Hey Family!
How is everybody? First of all that was
so cool to get the voice recording in the email!!! I was super stoked to hear
everybody’s voices. Sounds like you had an awesome time this weekend for Thanksgiving!
I am glad you all got to go to Salt Lake, it’s always better with the whole
family. I think I will tell you about my Thanksgiving a little bit later. So Coop’s
team took 2nd in their tournament? Was it in Salt Lake or St. George? That’s so
exciting tell him good job for me and that he should write me and tell me about
it. I haven’t heard from him or Mary in a while.
So dad asked a little about Christmas.
Truth is I haven’t heard a whole lot of it. One sister in our ward told me that
in Mexico everybody is poor, but in December nobody is. Basically they eat
really well in December. I have heard that it’s basically a party for the whole
month of December, but I am not sure. The other thing they do here is they eat
a lot of tamales, so I have been able to try a couple of them already. They are
so good!!! The other thing about Christmas, yes we can use Skype, we have to
find someone in the ward with a webcam but that should be okay. We only get 40
minutes but that is better than nothing. So I will set up an account soon. I
still don’t know exactly when.
None of our baptisms went through
this week. The one girl that is 29 started work and we couldn’t visit with
here. The other kid who is 13 years old, his dad was in a car accident Friday
night and we went to the hospital and gave a blessing and all but I am not sure
when he will be baptized either, things are pretty crazy in his family. We don’t
have any planned for this week either... But we found another family and they
are actually interested. Mostly the dad,
which is perfect, because usually they are the ones that don’t want to hear us.
So my Thanksgiving Day was a little
bit different. Okay a lot different. They don’t celebrate it here so nothing
was really different. But we had Zone conference that day. The mission
president told us Happy Thanksgiving and that was about it. But I was thinking
about it a lot. I thought about you guys a lot, and really had my own little Thanksgiving
that night. I thought about all of the things I am thankful for. And how little
I appreciated everything before. I thought about how many times I just put
aside the family time during Christmas or Thanksgiving, to go do something with
my friends or whatever it was, I was tired, I don’t know. I realized how
ungrateful I was. And what I would want to do this time was spend time with
everyone, put up the lights the ornaments, whatever. So I was thinking about
that, and how much I have changed on my mission. And how much more I will
change. Then I thought about one thing that our mission president said in zone
conference: When we leave this area, will we have changed anything? Anyone? How
will the ward, the stake and the church have been strengthened? I thought about
what I had done here. We have not had as much success with baptisms as I would
like but we have had a lot of families that we have helped. I thought of at least
5 in particular, and 5 other individuals. I have been able to strengthen the
church, stake and area here. Even if it hasn’t been through baptisms yet, but I
am confident I will have a few more before I leave Irapuato.
The other thing that happened that
day was we had a lesson with a family we have been re-activating. Elder Valdes
said something that really caught my attention. We have been fasting every week
for the last month to find a family of 4 we can teach the gospel too. This
could be the family. The dad talked about how much his life had changed. The
point is God answers our prayers; there are always ways to strengthen others if
we look for them.
I don’t have a lot of time but I am
thankful you all, and your time. I miss you all and look forward to spending
time with you all when I get back! I really didn’t appreciate it before.
Love you,
Elder Utley
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