Dusty's Email -- 9/8/2008

Family

I’m  really torn!! 

I’m so excited that Lynette’s baby came and that everything is well with him. I can’t believe that when I get home he’ll be almost 2 years old! That’s so sweet and I’m so excited. 

I'm torn because of the babies, but I know that this is for a reason and its going to be of experience to us. I always have the babies picture on my desk and I always will wherever I am and work for the rest of my life. It sounds like Mom and everyone are getting through this time the best that they can. Which is good and is always good to take steps forward.

Speaking of taking steps forward, everyday has been a challenge but everyday I'm moving forward with the language. It’s difficult to talk with people because they talk so fast and have different dialects and some don’t have all their teeth.....so yeah, they just slur everything together.

Sunday we were going around picking up our investigators for church and we stopped at this little store where we taught this lady to see if she would only come for an hour. We were in the process of convincing her when her husband pulled up in his taxi. The day before we went to check on her and asked him when she'd return and he was drunk and yelled at us that she wasn’t here and to leave. So as he's pulling up this lady and her daughter are telling us to leave. So we do and as we are leaving he gets out of the car and says "venga" which is basically “come here” and of course you don’t go to someone unless you know them, because they most likely will rob you. We were just walking away as he was stumbling, but he said “voy a partir a su madre”. so I stopped because I was confused.

“Cuz partir” is to divide or to part so I was really confused, because it literally means “to part your mom”. But my companion said to come, so we left. I was asking him what he said and I guess that it means “I’m going to beat you up, or hit you”. haha, it was funny because what went through my mind was "my mother isn’t here how can you divide her" haha so it was funny but unfortunate that the husband was standing in the way of his wife getting the Gospel.

This last week was tough Because on Tuesday I was a little down because we had a district meeting and I didn’t understand really anything, but the day got better. Wednesday and Thursday I got sick. Wednesday morning I went to the bathroom 6 times before I left for the day to go teach and stuff. Thursday I felt better because I bought some Pepto Bismol and I didn’t use the bathroom as much but still, more than usual. I was concerned because I thought that I've only been here 2-3 days and somehow the water has gotten into my system. But I just ate something that gave me food poisoning, and the food poisoning here is worse than back home. But I'm better now. We had 10 investigators show up for church yesterday. Which is great because that’s 10 progressing investigators, and 4 of them have a baptismal date for this Sunday. But we hope to baptize close to 10 this month.

Last week was kind of long, like the first couple days in the MTC because I was trying to get use to the schedule and stuff.

Saturday was good and bad though, we went to an investigators house, and he had been just rolling along perfect, but had a ton of doubts now because of the people that attend his church. He was just reeling off all these different things and this and that and said that he needed 90 days to decide to join our church. I finally got sick of it and slammed my hand on the table and said Manuel (of course all this is in Spanish) “You have no faith, there is only one way, one Lord one faith and one baptism, you know that, you said that you know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. What more do you need? You need to trust the Lord, you say that the Lord is all your life and your everything but you doubt this. I know that it’s not easy to change something that you've practiced for almost 60 years but it’s for the Lord”.

It was quiet...like an awkward quiet and it was raining out and he got up and said that he needed to do something outside and so we were talking to his wife for awhile until he returned. When he returned he said that I was right, but still needed time. He knows a lot of English so I talked in English to him and just bore my testimony again, and said that the only reason that we're here and not back at home studying and living life is because we know the power and truthfulness of the message. He thanked us, but asked us to return in 2 weeks. So the work presses on.

Other than that everything is starting to move along and going great. I'm learning everyday and progressing the best that I can. I hope that everything is going well besides the thing with the babies. I will try and send some pictures someway of the baptism.

 Love Elder Howard