Snow, turkey, and #miracles

Dear family,

Heyyy everyone! How is everything going? Everything here is going swell. I'm a little bit sick, but I can't really complain. We got some snow this week! It was pretty exciting. It melted real rápido (fast) but it was still suuuuuuuper cold for a couple days there. But anyway, we only have a half p-day today, so I'll be signing off at 2pm. We have an all day p-day for Thanksgiving, but we won't be able to email, so happy Thanksgiving in advance! We still haven't solidified our Thanksgiving plans yet, but we've gotten several invitations from different members in the ward and stake. The sad thing is they're like all at the same time :( I'm ready to engordarme (get fat) though. Here's some of the highlights of the week:

Monday

P-day! We had the English elders in our stake living with us for the first week, and they didn't move out until Tuesday, so it was a little hard to clean the apartment. Its been super fun to have more than two elders in the apartment though! I'm extra grateful for two showers right now :) We went shopping together with a member, who then took us to our zone activity afterwards. I don't like having to rely on members for rides, but I'm so grateful for their willingness to help out. For zone activity we played some soccer, volleyball, and basketball. It was a good time :) After we got home, we had a lesson with a girl in our ward who's parents are less active but wants to get baptized. Her name is Hatziry, after a Mexican reporter named Ahtziry :) Its those kinds of names that you have to ask them to repeat like three times and then ask them to spell it out haha. Lessons are kind of hard with her because she hardly talks, and so its hard to ask questions, but we're planning to just make the lessons super engaging and fun. Afterward we went to visit the Moreno family...they're struggling on both the spiritual and temporal sides. They had to sell some of their furniture the other day to be able to "move forward." They have the belief that if they put God first He can help them in their lives, but its hard for them to put that belief into action. After that we walked back up to the apartments and talked to a couple people on the way. Nothing else too crazy happened. It is starting to get pretty cold though.

Tuesday...what happened on Tuesday? Nothing much. That I can remember. We did have a great lesson with Guadelupe. I taught her a lot last time was here. We read Alma 32 and taught the principle of faith. She's seems a lot more happy to have us in her home than last time I was here. I didn't really notice it before but she seems more relaxed now.

Wednesday

We had our usual Wednesday morning lesson with Juan. We finally got a member to come with us! It has been super hard to find someone at 11am because everyone is at work or getting kids to school. But Hermano Carrasco was able to come with us and so that was really good. They both have about the same age so we thought it would be a good match up. Lessons are still kind of hard to control just because Juan likes to talk a ton. He has lots of doubts and is skeptical about things like tithing and priesthood authority. We think that if He is patient and tries to work through it with prayer and study he can get over those doubts, but recently it seems like he's just been throwing in the towel a little bit. After the lesson we went to Hermano Carrasco´s house for lunch. We made eggs with Chorizzo Salvadoreño. Im getting the hang of eating with just tortillas. And of course he made the usual "agua de melon" (water melon). La comida pura mexicana (pure mexican food) haha! We came back home to finish language study, and then we went out to work in the trailer parks. We had a good daily contact with Hermana Andrade and shared with her some scriptures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon about why both are important. It went really well! We also stopped by Griselda and a few other people, but no one was really home. 

Thursday

It snowed overnight! We had a DL meeting in the morning with the zone leaders. It was good. But the walk there we FROZE. We had weekly planning and a lesson with Hatziry and the recent convert Flores Family! The Flores family made us empanadas and hot chocolate and the lessons with Hatziry went really well, and she was a lot more involved which was good. So it was a pretty good night.

Friday we had district meeting and district lunch. We have such a fun district :) we didn't have any lessons in the afternoon, so it was kind of long until dinner. The Moreno family wasn't there for the lesson that we scheduled, which stunk. and they don't have a telephone right now, nor are they living in their house at the moment. But we'll find a way :) We did have a good lessons with a returning less active named Miguel Moreno though (no they're not related).

Saturday we woke up and went almost right away to help hermano Carrasco clean the church. This guy is 70 years old and he works so hard it's ridiculous. But we had a good time with him. Also helped him move some sheet rock and other stuff into his daughters basement while we were at it. After we came home, showered, and studied for a little while, we had a lesson with the Andrade family. It was super spiritual! We felt like we should invite them to be be baptized and they said YES! Both the mom and the dad! It was the biggest miracle! They still have a long ways to go, but that was he most exciting thing all week and probably ever since I've been here!

Sunday was also awesome because Hno. Andrade came to church for the first time! Hna Andrade didn't make it, but there were still tons of people at church. Guadelupe came, Hatziry came, and Gloria Trajera! She's the one that showed up at church a couple weeks back and wanted us to teach and baptize her but then didn't show up to any of the lessons we set up. But she came today and she has a cell phone now! Miracles! I got sick on Sunday, but everything else that happened kind of overwhelmed that.

Today has been a short but good p-day. I'm really looking forward to turkey day. :) Its gonna be a great week! Love you all! Enjoy Thanksgiving! You should all watch he video "Because of Him." It's kind of old, but it's a great reminder of Him who really gave us the most to be thankful for. 

Love you all!

Elder Baxter 

that front row tho :)