Mormon Hunters & First Baptism

Dear Famiree,

Thanks for your letters! Caiti wanted some cool stories to share with her seminary class. Let's see if I can think of one. Hmmm....Oh! I remember an interesting one. A missionary that just got transferred into our district got shot a couple weeks ago.... He was tracting out in the country with his companion (obviously... :)) Anyway, apparently a couple of twelve-year-old kids were out hunting for Mormons that day. They shot him in the back with a pellet gun and ran away screeching.... He thought his companion hit him in the back and then his companion saw the hole in his shirt. Anyway, he's fine. He had to have surgery from a redneck doctor in a redneck hospital. It took them an hour just to find the pellet (with x-rays...) and the doctor wouldn't put him under...so he was awake the whole time.... I can only imagine: "Nope...not there...nope...not there either...ah ha! There's the little stinker!" Makes for a good story though. Not many missionaries can say they got shot on their mission. :) (Yes mom, he was on the other side of the mission, nowhere near this area...) Anyway, there's an interesting story for you.

On a less weird, more mission-related note, I had my first baptism on Thursday! His name is Fabricio. His uncle, the first counselor in the branch presidency, baptized him. True to form, there was a HUGE fiesta afterwards. We didn't even know there was going to be food or anything after the baptism. Fabricio's mom just showed up with a 40-lb caramel cake with whipped frosting that was almost as good as mom's cakes but not quite, 20 liters of soda, hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, and a piñata.... The ENTIRE branch showed up. We had around 60 people at the baptism. I got to give a talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost...in Spanish...in front of 60 Hondurans, Argentinaites (not sure what the right way to say it is, so I figured I'd just follow the example of the Book of Mormon), and Mexicans that speak little to no English. That was fun...I'm glad the Spirit speaks to the heart and not to the ears in whatever language that slightly resembles Spanish that I was probably speaking. Anyways, it went really well.

In all honesty, my Spanish is actually progressing very well. I can understand about 70% of everything anyone says to me (including in church :)) and I can pretty much say whatever I want to say; albeit often using weird verbs that don't quite make perfect sense here and there.

Anyway, the work is progressing very well in this area. We're working our tails off and are having a lot of success. We're currently working with the branch priesthood leadership and the stake to change the meeting schedule to 7-10 am so that more members and almost all of our investigators can attend sacrament meeting. The biggest problem we have in this area with members and nonmembers alike is working during church meetings. With this change, we will increase attendance in sacrament meeting by members by around 25% and by investigators by around 400%. We hope to be able to turn the branch into a ward by the end of the next transfer. We almost have the priesthood necessary to fill all the callings and already have as many in sacrament meeting as the English ward. We're all praying for the Lord's continuing support and preparation of His kingdom in this area. I've seen lots of miracles and see lots more to come.

Elder Raymond