January 20, 2014

Happy . . . Regular P-day! 

It always makes me laugh how you guys always put the holidays in the subject line. I never remember that it´s a holiday until I see your emails. I would put in a line every time there was a festivo here, but I can´t keep them all straight. There´s a lot. Nevertheless I hope you are enjoying Martin Luther King Jr Day. Listen to "Pride" and "MLK" at least once each to celebrate, or rather commemorate that great man (Dad will know what I´m talking about). 

Things are going pretty well over here in Spain-land. Any week that you have a baptism is a pretty darn good week. It´s also always a very very busy week. I´m tired. Also, we had to teach her about half the lessons in this last week in order for her to be ready for baptism by the date set. So we were there everyday, which I´m grateful for because I got to know Alejandra a lot better than I would have otherwise and that made her baptism a lot more meaningful for me. Ay, the baptism! I think this was the closest call I´ve ever had. I don´t know if I told you already but her husband Hector was baptized about 4 months ago and she picked him to baptize her, which is awesome! But it almost didn´t happen. They showed up right when the service was supposed to start, both of them dog sick! And Alejandra said that Hector got mad about something as they were leaving and she almost, almost didn´t come! But thankfully they showed up, sick, but they showed up. You could tell things were a little tense at first. The mother of this amazing family gave a talk (seriously it´s thanks solely to this family that the baptism turned out, they did everything! She spoke, her husband conducted and did the confirmation, she brought a dress and food for afterwords, on and on. Literally, they did everything.), then Elder Galeano spoke (he was a little nervous, but did a great job) and then Hector baptized Alejandra. She was a little scared going into the water, but it all went well and as they walked back to their seats afterwords, she and Hector were holding hands. That made it worth it. This week we are taking them to the temple to do a tour and talk about sealing and becoming an eternal family. I cannot wait! 

At the end of the baptism Alejandra shared her testimony (even though she didn´t want to) and it was really touching. She thanked everyone there and us for helping her get to that point and talked about wanting to continue forward and about Hector and the changes that she has seen in him and now in herself as well. It was really beautiful and stilled some of my worries about her. She is wonderful and she was supposed to be baptized and she was ready, but we are going need to continue giving her and Hector a lot of support and encouragement. This is just the beginning. 

That´s pretty much the news from the week. We really don´t have investigators now. We haven´t met again with anyone I told you about last week except for Joaquin. Sadly they couldn´t make it to church this week. They tried but they ended up having to turn back because of Emilia´s knee. She has problems with it and the rain and cold on Sunday made it impossible. We do have Domi, though. I don´t remember if I told you about him. I met him in the metro on the way to B2 in transfers. We met with him for the second time this last week and had a super spiritual Restoration lesson with him. It was really cool and he came to the baptism, but not to church. The lesson was great but on Saturday I couldn´t tell if his interest had gone down since or not. We haven´t been able to get in touch since Saturday, so we´ll see this week what happens. 

We didn´t meet with any of the investigators that the Bravo family told us about because they´ve been sick all week :(  But we are definitely going to get on that as soon as possible. It´s interesting here because now I have to learn how to work effectively with the members. In B5 it was all about creating trust with the members and getting to know them and helping them out, but here they are already prepared, they have a lot of trust with the missionaries and are excited about the work. It´s like before we were preparing to work with them, now I need to actually work with them, and I´m seeing that I have a lot to learn about that. 

The members are from all over the place as well, though there are a few Spanish families. Actually the ward and the area remind me most of all of B6, but a lot more lively, which is good. In some ways I feel like I´m at the beginning of my mission again. It´s a weird feeling. 

My companion and I are getting along really well. I can see a stark difference between myself at the beginning of my mission and now. I am a lot more patient and a lot more loving towards my companions than I was a first. I still have a lot to improve in, don´t get me wrong, but I know the mission has changed me a lot. I´m really glad to be with Elder Galeano, though. He is really great! He has a lot of desires to serve and to improve. He is humble, which will help him a lot. I´m glad to be with him and I hope I can help him out a lot in this part of his mission that is so important. 

Truthfully we slip in and out of Spanish and English a lot. It´s pretty cool. :) 

Well, I think that´s about it for this week. Thank you so much for Sarah´s talk. I was blown away. She has obviously grown so much spiritually. Her testimony of Christ and the Atonement were so powerful and really resounded with me. I´m so proud of her! She´s also grown a lot physically, apparently. Are we sure she´s really 17?! Is that right? There were a few moments where I thought I was listening to Bekah speak too. I don´t know if I´m going to recognize any of you when I get home! 

I attached some pictures of the baptism. Oh and we bought a jam leg. Mmmmmm.  . . jamon . . . :) 

Thank you all so much for everything. I keep you in prayers everyday. Thanks for your support and prayers for me and my investigators. I love you guys so, so, so much!! Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Cousins