An Update from the letters Brent and Beth have gotten

October 31, 2011

Mom-

Yeah, I do like my mission president, but I just don´t feel like he knows me well, which is something that always makes a difference for me. When teachers know me personally I do much better than ín classes with those that dont. the apostrophe key is kinda messed up, so sorry...and the exclamation key too. We had our 6 baptisms on saturday, we had planned 7, but one girl didn't feel ready and said no at the last minute...at the baptism. One family of 5 and 2 others, the one that bailed, Maria Fernanda is from the yupa family. All her family is so great. Moíses, 10, is really sweet and a great artist. He drew me a picture of Ammón after I taught the story to him and I gave him my poster of Ammon. The mom sells food and things, snack stuff, in the streets, but is going to take classes from the church. They offer just about everything there. Everytime I am at their house, i try to buy some of their snacks. Last week the mom only sold 2.50 worth of stuff and was stressing about things, but said she feels much better after her baptism. I"ve bought  like 2 bucks worth in the last few days to support them and also because I love her candied peanuts, they remind me of baseball games for some reason.  TELL THOM TO WRITE ME. Im glad you like the recordings...No i havent changed in some aspects....hahah. Everything is good here though. A new month, came so quick. We have some more investigators that we are really struggling to get to church so that they can get baptized, but when maria fernanda bailed on the baptism, I realized that I havent done what i need to do as a missionary. we didnt teach her well enough, she didnt have the desire, she was just kind of going along with it for a while, then realized we werent kidding...I think a lot of our investigators feel like that probably.

love you

Elder Blackwelder

November 15, 2011

Dad-

It's been hard like I said before to work with religious conformists like the catholics here...everyone really. But something I remember from the MTC president in Peru was when he said: well if you're not going to talk with and baptize the catholics, then who? the mormons?   I don't know if you knew, but our first mtc president in peru passed away like 3 days after we got to peru. well he left for surgery in the states 3 days after, but died 5 weeks after that. He called me and 2 other missionaries from my group to be district leaders, then left the next day. Lots of elders never even saw him.  I miss catalina so much, there is a pioneer movie by the church, I think its about john tanner, and there is a part that is supposed to be them crossing the atlantic, but no doubt it's catalina in the background with a bit of bird rock in view...ah i just die everytime I see it. haha.  Oh, I hit the 4 month mark 2 days ago, not bad. It really has gone by fast. We had a conference the other day with an area 70, I always thought they were just kinda normal guys, but he taught with such amazing power and inspired me to reach and chase my goals. On his mission he FELT that he should learn english, the language of the restoration of the gospel. At that moment on his mission, he bought english scriptures and hasn't used spanish ones since. What power! What determination! He also taught about L Tom Perry when he was called to the 12 and would sit next to Bruce R. Mcconkie. Whenever the prophet had a question about a scripture "how does that one scripture go...?" he'd say Bruce, what's that scripture....  and he'd recount it, and the next verse, and the next and so on until he was stopped. I was so inspired by that. In my patriarchal blessing it says my mind will be quickened and enlightened and I can accomplish whatever I wish. Well, that's what I wish. A photo memory like that. So cool. Well, I love you guys, thanks for the story about Jack too, He's sooo cute and sooo funny.

Love you
Elder Blackwelder

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