Happy... Saturday??

Hi Guys!!!

Today things are a little bit different because we're going to be working Monday when the new missionaries get here, so my preparation day is today. That means I won't get to read your letter this week :(. I also, as usually happens, forgot my camera in the house, so I don't get to send you any of the exciting pictures from the week.

Fun story to get you thinking. A couple of weeks ago we were talking to one of the families in the ward about who their neighbors were and who we could go meet to teach about the gospel. They talked about a few people who they wanted to share the message with. Elder Ortiz asked them if they knew the woman 3 houses down who had a piano in the front room. THATS REALLY, REALLY UNCOMMON HERE. They told us her name and that they didn't really think she would be interested. They told us that they didn't get along and this and that and the other.

Well we talked to the other neighbors they had told us about, all of which informed us that they had no interest in learning more about God, or that they were more than content in the church they attended and didn't want to accept a message about how to be happier in their family, etc. you know the drill.

So we stopped by and talked to the woman with the piano. She was on her way out and told us to come back the next day. Haha, I've never heard that before. The next day we get there and she lets us in but is on her way out because she had forgotten about an appointment. She introduced us to her 12 year old son and left. (The grandparents are very Catholic and live there too, but refuse to acknowledge that we exist.) So we talked to the smartest 12 year-old I have ever met, who asked the kinds of questions people ask in institute. The next time we visited the mother was running around the house the entire time, but mentioned that every time she entered the room with us and her son, she felt a peace that she couldn't really explain.

At the next visit, last night, we find out she's a member of the church, who got baptized at age 16, that she let us in for a reason, that she fell away from the church because of the pressures of being a single parent, and that she had been waiting for the time to come that her son could understand enough to make his own decision about his faith.

My favorite of her son's questions of the week:

What do I have to do to change religions?

What exactly do I have to do to repent? I'd like to know the steps so that I can carry them out in my life?

What does "Christ" mean?

What's the difference between a prophet and an apostle?

And that's just the tip of the iceberg!

So yeah, it's been a good week! I'll talk to you all again a week from Monday!!!

AND KATE!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ON WEDNESDAY!!! YOU'RE 22!!! You've only got 3 milestones left! The age required to rent a car, the age required to be president, and the ever sought after age of the senior discount!!! How does that feel???

Lots of Love,

Elder Wadman