Hey family!
Sounds like you all had a great week! Brooklyn looks so big
in the pictures! And it looks like everyone had a great time dressing up. I got
a kick out of coops costume! Well it sounds like you guys are really busy with everything.
That’s good, we are too!
Well Halloween and the day of the dead here have basically
been pushed into one single holiday. It lasts 3 days. Kids go around asking for
candy for 3 days straight. The bummer is that not many people actually
participate in that tradition, and they think it is dangerous and of the devil because
they have seen some of the American horror movies about Halloween, ha ha.
Anyway they don’t do many traditional things from Mexico anymore on day of the
dead. They do have a special kind of bread/cake that they eat a lot, and some
people make alters for their dead ancestors. But it was overall interesting to
see how it was celebrated in a different country.
I feel really good being in Irapuato again. I really love
this city. We had a stake conference this weekend, and although my old ward had
it transmitted to their building I did get to see a few people that I taught in
the Saturday session. Unfortunately not any of my converts, but one family that
was less active when I got there, and now they were going to extra sessions of
conference! Also my old ward mission leader. A young man that was a recent
convert when I got there last year, and supported us a lot. And the parents of the boyfriend of one of my
converts. (I called you from their house in Christmas time last year). They
said they are still dating and both are still active and it sounds like they
are waiting to get married in the temple in January! How cool is that, if they
do I will most likely be here! I also heard that a family that we baptized is
SUPER active and doing really well from the missionaries that are in that ward
right now. (They happen to be my district leaders so I will for sure have
splits with them and they already said I can go to their area!) So that was
really exciting, and really cool about being here again. That family will also
get sealed in January or February!!!
In my own ward, we had a really good week. We started
working with the ward members a lot. We had the highest number of lessons with
members that I have ever had in my mission. And we found 5 new investigators
which is always really good. A few of them seem like they could progress really
well. We changed the baptism date of Manuel back a week, so until next Saturday.
Because there is a rule that the investigators have to go to church 5 times to
be baptized and he was going to fall short of that requirement. I am not entirely
sure why my comp put the date this week, but the good news is that he will get
baptized next week. He is super excited, has a really strong testimony, and he
wants to serve a mission.
The work might be a little slow for a few weeks because of
the rule that investigators have to attend 5 times to church, but I know we are
going to get it going. The sad news is its going to take a little time to get
it going because the missionaries in this ward haven’t been the hardest workers
for about the last year. So there isn’t a lot of work that I inherited, but I
know that means the Lord has prepared a lot of people in that time and it’s our
turn to ¨harvest¨.
I feel like I have a good comp and we work well together. We
had a cool experience this week. We went to a family’s house yesterday that I
had actually met before in splits with another Elder. We went to teach them and
found the sister of the member that lives there. And I had met her before too.
We contacted her about 1 year ago when we had those splits. She simply said she
was not interested. But we decided to contact her again and started talking
about her life, then a little about the gospel. She started asking questions.
We were able to bear testimony and teach a little. We gave her a pamphlet and asked
if we could visit her in her house in this week. She said yes she would love
to, and she said it was because she was interested to learn about the message
that two young men like ourselves we so thoroughly convinced about. She said it
shocked her that we would be doing what we are doing and the way be talked
about what we know got to her. She didn’t realize it, but I did, she had felt
the spirit through a simple testimony and it softened her heart and it
motivated her to do what she had rejected one year ago. Accept the
missionaries.
For me it was a tiny miracle to see that change, and I know
the Lord has prepared more people like her for us to teach. And I am excited to
find and teach them.
I love and miss you guys, have a great week
Elder Utley
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