Mason's Letter -- May 23, 2011

Querida (beloved) familia,

Hey sorry that I didn't write on Saturday. President Veirs had a conference in Colon, and he wanted us to work in La Ceiba for the weekend to help them out a little bit. So that's where we have been. It wasn't very effective though because they had Carnival in La Ceiba this weekend. So everyone was either there and drunk, or they were in their houses watching it on the tv.... and it's a little bit inappropriate for missionary eyes haha.

I did get to go to church in Miramar so I saw everyone. It was way cool, and Jackie had just gotten back from the temple the day before so she is invested [endowed] and everything!!! She's all ready for her mission next month. It was way cool and she had to share her testimony as well. Also they called on me to share my testimony in church so that was cool. It's nice to see that the people there still remember me.

Do you remember that last week I was telling you that we went to that one branch that has been falling into apostasy to work for a few days and see what was happening? Well I have been super worried about them and we have been thinking about what to do. The president has thought about taking drastic measures. Well on Monday we got emails from the missionaries and everything there had turned around drastically for the better.

The missionary said that we helped him realize that it was all in his attitude. I had some long talks with him there about all that, and we really showed them that there were people prepared for the gospel. Well he said that after we left he repented and changed his attitude and that they saw a ton of miracles that week. All of the sudden a bunch of members called them for health blessings and they went and gave them some and all of the people were healed. Then they did an activity with the members that we helped them plan, and it went great and they found a ton of new investigators to teach and a few golden families!

The church attendance went from continuously dropping (like 20 the week before) to a whopping 70 people so that was a huge miracle as well. Also there were like at least 5 Melchizedek Priesthood holders in church, including the inactive Elder's Quorum President who we visited. It was so awesome to hear all of that.

The elders were really grateful for all the help, and I know that the Lord blessed them immensely because they changed their attitudes and had faith. I'm also so glad that I could be a part of it. The Lord really answered our prayers because we really didn't want to close the area, but that's what was going to happen if things didn't change. But with that miracle it looks like the area has saved itself. I know that my comp and I really didn't have anything to do with the success there, but we were fortunate enough to simply become instruments in the Lord's hands and witness a miracle. it was a great experience.

Other than that the changes all went fine. It was a group of almost all Americans, so that was different but really fun. Also Elder Rodas went home so it was weird taking him to the airport. Oh, and we witnessed another miracle. So on Thursday we have to be in the airport at 5 in the morning. So we usually wake up at like 3:30 am and wake up all the missionaries. So we set our alarms and everything and went to bed late that night. Well all the sudden my comp wakes up yelling at me that its 4:40 am already (the bus was supposed to pass by our house at 4, and we were supposed to already have all the missionaries on the bus and almost to the aiport) so we all woke up freaking out!

Apparently we were so tired that not one of the 4 of us heard the alarms that we had set and the bus driver had been calling my phone for a good 40 minutes, and we didn't hear a thing. Way weird. So we jumped out of bed and I yelled at everyone to grab their clothes and put them on in the bus haha. So we all ran on the bus in garments basically and got dressed on the way haha.

I was so scared that they were going to miss their flights and stay in the country for another year and I was so incredibly mad at myself for having slept so deeply. But we got all the missionaries (and the funny thing is that some of them were just getting out of bed so we even had to wait for them to get ready). Well we got to the aiport a little late, but luckily right before the lines got way long. It all worked out perfectly, and miraculously everyone was waiting for their planes earlier than usual haha. Wow, that was a scare though. It felt like a nightmare.

Well I hope you all had a great week. The new baby is gorgeous. Congrats to Brock and Ash. I can't wait to get to meet them.

Love Elder Cardon