July 31, 2011

Hey!
How's everyone doing this week? It has been another great week here, full of surprises and miracles. We have seen the hand of the Lord extended down from the heavens, blessing us with people to teach and great spiritual experiences. This last week we had the opportunity to see a girl from our ward get baptized and tomorrow we will have another one! The girl that is getting baptized tomorrow is named Tania and it is truly a miracle that we found her. She is an 18 year old from a native tribe in Ecuador that came down to Chile with her friend about 2 months ago to get away from that culture. She has been really good and coming to church every week but her only problem has been that she didn't want to commit to something that she wasn't ready to do. I think that she might have felt a little pressured by us and for that reason also it took her a little bit of time. We had been teaching her every other day for about 2 or 3 weeks and she wasn't progressing so we decided to "drop" her for a week. We went by on Thursday and she wondered why we hadn't been by in a week to see her and she commented that she really liked church on Sunday and that she had been praying a lot. After teaching her the lesson that we had planned to teach her she told us that she couldn't wait for Sunday and we asked her why. Then she responded, "I am getting baptized on Sunday!" Both me and my companion were shocked and couldn't believe what we had just heard but we kept our composure and told her that we would set up her baptismal interview for the next day. She had her interview yesterday and she will be getting baptized tomorrow. O yea, and we also have someone named Franklin that we are teaching who has the goal to get baptized a week from tomorrow....PRAY FOR HIM!!!
On a lighter note, today for P-day we did some service in the morning , went over to President Humphrey's house, made tacos and played pool. Oooo and I remember something funny that happened this week. About 2 months ago some of the missionaries in my district made a video for me where they sang this song that was really funny and this week in our mission conference President played it in front of the whole mission on the projector during lunch. So the whole mission saw it and now I am famous here in the mission. Also, I got put in charge of planning a soccer tournament for all of the Zone leaders of the mission on Monday that we will be playing before the leadership conference the President is doing (I put myself on Elder Kellers team haha). Another cool thing that will be happening this week is that Elder Tueller is coming back to the mission (he broke his ankle and left for surgery). He will be here on Thursday and I will have to have him ready to take over the office and our sector when I leave for my new sector on Tuesday.
It sounds like all is well back in AZ and up there in UT. I love the pictures that you guys sent me in the email and it looks like everyone is doing awesome. It is crazy to think that Austin is engaged already and that so much has changed back home. I miss you guys a ton and love you more than you will ever know. Also, I am soooo proud of David and the decision he has made, I know he will never regret his decision and that he will be one of the best missionaries in the entire world. It is sad that he doesn't have the support of everyone back there in AZ but I know that the reward will out way the sacrifice and difficulties that he has and will experience in these next 2 years. I love you guys all a ton.
The one and only,
Elder Cody Dastrup