A Busy and Awesome Week

Hey Yal,
¿cómo anda la cosa? jaja Well how is everyone doing and what is new with yal? I hope everything is good with you. I am sure you have seen the email I sent earlier and by now know that yesterday we had a baptism and it went so good and the spirit was surely felt there by all.
Margarita Soledad Hernández Garcia (13), is the second in her family to be baptized. Her older sister Ivonne was baptized in April. She is super cool, we started teaching her 4 weeks ago and I still remember the first visit we had with her, she didn’t say a word, she is super shy but little by little she came out of her shell and now when we visit her house she is a talking machine....well not quite but she has more confidence to speak up and answer questions and make fun of my stupid jokes.
Everybody says that my jokes are stupid and lame but they all crack up and well it doesn´t matter how bad it is if they laugh you have achieved the goal an well they always laugh no matter how lame my jokes are . But I have also learned it is all in the way you tell it.....a lot of excitement leading up to a super lame punch line gets them everytime haha, but it is all good. Margarita really likes the church and it helps that her sister Ivonne is there to help her and keep her going. We are now focusing on their mom. She has showed some interested when we have gone by to teach the last couple times she has sat and shared with us. We are working with her the other sister Leslie. They are a cool family and I love going by their house we have a lot of fun but also have had a lot of spiritual moments too. Yesterday went awesome though. Her mom and sisters came to the baptism to support her and the spirit was super strong. It was good to see the support of the Young Women leaders too it is a new presidency but they stayed to support Margarita in this. I was really honored to be able to baptize her. I had to borrow pants from Elder Stephenson.....size 34....a little tight but they did the job. They were teasing me and making comments about my tight pants and skinny waist but oh well it sometimes is a burden to be beautiful like me (jaja jk lol) it went awesome though and I am still jazzed about it.
We also had another investigator in church yesterday, Umberto, He is a grandpa but he is really interested in the church. He came alone to church yesterday. He is really nice and loves when we come over, we have to teach a little slower but it helps us to focus on his needs and he understands it all. He has a date for the 5 Sept and I think he will make it for that day. Saturday night we passed by one of our other investigators that was progressing but has kind of lost steam, Daniela. She looked different when we walked in and we talked for a bit and as we were talking she got really serious and she said, "quiero bautizarme en septiembre” (I want to get baptized in September) I was blown away because she has been going through a lot of tough stuff and kind of lost the desire to get baptized but she said she had thought a lot about it and said that she needs to take this decision in her life to help with other ones. It was so awesome she even set her own fecha for the 26 Sept. It is awesome it just added to a great weekend. It was such a good feeling to hear those words from somebody, to know that they really understand and want to do to be baptized. It is amazing the power of the spirit.
There was a little bit of panic last night when we got a call from Ivonne, sister of Margarita, saying that a couple of her family members heard about the baptism and started to talk bad about the church and telling Margarita how dumb of a choice it was. We canceled our 2 appointments to go out and see her. She was a little upset but it wore off. We talked about 3 Nefi 14:24-27, where it talks about the house on the rock and sand, and about how when we obey God´s commandments we are built on the rock and when we don’t we are on sand. We then explained about what happened to each house, on the solid foundation of the rock the house was firm but on the shifting sands the house fell. We taught about how both of the houses had to experience the afflictions and challenges, temptations and teasing, but if we stay firm in our faith and obedience we will stand still, and not be washed away by the words of others. She felt a lot better after and I felt the spirit really strong. She is super cool and I am so happy for her because now she can enjoy her youth in the church, she is like my little sister I love her so much and wish the best for her. When I got the call we were in the house of members eating lunch...late lunch at 6.... but I just got so mad and after the call everyone asked what was wrong....2 hours had barely past and satanás was at work. The way to fight him isn’t to throw punches or yell and scream but to show and practice the truths of the gospel and to testify of the power of God. I am very thankful for the call from her sister to give us the heads up. I know Margarita has great examples in her life. I know the spirit of God wins every time and that we need to hold strong and follow the commandments because the challenges will come no matter what but we need to be prepared. The adversary is aware of the work we are doing and he can try to stop it but he cannot understand the power of the atonement of Christ nor the power of the truth. This weekend was a very spiritual one for me and I will keep trying my best to keep it that way.
As you can tell by the photos we played fútbol with the hombres jovenes (young men) on Saturday, it was super fun and I scored a goal. I got some awesome pics. It was a bunch of fun but man was I tired after, cannot wait till the church is done to be able to play there without lame people complaining because it is ours. We heard we might be back in it on the 15 Sept....but we will see I sure hope so.

This week we have a 2 days training with the assistant, so 2 days of hard work and sweat in the church building and 2 days lost to work in my sector but oh well, I know it will help us so I am going with a good attitude ready to learn.

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week. Work hard I cannot wait to hear back from you all. Love you so much. I know God and JesuCristo live and love us. They will help us find the way home and will guide us every step along the way. I love you so much and miss you a bunch too. Take care. Compórtense bien (behave well).
Love, Eric