Week 17 Report - Lo De Coy - TAMALES

I've heard that the pouch mail to Guatemala doesn't work, but I tried it anyway and sent Joseph a letter about a month ago, then another the week after that. Today he got one, I'm not sure if it was the first letter or the second, but yay, I told him I'll start to send a weekly letter to that address for him, just for fun, and we'll see how many he gets.

"Hey Mom I got your letter!!!!

"I would LOVE to get pics in letters as well. It is preferable. I can download the pictures you send onto a USB but I haven't yet because I normally run out of time and the best I can do is take a picture of the email and the pictures in the email. The letter arrived at the mission offices (both yours and Annies!) and today during interviews Hermana Shumway gave them to me. They don't see that a whole lot and I know that pouch hasn't worked with other missionaries because Elder Dustin in my zone was like "WHAT?!"when she gave it to me but I'm super happy they got here. I like the physical copies a lot more too."

I did send some pics in one of the letters, I think the second, so maybe this was the first. I am going to write him again, you can write him too! I'm sure he'd love to hear from you, and if it actually goes through and gets to him, well even better, he'll have such a nice surprise! Here's Joseph's report for the week -
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         Subject: TAMALES           

This week was great!! Lots of miracles and lots of tamales. And one of those miracles happened because of some tamales.

First off though I hit an important milestone this week. I went through my first pair of shoelaces!!

Elder Erikson said it wasn't a milestone it just means I have bad shoelaces hahah because he has a year and is still on his first pair of shoelaces. He also leaves his tied all the time. Anyways so I was excited about that. 

Last thursday was basically p-day part 2 because we woke up early to go to THE TEMPLE! It was amazing as the temple always is and right after that we had our interviews with President Shumway. Sadly I didn't get a picture of either of those but I did get a picture when we went to krispy kreme.

Also I got stung by a wasp on my finger this past sunday and it hurt SO BAD for like 30 minutes and was really red but then it was fine. I felt something on my neck so I went to scratch it and then I touched the wasp and it stung me. 

Now a little bit about the miracles happening in this part of the Lords Vineyard.

So yesterday we had a TON of appointments and were running super behind. We had lunch 2 hours late and had to go twice that day to Campanero which is like the furthest part of our area. But all our appointments fell through so we went from super busy to not having up plans for that night so with an hour until we had to be home we had no idea where we should go. We were sitting on this piece of cement outside a little gated community. Not a bench necessarily but just this giant slab of cement that happened to be there haha who knows why. So were sitting there looking though our agendas and the phone for who we could visit. Then a lady, probabaly about 30 years old or so came out of the little gated community we had just been in and asked us if we wanted some tamales. Of course we said yes and she seemed super nice. Actually at first glance I would have guessed she was a member. Elder Aquino was kind of suspicious though because in his last area this happened to him and that lady was loca. But I felt good about it so we went she gave us some tamales. We met her dad and her husband and as she was finishing up the tamales she was asking us about who we were and what we do and so we talked about how we're missionaries and we talked about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and she was SUPER interested in the message. Normally I only carry 1 Book of Mormon with me but that morning I felt like I should bring 2. One we gave to a guy named Luis earlier in the day and I now know why I was supposed to bring that extra Book of Mormon. We told her about what it was and about John 10:16 and 3 Nephi 15:21 and she wrote the reference down so she could find it later. She is evangelical christian or something like that and is called Jessica. She was also asking us about when we have church so that she could come! She has family that are members and that live in Utah but she's never really talked to the missionaries. The more we said though the more interested in the message she got. And we took the tamales home to eat and they were delicious.

Just to put it out there this kind of stuff literally never happens, ESPECIALLY in neighborhood with pisto (money) which this one was. When we contact in parts like this no one wants to let us in, let alone come up to us and ask if we want tamales and then ask for a Book of Mormon. The first chance Elder Aquino and I had when she wasn't looking we made eye contact with a look that said "what in the world is going on??". So we left a Book of Mormon with her and are going to visit again on Thursday. So yeah double miracle because we got a super pillas contact AND dinner.

That day we also found a super pillas family that will progress A LOT. So stay tuned to hear about them.

Also Lorena passed her baptismal interview this past Sunday! She's scheduled to get baptized this weekend. She's now come to church 3 times and I think it's a little soon and personally wish we could teach her a little more but the only days we can are Sundays and last Sunday she called us saying that she received an answer that she should be baptized so this past Sunday we taught all the lessons. Like I said I wish we had more time to teach her and I hope it sticks but she wants to be baptized before Elder Aquino leaves. This is Elder Aquino's last week with me by the way. Lorena has made a lot of friends in the ward though and every Sunday has come by herself. It's hard to believe that in the early days of the church people were baptized literally the same night the missionaries found them! And then left everything and moved to Utah. That is a lot of faith. Like the John Tanner movie and also the movie Only a Stonecutter.

The tamales we ate yesterday was the second time we ate tamales this week! Here are some pics of the first time haha

In total this week I ate like 5 tamales. Just getting ready for Christmas where apparently you eat un monton de tamales.

Anyways so the work here is going GREAT and next week I'll have a step dad.

Invitation this week is to listen to Ted R Callister's talk about the Book of Mormon. It is not only the keystone of our religion but can also be the keystone of our testimonies so make sure you really have a testimony of the Book of Mormon before you leave because people really try to rip it apart in the mission field.

Also here's a pic from weeks ago when we had lunch at our ward mission leaders house who lives on the top of a mountain.

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So I watched the John Tanner story several times, I showed it to Corey and the kids this past Monday - really neat. And I've started to read the Ricciardi letter, that's good too. Our homework for this week, I'll put the link here again, is Tad R. Callister's talk on the Book of Mormon given at the October 2017 General Conference. GREAT TALK, I love that one, it was just packed start with "it's true or it's not" from the beginning (and it's true!) so go listen to that one if you haven't. I'm grateful to know the Book of Mormon is true, which also lets me know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is true and led by Christ today through is living prophet. It's all true, and no one has to take anyone else's word for it - we can each know for ourselves. God can and will and does speak to us, pray and ask and he will speak to you.