THEY'RE HERE! Wow I couldn't believe my eyes when I opened the FED-EX from mom and saw pictures of the boys. Tankers! I just hope Boston doesn't get beat up for his initials (BS) and Tate doesn't get beat up for being Tate Frank! Just kidding! I'm glad all is well and that they're doing good. Hopefully they get to come home soon! How's Heidi? Where was the one picture of Jer, Heidi, the boys, Shelby and Gage at? It looked like a house? Just curious. Is Heidi still in the hospital as well? I will admit that I shed a couple of tears when I saw their pictures through FED-EX. You have no idea how much I want to just hold them! In 20 plus months! Maybe they'll be out of the hosptial by then. But don't worry about sending pictures! I love them.
Shelby and Gage- thanks for the package of the BYU pens and notebook! Thanks also for the letters! Jer- I believe it was you who said that you were looking for my apartment on Google Earth and wondered what we lived by. We live right behind the Home Depot. There's also an Ultimate Electronics, Krispy Kreme, etc right around there. Hope that helps. I'm glad you've already gotten the boys decked out in BYU stuff. I also loved the picture of the sign on their door!
Well, this week has been---- different. We're probably going to have to drop Manuel Estrada. We've already dropped his baptism date. No more on the 20th of November. Everything was going great until this past 2 weeks. I don't understand. But, the past two weeks he's gone DOWNHILL. He won't read, and has a hard heart. It's almost as if he doesn't want the Book of Mormon to be true. He wants evidence of the truthfulness of it. We've shared a ton of scriptures, personal experiences, prayed with him about it, etc but nothing works. He wouldn' come to church yesterday because he said, "Why would I go to your church if I don't believe in your book?" It's almost if he won't do his part. We are going back over there one more time to watch a DVD about the Book of Mormon with him and hopefully that helps. It's just kind of discouraging. I half wonder if he's being hassled about it by some of his co-workers. Who knows!
Laticia and Angie (Laticia's daughter) are great! They came to church yesterday and loved it again. Although we had a lesson in Sunday School about Eternal Marriage. So we may have a few questions to answer tonight! We have another appointment with them tonight and are going to try and set a date with them for 11 December. But, they are getting close and are really neat. Laticia's aunt was a nun in the Catholic church for years, but ended up joining our church. So Laticia told us that if her aunt saw something in our church that was good and changed her life becuase of it we must have something good. But they are way good. All is well with them!
Well last night was quite a humbling experience. We had just gotten out of an appointment and it was around 6:30. We had dinner with a member family at 7:00 and didn't really know what to do. So we pulled over (yes Jason we have cell phones.) and made a few phone calls to set some appointments for the next few days. We couldn't get a hold of anyone. If they did answer they said they were too busy. We had planned to go and see a family that lives right by us (the Azuara family) and I mentioned something to Elder Roberts of maybe calling them to see if they would be home at 8. He said, "No they'll be home." Well, just a couple minutes after that guess who called? Sister Azuara! She called and said that she had a friend in the hospital that needed a blessing that night and wondered if we'd come and give her one. So we agreed, but told her it would have to be around 8ish because we had dinner, etc. To make a long story short, Elder Roberts wrote down the anointing prayer for me in spanish so that I could memorize it in spanish during dinner. After dinner, we went to the hospital and gave her a blessing. (luckily I had oil on me!) I have never been so scared in my life as to do that annointing in Spanish! I ended up having to read it, but I somehow pronnounced everything right and got through it! It just goes to show that the Lord blesses you AFTER the trial of your faith!
Well, this week is transfer calls. (Saturday night). We'll know Saturday night if we are being transfered or not and who our companion will be, where we're heading, etc. So I'll let you know next Monday. Transfers aren't until NEXT Thurs (the 18th) though. So you can still send mail to the address of my apartment. I'll let you know next week though where I'll be. This Friday we have Zone Conference. The Zone Leaders called me Saturday and asked me to play a musical number for it because, "I hear you play like Mozart!" So hopefully I can resurrect my Onward Christian Soldiers from memory!
I hope everything goes alright for Kallie on Thursday. I fasted for her yesterday and she's in my prayers every morning and night. But, everything will be fine. I know it!
Dad, we have Stake Conference here this week. But we only get to go to the General Session on Sunday afternoon. We can go Saturday night, but only if we have an investigator taht wants to go. But our session isn't until 1 pm on Sunday afternoon. I don't know why, but the elders that live with us and cover the same Stake have their meeting at 10 am on Sunday. I don't know if they are splitting the spanish and english members up or what.
Well, my time here is about up. I had better run. Give the twins a squeeze for me and know that I wish I could be there but I think about them all the time! I hope everything goes alright with them! Keep me updated. Good luck with Kallie this week as well. I'll keep praying for her.
Until next Monday.
Elder Stoddard
PS. I'll keep you updated with Transfers.
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