Week 49

Another exhausting week in Utila... I don't why, but I'm always really tired here. But it was also an excellent week, and here's why:

My companion, Elder Skousen, is awesome! He's easily my favorite companion that I've had in the field, and we've become fast friends. But the really great thing is that we know when to have fun and we know when to be serious. Not only can we joke around, but we also work really well together. Our lessons have been great, and I feel like our unity is helping the Utila branch.

We have two possible candidates for baptism! Which is a slight miracle here in Utila considering there have only been three baptisms here in the past year. We've been teaching Mariela, a 27-year old single lady, for a couple weeks now. She keeps pretty much all of the commitments we leave with her. For example, she went to church yesterday, she reads the BOM, prays, has questions for us, etc. But the one stumbling block is that she got baptized about 15 years ago in a different church. She says it was a wonderful experience, and she feels that she doesn't need to be baptized again. It's kind of a delicate situation, but we feel like she's making a lot of progress. At first, she was totally against being baptized. But in our lesson yesterday, she told us that sometimes she feels like she should get baptized in our church, especially after she prays. She has a really sincere desire to know, so we're pretty confident that she'll receive a definite answer pretty soon. Also, Hermano Lee, one of the only guys that ever comes to church here, invited us to teach his 13-year old son, Preston. We just started teaching him this past week, but we feel optimistic because he has so much support from the rest of his family. Also, he goes to Seminary every day, and has gone to church two straight weeks. So we could actually have some baptisms while I'm here (side note: We would baptize in the ocean if this happened, which would be awesome!)

The attendance rose to 30 this last week, which is well above the 18 we had the previous two weeks. A big part of it is that it didn't rain, but I would like to think Skousen and I played a part in it as well. The biggest surprise was that Hermano Angel finally came to church! He's this guy that's been inactive for quite a while. But he's the husband of our cook, so we talk with him about every day and invite him to come back to church. And this past week, he finally did it! It was so awesome to see a complete family (of five people) come to church here in Utila. That's just the way it's meant to be.

Ok, well I don't have much time this week. Stay safe from the hurricane! Vote in the election! Thanks for all the support- talk to you again in November! :)