Dusty's Email -- 4/13/09

Hey,

 This last week was quite a good one. We had our zone conference on Wednesday, and it was great to hear from President Bulloch and the assistants. we got to do a part. We taught about how to teach the second lesson which went really well we thought. President Bulloch spoke on the Book of Mormon, because I think that I told you guys, but as a mission we have started an intense study of the Book of Mormon. I think what’s so amazing about President Bulloch is that he can talk about something that all of us have heard before, but put it in a way that you`ve never heard and help you to realize new things. How amazing it was. I’ll have to share with you guys some of his talks when I get back. 

The week was pretty bad for the zone, we fell way short of the goal that we had, and this week doesn’t look much better. Elder Pickup and I are trying to find a way to motivate the districts, because there are just a lot of Elders that don’t have the urgency that they should have. which is where we have to help them understand, but in a way that excites them.

I`m glad to hear that Josh is ok and nothing went bad in the earthquake there in Rome. Curtis comes home the 5 of July. So yeah, he’ll be home soon.

The person that called mom, yeah who knows. That doesn’t ring any bells, maybe it was just someone that was messing around. Who knows. From the info you gave me I have no idea who it was.

The Easter here lasts from Thursday till Sunday. It’s called the Holy Week. The people just do a bunch stuff, like walk in the street with a statue of Christ and sing. So it is a bit different, but there were also a lot of drunks, but nothing bad happened. All the stores close down, everywhere. We wanted to get two people married this week so they could get baptized, and the only opportunity that we had was Wednesday, which we spent most of the day with President Bulloch in the church.

So the ex-Elder that’s been robbing the houses. He started doing it while he was here in the mission - he was a zone leader in some parts of the mission so he knows where all the Elders live. So when the last mission President, President Littlefield, caught him, he put him in prison and he was excommunicated. He actually said a lot of things to President Littlefield about how he was going to do stuff to his family. President Littlefield had to have protection 24/7. But now this ex-Elder is out of prison and robbing the houses again. He is dangerous, so hopefully no Elder will try and fight him if they walk in on him.

It sounds like you have quite a responsibility on your hands with the new kids. It will be a bit tough seeing as they are deaf. I hope that you guys can help them and that everything goes good.

I got your packages this last week. Both of them. Thank you so much for all the stuff. We need to find an oven to be able to cook the brownies, but we are real excited to eat them. At night my companion and I lay on our beds and read each other the jokes on the wrappers of the Laffy Taffy, and laugh together about how lame they are. We are going do the Easter egg hunt, I promise that we`ll do it. 

This last week we talked to a number of people. One of the ladies gave us her information, and we went to her house to share the message, and only her and her son were there. They talked a lot and we didn’t really get a chance to share the message, so we left a Book of Mormon, described what it is and left a part for them to read. We returned two days later and the Mom said that she hasn’t had a chance to read because her son has been reading the book ever since we left and knows that its true and just can’t put it down. 

So that excited us, but also in this visit, almost the rest of her family was there, so we described our message, and walked out of the house with 6 new investigators that all came to church on Sunday. In all, the family has about 8 members. The other two had to work on Sunday but are coming this week with us. They have a lot of problems that they want us to help them with, they really want to know how to forgive, and the thought has come to my mind a couple of times to share what’s happened with us and the girls with them and how we had to learn to forgive, so we`ll see if I get the opportunity to.

Things are well here. Today we got permission to go to the central of Mexico City, because we wanted to buy some things. I needed to get a new suit and they have them pretty cheap there. This guy in our ward says that he knows a guy with a place. So we went there today, and let me just tell you, this guy has the hookups - I bought 2 suits...nice suits for 800 pesos. Which is about 75 bucks. So now I have a blue, a black and brown one. My black suit, the coat didn’t match the pants. The pants were lighter than the coat, so it looked a bit funny. Remember I bought some pants awhile back, because my suit pants got too small. The new black pants didn’t match the suit coat, it was close, but now, after months of work and weeks of wash, they are real different. haha. The suits are slick, I’ll send pictures. 

That’s about it from here. Elder Pickup and I are just trying to get our zone more excited to be here working.

Love you and thanks for the packages again oh and the tape too:)

Elder Howard