Wedding, Baptism, Temple

Hey Family!

So how is everyone doing? I haven’t heard from the kids in a while, sounds like they have a little extra time now (hint hint). But sounds like everyone is having a great summer!

So is trek this week? Tell mom and Mary good luck, I loved trek. It will be a good experience. And tell Coop to work his butt off in tryouts. I heard a quote really loved this week that really goes with how I am trying to live my life and tried to live it before as well. They were talking about a motto (saying?) that is “NO REGRETS”. And someone said “There are only two types of pain in this life, the pain of hard work and the pain of regret."  How true that is, hard work is temporary and it pays off, but regret never goes away. 

So this week was definitely one of the best weeks of my mission. I sent a bunch of pictures, I hope you get them. To start on Wednesday morning we had the wedding of Maria Elena and Alberto. They are so happy. It was a little anti-climactic for me because they did it in the government offices and it was basically just reading of their rights as a married couple and signing things, but they were so excited and happy. Alberto came to me after and really thanked me for helping him take that step for his family. Then the next day we had the baptism of Maria Elena. She asked me to baptize here, which was a really cool experience. They are such a great family. The baptism actually went really well; there were a ton of branch members there and a strong spirit. Everyone that was supposed to showed up (late, but they came) and everything just went smoothly. Usually baptims are really stressful but not so much this time. Then after the baptism, the branch didn’t really come through with a party for them but one of the members that helped us with them invited us and them to his house for dinner and cake. It was a good day.

And on Friday night at 1230 we left for the temple in Monterrey. It was about a 5 hour bus ride (in a really uncomfortable bus, but we got there), and needless to say I didn’t sleep much that night. And we got to the city of Monterrey and I was awake, so I got to watch as we came in. It was the coolest city I have seen in Mexico and one of the coolest I have ever seen. It has a ton of mountains and the design is really well done in the city and it is well maintained. Anyway we got there and it was still dark and the temple was lit up which was really cool. Then we had to wait till 9 to go in because another ward just barely beat us there. But that was okay. Yesenia got to go in and do baptisms and she loved it. Unfortunately they have a temple rule that missionaries can’t do baptisms or confirmations there so we didn’t get to help... But we got to do a session, my first one in Spanish. It was really cool, it was exactly the same but I think I paid a little more attention and I learned a lot of things. And then they needed some people to help with sealings cause they didn’t have enough so I got to be a witness at some sealings, it was really cool. And we actually saw 2 brothers get sealed to their parents who are dead. There was a really strong spirit there, I had never seen a sealing before.

Anyway that was basically our week. And we found a couple of new investigators that look really promising. The only bummer is we have changes in 3 weeks and I think I will get changed so I might not be able to see everything through. But it’s been cool to see this area and this branch change from when I got here, things are really picking up and we are seeing a lot of success. 

Well I hope you guys have a great week, and enjoy the pictures. Thanks for sending the pictures of the lake and Mary and Brooke. It’s really fun to get those; they are both growing up really fast.

I love you and miss you

Elder Utley

Hey I forgot to mention we got put in a trio this week. Elder Finlay who lives above us is now part of our companionship. His comp had some problems and had to go to the offices in Léon. So it’s been interesting, it’s a little harder but he is a good kid and works hard. He has like 3 months left in the mission. Anyway that’s kind of weird being in a trio. But it’s the way things go.