FAMILY HELLO!
Thank you for all your emails I loved them so much and the pictures! Mom and Nae look festive as ever (Nice hair moms). And I’m so glad Grandpa’s party went well, and that Dad hasn’t killed the dogs yet! Blake is looking great! And it was good to see the Ydes, tell them I say hi and that I love them!
Man, so I LOVE BROWNSVIlLE already! It is sooo pretty here! And I LOVE my area and members and everything about it! Our area is huge and packed with members! We are basically opening a new area because 3/4 of our area got white washed by Elder Jackson and his comp about 3 weeks ago and so we are completely new to it. It’s pretty cool because all the missionaries go to the English Ward together so we are just "some missionaries" in that ward. But me and Elder Jackson are the only Elders in our little Spanish Branch and it is SOOO SWEET! The building is an old doctor’s office, in the middle of our area and we are Rockstars there! All the members love us and want to feed us and it is so much fun! In the branch there were 5 families, some from across the border, who got assigned to come to this branch and help get it started and it is making great strides. I love it too, because everyone knows and loves the missionaries! We prepare and bless the sacrament, we play the piano (Self player) and we translate too! (Funny story for the end of the email) But I’ve already met all the members there, and am soo excited to work with them and they all have that new branch fire about missionary work. It’s called the Casa Linda Branch because it was started a few months ago in a casa (house).
So besides my awesome area I have an awesome comp too! I love him! Elder Jackson is from a small town east of Idaho Falls. He had a hard time last transfer with his other comp but man, we get along really well and are teaching together pretty well. We are so stoked about the work here and this new area and as well about our investigators. We are working with 2 families right now who are super solid. The Hernandez family (mom, Alejandra(15), Andrea (9)) And I love them! They all have bd’s (baptismal dates) and came to church and Alejandra is going to girls camp this next week. They will be baptized on the 17th. The only hard part is they are puro espanol and Andrea is deaf. So we are trying to teach her and learn sign language but she has a hard time with sign language so I just end up drawing pictures to teach her, which is really fun for me haha! But this family has a very special spot in my heart already. And as well we are working with another family that is huge! Only 2 of them made it to church because of sickness but they are doing great too. It was pretty cool to see all the members loving our investigators and just getting involved and it is just soo good! I’m super excited for these families and we have a great week planned out to find some more great people.
So the funny story for the week is there is one white guy in the Spanish Branch who is from Germany, his wife is Spanish, but can’t really speak English at all! Weird I know. I guess they just speak the language of love. HAHA! So he has a THICK German accent and after I got introduced in front of the branch we started testimony meeting and he asked if I could translate for him. So in his thick German accent he starts talking about the war and bombs and all this stuff and I start cutting so many corners to translate to the branch. haha And it was pretty funny! For Example: Brother Lighthammer: "When I was in Germany they dropped bombs on us and gassed us out and the convoys charged in to take out the remaining survivors!!!!!" Elder Smith’s translation: "I had a lot of hard times in Germany, with the war and all." HAHA Very powerful testimony! But it was a good way for the branch to get to know me haha.
Well that’s all for today family! I better get going, but I hope you know I love you all and I hope everyone isn’t sending stuff to Laredo still haha! But if so I’m sure it’ll find its way to me! I Love you all and am so proud of you! You’re the best and thank you for your emails, letters, and pictures. Take care this week and be safe.
Until next week,
