September 10th, 2012

OK...well, I took my sweet time reading your letters, so this letter wont be soo long. But, the new news would generally have to do with ELDER MILLAN.

He is a small guy from Sitacuaro, Michuacán---ya that is a dangerous place. He says that he was totally used to hearing gunfights and narcotrafficing stuff. He is also a convert of about 3 years. It is very fun being with him. He has 20 months in the mission, but this is his first transfer as ZL. He is very humble, and never acts like he knows everything. He is a little bit quiet, and doesn´t talk a lot, but he does make a lot of little jokes and he is almost always laughing. Como dicen en Mexico, pues, me cae muy bien. It is fun to hear his conversion story and also to relate it to the investigators. Like two weeks after his first time visiting the church he got baptized, and he has a strong testimony. He was the first one to get baptized in his family. Then one or two siblings followed. He came on his mission. And while he has been here, his parents, and another brother got baptized. He also is from a family of 6 kids. I am happy to see him here :)

The Zone is pretty excited right now. Every area has at least one baptism planned for the activity on the 22 of Sept. (the joint baptismal service, and then the testimony meeting thing). We believe that the zone will be able to baptize in between 25 and 30 people this month. We attended a sweet baptismal service to a couple that had gotten married the day before and that we could interview. They are doing great.

We had about 7 investigadores that are progressing and some with baptismal dates in the church yesterday, but an awesome family---the familia Moreno Espinoza didn´t come!!!! We were so excited for them. They were progressing so well, they had prayed, recognized an answer, then they went to an FHE with members and LOVED it. Also, we had given then their own teaching records to go along with their progress. They were set on getting baptized on the 22nd, they had stopped drinking coffee, and all of that in ONE week. Then on sunday morning, they send us a message saying: Sorry, we wont be able to go today because we don´t have enough money to pay tithing. We were like NOO!!! haha. But then in the afternoon we went and visited them, and really they had just heard some stuff against the church from their neighbors and thought that the investigadores had to pay tithing too and that the money went to people, etc...but now they are on track and should get baptized on September 29th. 

Gotta run, Luv ya,
ELDER PALMER