Week 17 ~~~

Well this week is really rather excellent with the exception of the weather. It started out with what was essentially a torrential downpour, the streets turned into small rivers, and I am sure some people thought we were nuts when 2 soaking wet 20 year olds in ties went out knocking doors to try and find people to teach (my companion proceeded to tell me of a time when the companion before me in the middle of a bad storm woke up and raised his right arm and said peace, be still, to which the storm responded by becoming like 10 times worse 3 seconds later, I was laughing my head off when I heard that). The next few days, the sun decided to pay us a visit...quite the visit indeed, it was some of my hottest days in the mission, and again we looked nuts because we were two soaking wet (this time from their own sweat) young men in ties knocking doors. That being said, I have been super happy with the progress of the branch here. This week we had 35 again, but we were missing quite a few of our actives and we just found a woman who has been missing from the church for over 30 years, and we´ve been teaching a family of 6 that are gaining testimonies, and it has really just made me so happy. That being said, I was able to see just how stupid it is to not get married, like really really stupid. We worked this week with a couple that has a child out of wedlock while the man is still married, although he has not seen his wife for years and years, and has lost over 350,000 pesos through this relationship with his mistress/partner (pareja just works so much better as a word). Anyways, they both hate each other, and she´s a member, and he is prospective to get baptized, and we have been trying to help them with their problems. Oh my goodness, when families are formed around the Gospel, like really formed around them, it never seems to have any problems. When families are formed around worldly things, there always seems to form problems, and everyone ends up unhappy. Wickedness never was happiness. This week I am going to get to go to Veracruz to get my visa finally, but anyways, today we climbed the Hill Cummorah where all the nephites died. Getting my companion and the member who went with us to run really was not easy, but they did a little because we were low on time. The pictures for that will come next week mom. 

Well, other than all of that, no too much other news. I love my companion, I love my rama, I love Memelas Google them, I love Santiago, I hate the phrase es que voy a salir and estoy ocupado (how everyone manages to complain about being jobless while simultaneously everyone is leaving from their house and works from 6 in the morning to 11 at night is beyond me) That being said, my companion and I have really started to see the fruits of our week, and I can honestly say that this was by far the fastest transfer of all so far, I cannot believe it ends this week, hard work= fast transfers. I love you all, good luck to everyone leaving on missions, it’s awesome, good luck to everyone starting up school, and thanks to everyone who is taking my mom to the temple to do baptisms, you have no idea how much it means to me to have people there who love and support her. I love you all

Elder Standridge