Elder Ethan Crisp

Another week gone by--once again I feel like I was just writing you guys. I didn´t get an email from Mom so I don´t know what is up with the package but whatevs--its not that big a deal. Sorry if some of the things i say don´t make sense--i´ve been sick the past couple days and i feel better today but i´m kinda dizzy and my brain´s not working 100%. Well, first some notes: Great news! Actually it kinda sucks. The screen on my camera broke. At some point i must of dropped it or something i don´t remember but its broken. The camera still takes pictures and all that but I have to look through the tiny hole or just guess and obviously i can´t look at how the pictures turned out until i can plug it in to a computer. I don´t think I´ll need to get a new one but i looked at the prices of new ones anyway--there were some going for like 999 pesos which is less than 100 bucks which is pretty good but we´ll see. I didn´t get the chance to see the prices for walkman/speakers cause we didn´t go to Wal Mart today, so i´ll check next week. Mom, if you haven´t sent the package yet, send the CDs with it. I might only have 3 weeks left here in San Blas (i hope) and I don´t know if i´ll be close to like a walmart to buy.

So this week was pretty good. We had a baptism this week. We have been teaching this girl named Flora who is 15. She had already had a strong testimony in Jesus and in the Bible, and right when we gave her a Book of Mormon, she started reading that right away too. The only problem with her was, she stays with a family friend who lives in San Blas for school, one of the members, but lives in a ranchito far away on the weekends with her family so it took longer that it should have but we finally baptized her. Another problem is her mom is a freak. She gave her permission to be baptized but then wouldn´t sign the baptismal record. We made the trip to her house and talked with her mom. She´s catholic and like all catholics has no idea what she believes as a catholic. Alot of catholics have no idea and don´t care, but she thinks she does which is worse. She said she believes in the 10 commandmetns, but doesn´t believe Moses was a prophet cause she doesn´t believe that people can see God and it says in Exodus that he did so therefore she doesn´t believe in the Bible either. She just has really twisted and stupid ideas and beliefs and she wouldn´t sign the paper. So we just had the family friend, Guillermina sign it so its all good. And I got to baptize her--only my second time. That was the only highlight of the week--i got sick on Saturday and felt like crap all day, and then yesterday i was feeling pretty good. WE went to El Fuerte to the chapel there (its the only chapel in the zone) and watched the 1st session of GC....in spanish. That was different, but the interpreters talk clearly so its not a big deal at all. But as we were waiting for the 2nd, i started feeling sick again, and I couldn´t focus through the 2nd cause i was all sore and i had the chills and my head was spinning. So that´s a bummer. But we came home andi got some sleep and then we went and ate dinner with Luis and Veronica, the awesome members i told you all about, and Veronica gave me all these meds and some honey tea stuff and i felt better. I´m still kinda of iffy but its okay.

I studied alot about humility and pacience this week for many reasons. In fact, i studied humility Sat. and prayed for more humility, and got sick like 6 hours later so there you go. Prayer works haha. No but seriously i feel this has been a humbling thing cause even though i was sick i still had to buckle down and teach and i really had to rely on the spirit because my head wasn´t working right and so my Spanish was especially bad. Not only that but I feel more comfortable with my companion. Still i need that drive and that full desire to help people. In spanish its called "ánimo." And so I´m going to study and pray and look for new ways to get that FULL desire to serve people and help them come unto Christ. We have this other investigator (one of our 2 progressing ones) who is 81 years old. Her name is Rosario. We found her by chance and at first I think she only wanted us there for company because she lives alone but we´ve been teaching her and its been great. Its awesome to see the power of the Spirit and the work--finding those people who have been prepared in situations that can´t be a coincidence. We can baptize her this week--we´ll see how that goes--she drinks coffee so we´ll have to deal with that.

Other than that, not much is going on. Our big challenge here is finding people. The members don´t really have references because the truth is everyone is catholic cause they don´t have to do anything and don´t wanna change. So that is something we´ll have to work through. We have some awesome investigators but that makes up only 3. One is the viajita, the other is a woman who was visiting her dad whose a member and might go back to Sonora anytime, and the other might have a hard time going to church cause its far away. That´s the main challenge for people here in the ranches.

Thanks Sis Rock and Nathan for the worldly updates and the spiritual thought. I missed all that from my mom this week--hint hint. JK. I ran out of time to come up with a good spiritual thought for ya´ll this week because i was sick and all that, but next week there´ll be a good one so stay tuned. ¡Que tenga buena semana! (that means i hope you have a good week)

--Elder Crisp