Elder Ethan Crisp

Well another week come and gone--its kinda ridiculous how fast these weeks go by. Already it is the last week of this transfer--the changes come in Saturday. I´m positive i´m going to be staying here because we rarely stay for only 1 transfer. Also this Saturday we are going to have a baptism! Cynthia, the girl whose husband and little boy were killed a car accident, leaving her with a broken leg, is going to be baptized. She is a really strong person and its awesome to see her growth. When she prays she always asks that God bless her husband and her son "up in heaven with you" she says. She, though only 16 years old, is that strong of a person. When we taught Word of Wisdom she was kinda surprised that we don´t drink coffee or tea, but said as we were reviewing the lesson "So, I have to stop drinking coffee and tea," like they were nothing (which is true but most people have problems with it). The only problem with her is her physical limitations--we are going to have to see how we have to perform the baptism. But we have days for that. Also this week we saw how awesome the Lord is. The other Elders in our district have been teaching this awesome family; in fact they are going to be baptized this SAt too and we share the building so its gonna be a baptism of 6!. Anyway, we wanted to find a family like that--for the most part here in Mexico the women get baptized but the men no because they don´t wanna stop drinking so it rare. But we were praying to find a family so that all of them can enjoy the blessings of the Gospel. So our plans on Tuesday were all failing left and right so we just started walking and we were walking in a neighborhood with not many prospects as of then. But we decided to contact this house on the corner and we knocked and a woman named Iliana came to the door. She said that she had heard the missionaries before and asked that they come back but they never did. But she let us in and we taught Lesson 1 and it was awesome and she accepted a baptismal date for the 17th of December. But she said that she had 4 kids so we scheduled a time to come back when all were there. So we went back and taught 3 of her four kids and they all accepted dates for that day as well. They didn´t go to church but we´re gonna go back tomorrow and see. Her oldest son, Carlos, told us "I want to change my life for the better and so if i feel that this will change my life I´m gonna follow everything." It was cool to see how the Lord blessed us as we did all that we could to pray and do our part. As for our other investigators: María, who professes to have a bunch of faith is not exercising that faith--she wants to wait until she gets her house back and we´ve been telling her that if she does her part and goes to church, the Lord will bless her, but it hasn´t clicked. It´s kinda frustrating cause we can see its so obvious--when we go to Church there are blessings. For the investiagors, they can´t get baptized if they don´t go to church. She can´t enjoy all the blessings that our Heavenly Father has prepared for her without baptism. So in that respect its frustrating. Also, Karen, the girl whose father was killed went to church. Her mom, Rosio didn´t because their little girl has a cold and it was super windy on Sunday so she didn´t want to leave. But this week it was the primary program so that was cool. That´s pretty much it.

I have been reading in the new testament alot in my studies because i have found it to be absolutely awesome. This week i read in Ephesians and found these awesome verses about foreordination in chapter 1. Dice, "4 According as he hath achosen us in him bbefore the foundation of the world, that we should be choly and without blame before him in love:

5 Having apredestinated us unto the badoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being apredestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." We were chosen before the world was created to be here at this time and in the places that we are at. In the mission it is clear that everything we do is for a reason--there aren´t coinidences in the mission and really there are any in the world. The Lord, in these dispensations, especially this last one coordinates everything: sometimes Satan and the choices of people lead him to go another path, but his will is always completed. For example if Joseph Smith hadn´t of read James and prayed, there would have been another in his place. We, those who are faithful in these latter days have a work that we need to complete in this life. Our job is to keep the commandments and be worthy of the spirit in order to be led to complete this assignment with which we were assigned in the preexistence. IN the mission it is clear, but sometimes its not so clear in the world because we´re not in such a bubble of the spirit like in the mission. Because of that it is super important that we live what we know to be true. My first companion Elder Young said once that we can have a goal to always be worthy of a temple recommend b/c If we´re worthy of a temple recommend, we´re worthy of the spirit and in the end we´ll be worthy to live in the presence of God with our families. That should always be the goal.

Well i got super curious yesterday as to who was going to be the new bishop and i got super excited to find out. Very interesting with the counselors. I´m sure they´ll do great. I didn´t know either that the names went to the first presidency. That´s cool. Its really cooling off here too. It rained on the friday and since then it has been pretty chilly in the morning and not blazing hot in the day. The problem with that is we don´t have a heater for the shower. So yeah its pretty cold. That kinda sucks but whatcha gonna do? Thanksgiving here was just a normal day--obviously they don´t have it here. It was kinda weird but it doesn´t matter. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. As for Christmas, i still don´t know about calling--i´m sure i´ll find out. I was kinda joking about the whole "not being able to speak in English thing." I´ll manage with the English, though i can tell every time i write ya´ll that it´ll be kind of a struggle cause it takes a while to formulate my thoughts in english to write.

As for like a package--i think we are going to have a Christmas devotional on the 8th and I don´t know if i´ll have another chance to get a package before christmas. I´m not sure about that, but just to be sure (if you want and if you can) you can send the package in the next couple days so it gets here by then. If you can´t its okay--i´ll manage until January (cause its like a week later). Like i said i´m not sure about that, but either way its up to ya´ll. Also if you can, i would like a CAMERA CASE--i haven´t looked at cameras yet but i´d like one. MY shoes are doing fine by the way, mom :)

Have an awesome week back at school. Talk to ya next week. I´ll probably have a new companion by then. ¡Que tengan buena semana!

-Elder Crisp ;)