Mason's letter -- 9 August, 2010

Hey familia,

Thanks for all the emails this week. My week was pretty normal and really busy trying to get used to my new responsibilities, but it has been good. The weather has been a bit weird all week. It always starts out super hot, but then it will start to pour rain all of the sudden for a couple of hours, so if the rain catches you in the streets we get all soaked. My companion is still way good. We get along really well, maybe because he just speaks in gangster English haha. He learned English working in a call center in Guatemala with a bunch of deported gangster latins haha, so he knows all the slang. it's fun to talk to him in English.

So on Tuesday we had our first district meeting. It went really well. I talked a lot about talking to everybody on the streets and in the buses, and we did a few activities that I came up with to practice. It was actually really fun and everyone seemed animated to go out and work. So we left to go work and we all got on the bus and we were so animated that we contacted every single person on the whole bus. It was really cool to see the Elders putting the stuff we learned in practice. Also the Sisters started doing a lot more contacting as well all week (they are the nurses of the mission as well, so it's a struggle to get them to leave the office and work). So that went really great. It looks like we will baptize a lot more in the district this month.

We couldn't do the wedding this week due to problems with money. That always seems to be the problem in the country. So we are planning for this weekend. The couple was pretty disanimated when they couldn't get the money but I promised them that if they had faith and did everything they could to get the money, that the Lord would provide. We read with them 1 Nephi 3:7 and they seemed to understand. But yesterday they said they probably wouldn't have the money by this weekend. So I mentioned that in the ward council yesterday after church and the members were willing to help. It turns out that a guy that used to cut a few members' yards quit this month and they needed someone. So Rony is going to go to their houses today to cut the grass (which is done all with a machete here by the way) and they are going to pay him enough money to be able to do the wedding. They were really excited to be able to get the money, So the wedding will go through this weekend. I'm really excited for that. The Lord really did provide a way, and He always provides a way to be able to return to live with Him again. We just have to work really hard.

So we have started to teach a grandpa of 80 years. He was a reference of a member, and he is really cool. He went to church yesterday and loved it. He had never seen something so beautiful in his whole life, he said. He had a stroke last year so he is still kinda recovering from that. He walks really slow with a walker and has some speech problems. His life is kind of sad, his kids have all left him on his own and have forgot all about him. He has to wash his own clothes by hand every week and is really lonely. But the first time we taught him he just started crying because he was so happy we were here to help him. He said his heart hasn't been touched by the Lord for a long time until we came along. So he is really cool and just doesn't stop talking about how much he loves the church and about how impressed he is by how much we walk haha. But he is now always happy and is always ready and dressed all nice and waiting for us like 1 hour ahead of time. I'm glad we have got to meet him and I'm glad that Heavenly Father has given him another chance to repent. Oh yeah and he has a sick name, it's Don Paco.

Well that's about all for this week, kinda boring I'm sorry. I'm excited for my bday, I cant believe I'm gonna be 20 years old. Now I can't say I'm a teenager anymore!

Love you all.

love Elder Mason Cardon