November 8, 2010

Hey Everyone!
We had another really good week out here in Volcanes and we are looking at a lot of future success! We have a baptism scheduled for this week for Laura, she is a single mother who has 3 kids and their dad is in prison. I have never seen somebody with such difficult circumstances in my entire life. She has been sharing with us for a while but recently has found the desire to be baptized and go to church every week. It is a miracle what we are witnessing out here in Volcanes. I met Laura my 1st cambio in the mission with Elder Garcia and I remember thinking that there is no way in the world that this lady is ever getting baptized, WHAT A LACK OF FAITH! Slowly she has progressed and her day is here. She is being blessed by the Lord already and I can't wait to see the miracles in her life after the baptism. Her kids are ages 1,3 and 5. They don't have a dad and we are the only guys that they have in their life (all of the men that live on their street are in jail, haha) but I am worried that when I leave the sector the kids are going to be really sad. I can admit that I never really liked visiting this family at first. They live in the most ghetto street that exists in our mission and their house is small, dirty and just a bad environment...but over the last 3 weeks or so I have really found a love for this family and I am really excited to baptize her this week. We have a couple other baptisms coming up in the next couple of weeks too but I will talk more about them when the time comes.

Everyone always asks about he food here and the weather and stuff so... I thought I would let you know a little bit more. The weather right now is warm in the day (like in the 80's) and at night it still gets pretty cold (50's). We had a lot of rain and wind this week which is miserable but it could definitely be a lot worse. This week we didn't have a lot of good lunches but we had something called gnnocis, it's Italian food and is pretty good. Here the things that they eat or sell in the street more than anything are Completos (hot dogs w/guacamole and tomatos), Sopapillas, Papas Fritas (French Fries), Churrascos (sandwich) and Anticucha (like shishkabob). this one lady sells Anticucha by our house and everyone in the ward tells me not to eat it because the meat is dog meat but it's so good and I buy it like every night, haha.

I am doing good really good though and had a really good week. We found a lot of people and we have way more potential in our sector than we have had in the past month. I am working my butt off and it's really paying off and I am excited to see where we will be in a month from now. Thanks for all the support, the letters and the packages. I love you all so much and hope this next week is the best week of your lives.

Yours truly,
Elder Cody Dastrup