Another Week in Adam-ondi-desto

So, Marilu has moved away.  Yeah.  That's exactly how we heard about it too.  We were gonna start teaching her the new member lessons since we baptized her and all. She didn't show up to church the week after she got the Holy Ghost.  That was weird but we figured she just was out of town or something.   Then she wouldn't answer any of our calls or texts.  So that kind of worried us.  Then we went to her house, cars gone, house empty.  So that kinda worried us.  Asked around the ward if any of them have seen her or talked to her or her kids for the past 5 days.  Nobody.  That made us more worried.  We kept calling her then she finally texted us that she had moved to San Jose and that she found work there and that she was really grateful for us and what the gospel did and was still doing for her.  So yeah.  At least she's still strong and going to church and stuff, BUT SHE MOVED AWAY!  We didn't even get to say Nos Vemos or Hasta Luego or Cuidase!  She just left!  Dang!

Anyway, enough crying.  Here's what’s going on over here in Adam-ondi-desto.

1.  My Spanish is coming along super good!  Elder Bartold and I went to branch council together on Sunday and I was able to understand everything and tell them everything I wanted to!  YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!  Gift of Tongues POWER!  That's what I'm talking about!  Good thing that I've got an all powerful God to help me out right!?

1 1/2.  Also went on exchange with Elder Bartold.  THAT was interesting.  So his Spanish is worse than mine, I didn't have that much confidence in mine either at the time, he didn't know his area at all since it was like the second week of the transfer and I still don't know the area either since it's the city of Modesto which is 200,000 people!  So we went on exchange in his area and ended up knocking doors for 3 hours.  It was actually pretty fun.  Every Spanish person we ran into was an adventure and it was fun to get to know Elder Bartold better!  Poor dude.  His body doesn't like him right now, so it's doing everything possible to make him go to the doctor!  He'll get through it though!  He was an endure to the end runner before the mission too, so he's got it!

2.  Erick says he's 70% ready for baptism.  We told him that's baloney and that he's 100% ready and that we'd prove it to him, so we went over the baptismal questions with him and turns out he's more like 30% ready.  We asked him the Law of Chastity question and he said, "Chastity, what's that?"  Whoops.  We talked over his baptism again and he and we feel more comfortable with the 20th of December.  So we are going to be going over there a lot more to teach him!

3.  Ok, coolest story of them all.  So the Robert and Elizabeth Renteria have the dates for the 27th and we were focusing on solidifying them for that day. We went over Wednesday night and before we even started Elizabeth told us that she knew she needed to be baptized on the 27th and that she had been putting it off too long.  She told us that she wanted to wait for her husband but that she knew that it would take too long for him to accept the gospel for her.  YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHH!  It was super amazing!  Her mom was in tears!  Then her and her mom bore their testimonies in church on Sunday on her baptism and on eternal families and we were all temporarily translated!  Their testimonies were super powerful!  Oh man!  I wish all of our other investigators could have been there!  Robert still is struggling with a testimony but with a mom and sister like that (and missionaries like us) he’s gonna be baptized for sure.

4.  So the Pentatonix Christmas album is probably the greatest Christmas album in the world.  Listen to it and be filled.  (BTW, we have permission to listen to any Christmas music after Thanksgiving so don't think I'm all apostate or anything.)

5.  We are also converting to President Clark's mission vision and we are visiting solely less actives to do our finding. We haven't seen much fruit from it yet but we will.  We have faith.

So yeah that's what's going on.  Also, as a Christmas gift President Clark gave us a book to read called Believing Christ.  I've read it twice so far!  It's amazing!  It's about Christ and his Atonement.  The overall theme is you can believe Christ, believe that he's real, believe that he's the savior, believe he was born and died on this earth, believe that he's the son of God, but, do you really believe IN Christ.  Do you believe that he can heal you?  Do you believe his Atonement covers EVERY SINGLE ONE, of your sins, no matter the seriousness?  Because if you don't, you actually don't have enough faith in Christ to be saved.  It's an amazing book!

Love you all!

Elder Frame

Also, disclaimer.  I may have told you that writing handwritten letters is better.  I was lying.  I didn't know that we only have Preparation day to write letters when I said that and our Preparation Days are so crazy, I hardly ever have time to actually write a letter to you all.  So if you sent/ are sending hand written letters, I will love them and cherish them, but I will most likely end up answering you by email.  I love yall!  Stay true!