Mason's letter -- August 23, 2010

Well hey familia,

I got mom's and Trevin's packages this week so thanks a lot for that. There is so much good stuff in there that I haven't seen for almost a year now haha, so I was pretty excited. Also why did you send an empty macaroni box? hahahaha just kidding, I love the camera and it works really great. I have taken some good pictures with it. And yeah I just opened the presents as soon as I got the package... I couldn't wait until my actual bday. There was nobody there to tell me to wait, and my comp just kept bugging me to open them all. But this week was really good, I learned a lot of cool things.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we had leadership training stuff for all the zone leaders and district leaders. They basically lasted all day long, but were really cool. I don't know if you guys remember the videos of the missionaries called ¨the district¨, but they have new ones called ¨the district 2¨. haha they are really cool and teach a lot of cool stuff. Also they are coming out with a new Preach My Gospel as well soon. So it was really good, we are now focusing a lot more on asking really spiritual and inspired questions to the investigators to be able to apply lessons better to their needs. I have been trying it all week and it works really good. I can now see who is going to progress a lot faster and I can see if they really have a desire to change. It helps me recognize the chosen ones.

We have started having a lot of success with it too. We have found a couple cool families. One family we found this week has really loved the lessons and we have felt the spirit a lot wth them. The mom is really blunt and loud and I think it's hilarious. She prayed the other night about Joseph Smith and the church and she felt the spirit really strong and she knows it's true. So she went with her kids to church yesterday. The husband decided to go fishing instead though. but I was scared that some lady in the ward would say something dumb to the lady, because she has a strong personality, and well sometimes members here are a little different too. But everything went good and she liked it.

On Saturday we had the baptisms of the two kids of the less active family. It went really good, and the family is doing great. Yesterday the dad went in to get interviewed for the priesthood finally and he has stopped smoking a bit. So they are progressing. Now we just have to find him a white shirt that is big enough (he is a really hefty latin, and always has his shirt off when we teach them, that's a normal Honduran thing). So we are in that process haha. Also Saturday we had a ward activity. It went pretty good and we received a ton of references.

This Saturday we will also have another baptism. Don Paco, the old man, is getting baptized. He's actually like one of my favorite converts. He told me the other day ¨you know what I love about your religion?, everyone is a family¨. And it's so true. He said he used to hate life and be really depressed and stuff before, he was just a grumpy old guy. But now he is always happy and joking around and stuff. I really love him. When he accepted the baptismal date we all felt the spirit so strong and I felt a really amazing feeling of happiness. I had never felt so good when someone accepted a baptismal date before, but it was really joyful. I'm really happy for him, and I hope everything works out good.

On Thursday I went and worked in one of my elders areas all day. One of the elders here has dengue (for the second time) and hasn't been able to work for a week or two. So I went over there with my comp and he stayed in the house with the sick elder while I worked with the other elder. We had a really effective day, And it was actually really fun. I like to help out all the other elders and they have started working really hard lately. As a result we have had a lot more baptisms here this month in the district. It's better than last month (we had 0 baptisms last month in the district).

This week we will start teaching English, so we will see how that goes. A lot of people are excited about it so I hope we have some success.

Thanks so much for all the support. I feel so blessed to have such a great family.

I love you all.

Love Elder Mason Cardon