Dusty's Email - 1/12/09

Family,

I’m glad to hear that your enjoying my favorite show without me:( But anyway I’m glad to hear Mom is feeling better and up and moving around. Thanks for mailing out a blanket so quickly. I’ll probably get it here soon I hope. Dad, I’m excited to here that you passed your test and that your going to go for the harder one now. atta boy.

Yes Dad I was actually at a members house yesterday eating while he had the Steelers game on and he was telling me that the Cardinals destroyed the Panthers. He’s in love with the Steelers and said that he hopes that the Cards and the Steelers make it to the super bowl----because he said we’re going to eat at his house and he’s will bring investigators for us to “teach”. hahaha.

Here in Pachuca it’s been nice. We had a baptism this last week. Kinda funny story though. He was a reference from another set of missionaries, they called me last week and said that an investigator had moved into our area and that he’s almost ready for baptism. So we went to his house on Tuesday to visit him, and he’s been an investigator for 5 years. He has had various dates for a baptism but is real insecure so when like a challenge came and he got scared and didn’t get baptized. But we visited him and answered questions that he had. Then we talked about baptism with him and he looked at his watch and his planner and said, can it be before 4? haha. His family, who are all members, wanted to come so we pushed it to Saturday. But his response cracks me up.

So Saturday came and in the morning I had to go out to Tulancingo which is about an hour away, to work one of the Zone leaders for a part of the day. One of the leaders, Elder Flores, has a real strong way about him....real blunt. While he was with my companion he visited 2 of the families that we have. There are in total, 9 people between these two families. I felt like something was wrong when I returned, and sure enough there was. On the way back to Pachuca I got a call from this elder and he told me that the Bishop wasn’t going to allow us to baptize this guy. So I tried calling the Bishop but his phone was off. As this was going on, Jorge, the man we were going to baptize, started to show his insecure side, even with his family and friends there.

By the time I got to the church I was a bit frustrated, but we did get a hold of the Bishop. There had been a bit of a mix up at fault of the Ward Mission Leader, and Jorge was still able to get baptized. All was well.

But these other two families that this Elder visited are different story. They are just awesome families that have baptism dates and everything. Well, they didn’t come to church on Sunday. We went by the house of one of them and the wife made a comment about this other Elder that visited them yesterday and about some of the things that he said. They were real strong. The other family we couldn’t get a hold of, but we’ll keep trying. I wasn’t happy with this Elder, so I called him. He just had a bunch of excuses and tried to put the blame on me....I wasn’t happy because its two families....families that could be sealed together forever, and he mowed them over and made them feel scared. We went by last night, and I talked to them and apologized and sure enough they all said that they didn’t like the way this Elder treated them. We talked and answered their questions and they are all good again. They are excited for their baptisms and all. Unfortunately, this same Elder will interview them for their baptism. So we’ll see. But the family is just awesome.

My companion and I are doing well. We are teaching well, working hard and seeing the benefits.

President is beginning to raise the bar with the leaders and their responsibilities. But I love it out here, it’s so awesome.

I have to run. Oh yeah the son of President Bulloch is the Assistant to the President in the Milan, Italy mission, so I am pretty sure that we would know Todd.

Love ya
Elder Howard