Week 10 Report - Lo De Coy

Today we'll just get straight to Joseph's email:

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Subject:  2 MONTHS IN                        

Heyo long time no see! This week was really great but was kinda long since it's been 9 days since the last p-day since p-day was Monday last week. A lot happened this week too.

One is that it was Elder Aquinos birthday last Tuesday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELDER AQUINO!!! We celebrated by contacting haha but I'm actually not kidding. We had our consejo de zona las tuesday though and so of course we sang to Elder Aquino and Elder Benson bought a confetti cannon that Elder Millich fired straight at Elder Aquino at the end of the song. It was pretty great.

Here are a couple funny stories form this week. So almost every day we eat lunch at a comedor. Basically just at a members house and Hermana Sabån, who's house is the comedor, made cupcakes to celebrate Elder Aquinos Birthday. They were super good but we couldn't eat all of them so we decided to take the extra cupcakes to an investigator. Well it started raining like it usually does and so Elder Aquino held both the cupcakes underneath his cap and about 5 seconds later one of them got smashed on his tie. To really appreciate the hilariousness you would've had to be there but I was laughing so hard I could barely walk.

There's this really good paneria (bakery) by the capilla (church building) and once when we were getting something from there I asked "como se llama?" to the girl but I think she thought I was talking about the donut so she said "Donut" and I thought she said "Dona"meaning that her name was Dona so then I said "mucho gusto Dona" which is nice to meet you and she and the other person working in the bakery just started laughing and I didn't know why. Haha Elder Aquino explained it to me later. I don't know what her real name is but it's not Donut.

So this past week was my first multi-zone conference but it wasn't just any normal multi-zone conference. We had the new area president for Central America Elder Uceda and his wife come speak to us. It was so amazing. We had I think probably 6 hours of instruction from Elder Uceda and he is incredible. He talked a lot about what we need to so that investigators progress and stay active. He said a lot of times missionaries leave investigators because theyé looking for "the elect"when they're already teaching the elect but just not the right way. He said "talking is not teaching"which is so true. And he promised us that if we will sincerely pray with our investigators, read the Book of Mormon with them, and get them to attend church then they will progress. So we really applied that this week and it totally works! Like last night we went by Gloria's house and read the Book of Mormon with her and it totally works! Same with Aura and Fernando. We went back and read the Book of Mormon with them and they're a lot more receptive and it's amazing. Also for zone conference lunches they bring in some chefs from the CCM and I miss that food haha it was sooo good. Zone conference was amazing in every way possible and things are starting to progress a lot faster here now. I can't wait for the next one.

The night of zone conference I started my first 24 hour divisions with my district leader Elder Benson.

He is so awesome and we probably spoke too much English overall but it was great. We work really well together and got 2 investigators who didn't want to come to church agree to come. One of them ended up being out of town on Sunday but this next week she should be coming. We also got Dominos!! I got Dominos with Elder Aquino this week too

I also finally decorated my agenda with a story from an old ensign called a sure witness that I totally had the exact same experience so I put that picture on my agenda 

We did some redecorating

We also got some more water. They come in these tiny bags that you open with your teeth 

These are some pics from when we went to this thing kinda like the DI here. Megapaca 

utah state is aight but...

BYU is the BEST SCHOOL IN THE WORLD

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So that was a decent letter, good job Elder Wride today. I told him the big new from our side - we are having a boy. I had the ultrasound on Aug 28th, I'm due in January, which is when Joseph's birthday is. So kinda appropriate to have Joseph's replacement be a boy born in January. Here is his reply to my email -

I didn't have time to read the whole email but I took pictures of it to read.
ITS A BOY!!! Mom we don't have a B do we

What if his name was Benjamin

And I'm his older Brother Joseph who is gone (in Guatemala/Egypt) haha I don't know but that's what I would vote the name to be. Benjamin. Even though it doesn't follow the pattern really.

I'm super excited for Natalie to start Kindergarten and miss you guys but the work is going well here. I need to take more time to write in my journal.

So I'll read the rest of this email during the week but looks like things are going great there and I really Love you all!! Wish happy birthday to Abi on Monday and Sophie tomorrow and tell them that I loved the pictures they sent.

Oh also when is the next package?

Yeah, about that package... well, I hope you didn't have anything you wanted to tell me about it, cause that would be unfortunate, seeing as I asked you 3 times in 3 different emails if you had any requests. But you must have missed my notes or you ran out of time before being able to reply to my to your question above, so drat. Now I don't really know what to send ya. I'll just have to pray and try to be really in tune. I have been reading two books that I've ordered to send (A Remnant Shall Return and the Apocrypha), but they don't arrive until Saturday, and I have to have the package at Ikea at 10:30 am, so I might need to send you my copy. That could be fun for him though, cause it has all my notes in the margins, so it could be like we're studying it with me. :) Since he mentioned redecorating his room, maybe a few things for the walls? Something birthday-ish for Elder Aquino, and maybe we'll find some BYU paraphernalia for him too. Feel free to comment below with suggestions :)