super good talk and it was just awesome. so we just asked her how she was feeling right then, and she just said "yo quiero bautizarme," i want to get baptized, and so we were just pumped. afterwards we were talking me and my comp and that`s never happened to either of us so that was cool, to just have her flat out say it.

so now it`s friday, and that night we had an activity for father`s day. (happy late father`s day dad! :)) they asked us if we would do a little five minute act or something and so we said sure. i had nothing to do but juggling, and my comp borrowed a ukelele from someone and so he decided to play that. it ended up being way cool. we planned out this little routine, had some music, i used some of the glowsticks you sent me, we killed the lights and i juggled for a bit. i took a video of it but i assume it`s too big to send through email, so you may have to wait to see it, but everyone afterward said it was just awesome. they all loved the lights and stuff. after all of the little kids really wanted the glowsticks and balls, so they kinda robbed to glow sticks but i made sure to keep all the balls :) but yeah it was a lot of fun. after the activity though, sabrina called us at like 9 30, and was just starting to flip flop again and still wasn`t sure if she wanted to do it. so we were just like ok tomorrow we have the interview, so let`s talk tomorrow and we`ll figure it out.

so now it`s saturday, and we had divisions so one of the zone leaders could interview her. so we went over and started talking, we had her tell us all of her doubts again, we shared a couple scriptures, tried to reassure her, and then just said alright let`s do the interview and see how it goes. she said she was really nervous but said ok. so they went and had the interview, of course i don`t know what she said, but she came out and said that she`s finally ready and we can do it tomorrow! so we were both just like telling her this is the right thing and she`ll be super blessed and it`ll just be awesome. so i asked her who she wanted to baptize her, and she really didn`t want to choose. i was asking if she wanted maybe hermano guerra to do it, or a member that she`s met, but she just told us she wanted either my comp, me or the zone leader to do it. we tried telling her that one day we`re gonna have to leave and it`ll be good to have a member do it, but she was just like yeah but you have facebook! haha so we just said ok. so anyway, after a little more thinking, she asked me if i would do it! of course i said yes, but i was super nervous! i`ve never baptized anyone so i really didn`t know what to do! so that night i was memorizing the prayer and trying to get everything ready, it was kinda stressful but it was good.

and now it`s sunday morning. we had to do the baptism before church, so we went to the church at like 7 30. it was a good little service. we had our other baptism share her testimony and it was way good, there was one other speaker, and then we just did it. the water was super freezing, not what i was expecting haha, but yeah we just did it and it was awesome! right as she came up out of the water she said "oh i just felt something!" i couldn`t really talk to her, but it was awesome. i was super nervous, but it ended up being great and she shared an awesome testimony afterward and it was just perfect. we confirmed her right after in sacrament meeting and she was just great! we were really so blessed to be able to teach her and see her grow and progress and her hunger to learn everything. the mom was all telling us about the changes she`s seen in especially her, but the whole family as well, ever since we started coming over. i`m hoping that they all make the same decision and then the rest will be baptized on saturday, cause they`re just an awesome family!

so this week turned out really well! it`s fun to see some fruits of our labor, see people`s testimonies grow and just love of the gospel. i`ve got high hopes for this week too so we`ll see how it turns out! thanks for everything and everyone! i hope all is well, have a good rest of your vacation, and we`ll talk next week!

much love,

elder paskett