First week in Celaya

Hey family!

First of all HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! I hope it has been a great day! It is super cool that I get to write you on your birthday. What are you guys going to do? Hope everything goes well and have a great day!

Also I got a few pictures from the surprise party you threw for Mary, looked like a lot of fun! Tell her I want to hear from her on what it’s like when 2 worlds collide ha ha (I might know a little about that, but it was voluntary on my part.). How did coop like scout camp? It’s kind of a bummer it wasn’t a stake or scout camp for his first one, but I am sure it was fun none the less.

I hear you guys are trying to kill the family tradition of Escalante this year, again. I hope you get to go this weekend, tell Mary and Brooke that we go to Salt Lake all the time and Escalante only comes once a year.

Well this week went really well for us. I really like my companion he is a super hard worker and excited to have a new companion as well. This week we put 2 baptismal dates for Luz and her daughter Lucy. They found them 2 days before I got here, and we taught them 3 or 4 times this week, but even in a week I can see a huge change in them. The mom didn’t think that repentance was possible, but she is now super excited to get baptized and change her life. She has some things to change but is really excited. We also worked with a lot of members and had some good lessons, today and yesterday we received 3 or 4 references that we are going to work to contact this week. We taught 30 lessons and that was with a lot of time restraint, the mission goal is 25. Its super exciting to be here where there is so much work if we want it.

The ward is one of the biggest in the mission, the chapel was completely full and there were about 170 people there. I really like Celaya. I comparison to the other cities I have been in it is bigger. I think Irapuato is about two thirds of the size and Matehuala is about a tenth of the size. There are 2 zones here but just one stake.

Well that’s about it for this week, I just want to testify that this is Christ’s work, and his church. Because of his atonement we can repent, and receive help and guidance in difficult times, consolation in others, and be able to overcome weaknesses and make them strong points in our lives. (Ether 12 27) I know Christ lives and loves us and watches out for us. And that prayer is the basic for us to communicate with him, and that scriptures and church attendance are the basic forms to receive answers.

I love and miss you all. Again happy birthday mom,

Elder Utley