Monday, June 26, 2017

I'm going to apologize in advance for my letter this week.  We have a shortened preparation day so I'm going to try and write this as fast as I can.  We proselyted for some of the day today so that we can go to the temple tomorrow.  We are going to attend the sealing of Alex and Sara, the converts in our ward who got baptized just over a year ago.  They are from Brazil and are cool as!  They are the couple who come and translate for us when we go to John and Lina's.  I'm pumped to go to the sealing because I have never been to a sealing before.  It will be really good to get to go to the temple again as well.

An update on John and Lina.  Lina is ready to be baptized but John is holding her back.  They are the most awesome people ever!  We were able to have a lesson with both Alex and Sara on Sunday and it went really well.  Lina told us that she has stopped drinking coffee!!!  We taught John and Lina the word of wisdom the other day and John had a big concern with giving up coffee.  Lina said that she likes coffee, but that she would be willing to give it up.  Lina told us that she was with her friends the other day and they were all drinking coffee but her.  They said to her, "What kind of Columbian doesn't drink coffee?”  She told them straight up that she didn't drink coffee and wasn't going to drink coffee anymore.  Columbia is apparently pretty famous for their coffee.  Anyway, Lina said she told them straight up and that she felt really good for her decision.  It was so amazing to see how much faith Lina has and she isn't even a member of the church yet.  She loves reading The Book of Mormon.  She reads it to John haha.  It was really good because on Sunday we were just about to start our lesson with John and Lina, but then some of their friends showed up and John left the room.  We were able to have a really good conversation with Lina.  She shared how she really wants to be baptized and she is not sure that John is going to make the commitment.  She is really stressed because John doesn't seem like he wants to change.  We were able to talk to her though and she is going to talk with John this week about wanting to be baptized.  She hasn't come out and told him that she wants to be baptized so we are hoping that it will help John to want to make that step as well.  It was funny because when John came back we ended up teaching them about the law of chastity.  We asked John if he saw any problems with keeping the law of chastity, and he was like no es facil pero coffee... Pretty much he said keeping the law of chastity is easy, but giving up coffee, that's another story haha.  I laughed and told him it was usually the other way around, but that we would work on it.

This week we also got a keen as member referral named Charles that we started working with.  He is a pretty interesting guy, but we are hoping that he might even be baptized this transfer.  He went to church on Sunday, but went to the new stake center over by the temple.  He said he feels the spirit really strong by the temple and so he really wanted to go over there.  We tried to explain to him that we meet according to where we live.  He wasn't taken that though and he ended up going to another ward in another stake haha, but he went to church so we couldn't complain haha.  We taught him the restoration and he absolutely loved it!

I'm doing awesome though so don't worry about me.  Stay safe!  I love you all!

Love,

Elder Brunson