Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:14:54 +0800
Subject: New Cycle

Dear family, 

This week was a super busy week, it was a little slower then usual but it was very busy. On tuesday we had district meeting, we received the transfer list, and there was no transfer between elder Lasay and I, so we are still comps for one more cycle! Sweet! This cycle is gonna be awesome, the work is gonna get better, we are more organized, we have been finding a lot of people to teach, we have received two new referrals. We have created a schedule with the members of when they will work with us which will help our work a lot. Anyway on Wednesday we had the farewell fireside for all of the missionaries going home, there were quite a few going home, 9. That is a pretty big batch. It was a pretty good fireside, it honestly kinda makes you feel trunky, but at the same time it motivates you, cause it reminds you how short of time the mission really is. On Thursday we weren't invited to the transfer meeting since there was no transfer with us, but Elder Lasay still doesn't have his Patriarchal blessing, and so President said that we should come, so he could give Lasay the Patriarchal blessing interview and recommend, there is a Patriarch in Santiago, so someday this cycle we will go to Santiago to get Lasay's Patriarchal blessing. Then on friday we had to go to Alicia because Elder Lasay had his district leader training. So we met up with the zone leaders and the other district leader in the zone, and they had a little training meeting, Finally on Saturday things got back to normal schedule. This week was a very expensive week with all of the traveling, very tiring too! 

As far as some of the lessons this week, we were able to teach the Pemuliar family, they're awesome, they are really interested in the gospel, especially sister. We taught them about the Book of Mormon, sister Abad and sister Soreno and sister Rebuca were there. They gave some powerful testimonies about the Book of Mormon, the lesson was awesome, the spirit was super strong, and I think they really understood the lesson. Alot of people have a hard time understanding that the Book of Mormon is different from the bible and how, and also how we got the Book of Mormon, so what elder Lasay and I have been doing is bring "props", when we teach, we brought the bible itself and the Book of Mormon and held them up to each other, and explained that they are same in purpose and in teaching, but they are different stories and different places and people, but the purpose of both is to Testify of Christ and show us the way of how to return back to Heavenly Father. They really understood the Book of Mormon I think. The spirit was super strong. They came to church as a whole family, as in Brother, sister, and their 3 kids. 

The Cristovals have been doing great, we have been having some great lessons with them and they have been coming to Church, brother received a calling in church yesterday. He is been trying so hard to quite drinking. They met the Gottfredsons and the Gottfredsons have been a huge help to them, Elder Gottfredson has had a lot of experience with leadership and helping people get over addictions. A member of the presidency of the Alicia district used to be a drug addict and a alcoholic, he used to be the biggest drug lord in the whole Providence of Isabela! But he quite all of that and met Brother Cristoval and is going to be helping him get over his drinking problem, about 3 times a month they are meeting together to help brother get over it. We taught them about temples last night, the lesson was super powerful, they want to go to the temple so bad, they set a family date to be able to go to the temple by December! That would be awesome! 

Myra was unavailable all week, and she was super sick on sunday so she couldn't come to church, that might have turned out to be a good thing.. I'll tell you why later... anyways we finally were able to talk to her face to face last night and we set up a lesson for tuesday. We had to push back her baptismal date by a couple of weeks but that is okay, the baptism doesn't happen until she is ready... 

We found a whole bunch of less actives this week and set up appts. with them for this week, they are super friendly, just need a good kick in the butt to start coming back to church... well and they were almost all offended, almost all of the less actives here went less active because they got offended. 

We taught the brother aquino about the atonement this week, the lesson was really good and brother said that he hopes that someday he can come back to church... I think he is a little shy and used to not coming to church. 

I dont really want to spend much time on this but there was a fist fight in church on sunday, because Tatay Quijas cant forgive the clerk Jojo for something he did wrong a year and half ago. I didn't see it, but from what I hear it was a pretty good brawl. Luckly the Gottfredsons were there, man Elder Gottfredson was mad!! He gave Tatay Quijas a really good scolding, it was def Tatay Quijas's fault, Jojo shook his hand then Tatay said something got really mad and punched Jojo in the face!! Luckly for us none of our investigators were at church yet, so they didn't see anything, and the members kept it pretty hush hush.     

Oh well, haha, p day was really fun we played football again, that was really fun. Other then that nothing really happened this week. 

Thanks for everything, take care, 
Love you guys,
Elder James