Karina Baptism/ Transfers

Dear Family, (Note from Mary:  This is from Monday, May 23rd)
It is so good to hear how all of you are doing. The period key on this computer doesn´t work very well, so sorry if there are a few missing periods. Sounds like you guys had an amazing last week. I have never been to Universal Studios, but it looks amazingly fun. And it sounds like you had some other interesting moments in that trip. I'm sorry mom that you are feeling sick...I hope you get better. Here in Mexico, whenever you get sick...it doesn't matter what you have, they give you a shot in the butt. I know how you feel. Congratulations Jenna on graduating I am very proud of you!!! You are super old now. Good luck everyone in the ALA show tomorrow, and with trek!!!! How Fun!!!!

Here it just gets hotter and hotter. This week has been horrible as far as the heat goes. It is brutal!!! It is so hot here that I sweat while I am sleeping, even with a fan on me. My companion and I have not slept very well the past week because we keep waking up super hot and sweating. We moved our beds in front of our front door (biggest window in the house) and sleep with the windows on the door open to try to cool down. I'll send a picture next week of that. I tried showering the other night to cool off, but the water is hot too!!! It is just crazy hot!! But I'm sweating off weight:) That's good. There are literally no people in the streets. Everyone is in their houses with clima (air conditioning). In the afternoon, it looks like a ghost town here!!

Roque (recent convert) making a hammock

So, Elder Velazquez got transfers today:(  I was only with him for three weeks:(  I'm going to miss him, but I got my new companion....Elder Mendez. He has 21 months in the mission and as far as I can tell, is a really good missionary. I'm excited to work with him.

This week was really awesome as far a missionary work goes. Karina got baptized!!!! It was so sweet. On Sunday, after she was confirmed, she came up to Elder Velazquez and I and started crying as she thanked us for everything we had done for her. For teaching her and inviting her. She said that she really felt different and that she is never going to forget how she felt in that moment. She also told us that she wants to serve a mission!!!! That was super cool to hear. We are working with her to get an interview with the bishop for her temple recommend so that she can go very soon.

Karina's Baptism

Last Sunday in Stake Conference a sister in the ward brought her sister. Last week we went and visited her. Her name is Maria de Rosario, and she is a single mom of two little kids. When we set up the appointment with her sister, she told us that a lot of missionaries had taught her before, but that none have been able to baptize her...but if we wanted, we could visit her, so we gave it a shot. It was kind of a crazy lesson. We taught her outside of her house, and her kids, nieces and nephews, and the neighbor kids were all running around, playing, and screaming. It seemed that every time we could feel the Spirit strongly, we were interrupted by something else going on, but we kept going with the lesson. We got to the first vision, and she was feeling the Spirit really strong, so we started preparing the baptismal invitation. The second we invited her, her nephew started screaming. He had gotten ran over by a tri-cycle, and cut his hand open...really deep (blood everywhere)!!! It totally killed the moment. So, we stopped the lesson, helped get him cleaned up and I wrapped up his hand. We were just going to end the lesson there, and come back another time to invite her to be baptized, but we felt prompted to invite her there, in that moment. So...we did, and she accepted!!!! It was soooo cool! We learned that we can't be the judge of when others feel the Spirit or not, because when we thought that the Spirit had gone, it was still there and still really strong. We also learned that you always have to be aware of Spiritual promptings, or you will miss special opportunities. She came to Karina's baptism on Saturday and is super excited for hers.

This week we also found a new investigator named Añuar. He is really cool, and he actually contacted us. He stopped us as we were passing by his house and asked us about the Book of Mormon. We sat and talked to him answering his questions. He had a lot. Later in the week we went back to teach him lesson one, and he accepted baptism. He was going to come to church on Sunday, but he had a problem with his family. We are going to visit him tomorrow to see how he is and if we can get him to come to church this week.

Lady and her daughters had a hard week this week. We weren't able to find them at the beginning of the week. On Thursday we found them at last in their house and they told us what was going on that week. Lady's father died...and it was very hard on all of them. They were all crying and looking for comfort. We taught about the Plan of Salvation and how they will be able to see him again, if they do everything required of them in this life. It was an amazing Spirit filled lesson, and they all felt better at the end. Lady had to work on Sunday because she took off work at the beginning of the week, so she couldn't come to church. She gave her daughters permission to come, but when we went to pick them up, they had lost permission because one of them was in trouble. (We couldn't convince the mom because she was working) but we are planning on getting them to church this week. They all really want to go, they just have to figure out how. We are praying really hard for them.

We keep looking for news everyday. Trying to find those people that are waiting to hear the message of the Restoration. It's not easy...especially with this heat, but it is where I want to be and I'm doing what I want to be doing.

I Love you all so much and I'll talk to you all next week.

Love,

Elder Cavenee

Roque (recent convert) making a hammock

Karina's Baptism (Bishop is standing next to me. We are really good friends)