Agency...

Hey que tal familia?! 

 I'm glad you all like the pics I sent last week, haha Dad, you said exactly what I have been thinking the past 2 weeks.  As long as it doesn't kill me I will be fine.  I'm ready to take on whatever could possibly come at me in the next 5 months, haha bring it on! Mom thank you a lot for your little thought on teaching with the spirit.  It's something that I always knew, but also a necessary reminder. I'm gonna focus on that this week and rely more on the spirit! Happy to hear everyone has gotten great grades this last term! Brooks good luck with those contacts man! Sheez, I hope you don't pass out anymore! No, I'm not using those sweaters anymore, its dang hot where I'm at now.  The rain has stopped and won't start again until may so that's nice, I'll only have to suffer the rain for like a month. Well, let me tell ya a little about the week I had this week...

This week has been pretty good so far. We had a cool little FHE with a recent convert family monday night, and a good Zone Mtg today. The mission is doing this competition type thing.  Every 2 zones are a team.  So its us (Turin) and Ahuachapan. We have to get at least 19 baptisms as a zone and Ahuacha has to get at least 24.  But the point is that together, we have to reach 43.  The 2 zones that reach their goals together, get to have some cool activity with P Spjut and stuff like that.  So we had a big Zone mtg on trying to get everyone pumped to baptize 43 ppl.  It was great.  We found an awesome lady later in the day that is way positive.  We taught all of Lesson 1 and the spirit was super strong.  She said she has been trying to figure out what church to go to for a long time but has never figured out which one is true. Gotta love it when someone says that in the first visit.  She is pretty interested, but has to work every sunday and says its hard to get time off.  That was a spirit, hope, and dream killer.  But hopefully God works a miracle for us and her.

Today was Friday.  Man, I don't know where the time/days went this week. We have worked super hard this week and I'm just exhausted.  We went and taught E____ today, a girl that is super close to being baptized.  I have tried just about everything with her and she still won't agree to be baptized.  Her mom is a member, she goes to all of the activities of the ward and YW, and she goes to church every sunday.  She is 14 and just won't agree to do it.  I don't understand what she is waiting for.  But other than that things are going good. People here are cool and nice and many are willing to talk to us.  A lot different than Apaneca!

Today was sunday, it was good.  Still trying to adjust to the 2 to 5 church time, its kind of hard because you can get super tired once 3:30 or 4 hits.  It was kind of a rough day, we talked to a lot of people but not many really wanted to talk to us. However, I did have a cool realization. I have been reading this temple book that my comp has and it is real interesting. One part was talking a lot about Agency and the importance of it in the Plan. I was able to see two people use their agency in different ways today. We passed one house that we had visited once before, non-members, and we just waved and kept walking. Then a daughter came running down the street after us and told us to come back to her house.  We went back and walked in and they were making pupusas so they invited us to eat. It was a little weird because we didnt really know them, but they were very nice and used their agency to show love and kindness, and they opened up more to our message. Later that night, we found one guy who let us come in and teach him, but he refused to accept anything that we were teaching and just wanted to argue the whole time, which just made everyone kind of mad. It has made me think of how important it is to use our agency correctly and make those right decisions because they can affect a lot more people than we think. That's the goal I have put for myself, to use my agency to have a positive attitude and to try to bring happiness into wherever we are. It doesn't work all the time, haha and its hard to do, but you can see a difference when you really try.

 We also found a kid in the street today walking his pet iguana.  Yes, WALKING it. So we had to stop and take a pic with it.  I'll send it to you all.    

I'm excited to hear all of the Baseball tourneys that you guys are planning.  SO crazy to think that I will be home to go to some of them! Hope you all keep working hard this week and have a good one! Dad, you're getting old, dude.  Love you all so much! Talk soon! 

Elder Thorpe