Elder Jeffrey Hurst: Week 7 Brownsville

Just to start off our area is huge. There is a lot of farm land in our area. So most of the houses are very spread out. But then there is a lot of random neighborhoods everywhere. I'm just going to write about the investigators and then little stories that I have.

One of our investigators is Janet. She works at a little shop in our area. She is pretty interested in the church and I think we will baptize her this month. She made it to the last hour of English ward. (We go to the English ward in the morning and the Spanish branch at 1.) Janet speaks English and Spanish but we usually just talk to her in English so that is very nice. We haven't been able to give her an actual lesson since I got into the Mission but hopefully we will be able to. We have tried twice but they have both fallen through.

One of our other investigators in Mark. I only met him once. We gave him the lesson of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He is about 23 or so and lives at home with his parents. His parents are super catholic so they don't want anything to do with us. But he went to church this Sunday in San Antonio. Him and his parents went on a spur of the moment trip or else he would have come to church with us. We are going to talk with him some more this week and hopefully he will be baptized the end of this month.

Next is the Conde Family. I first met the Conde family at 8 o clock on my first day in the mission field. Elder Curtis told me that they had just met them and that we were going to go give them the Restoration lesson. He also told me they didn't speak any English... So we got into the lesson and Elder Curtis just gave the whole Restoration lesson and I just sat there and nodded my head because I was only catching about half of what was being said. At the end of the lesson Elder Curtis invited them to be baptized. They told us they would but we had to do something. The daughter ran inside and came out with some beer and told us that we had to drink it before they would be baptized. Elder Curtis took it and downed it. (It was really creme soda) Then he turned to me and told me to go for it. I tried to say something in Spanish but couldn't manage to get anything out. Then the family just started laughing. It turns out they all speak English and they were all baptized the week before besides the dad who is still working on some things. Elder Curtis played a pretty good joke on me. I had the worst feeling when I thought I was going to have to drink beer but I'm glad that I stood up for what I know. The Conde family is some amazing people and I actually had the opportunity to confirm the 12 year old son. There is Papa Conde hopefully he will be baptized soon, Mama Conde who was baptized a week a go and confirmed this Sunday, Kimberly who was baptized a month or two ago and brought her family to the church basically, Israel who was baptized a week ago and confirmed yesterday by me, Mark who is like 9 or 10 who was baptized a week ago and confirmed yesterday and Joy who Is like 6. They are an amazing family and we love visiting them and hope that we will be able to help the Dad out.

Those are our only three really solid investigators. We have a lot of lessons and a lot of people that tell us that they don't want to hear any more. We have a lot of potential investigators and depending on how they do could be baptized soon. The work here is real. It took a while for that to sink in for me. I still don't speak Spanish very well but it will come with time. We use about half and half in our area. All of the kids know both so I like to try and talk to them in Spanish but a lot of the time they laugh at me.. But it will work out!!

One big problem that we have down here is inactivity. There is a lot of people that go inactive. We work hard to invite them to come to church but a lot of them don't see the point. I think its because of the way that they grew up. A lot of people would just get baptized into the catholic church and just stop going. They don't realized that it is different in our church. So one thing I'm going to stress while I am here is the importance of coming to church and enduring to the end. Its not just a one and done type of thing.

I also wanted to talk a little about this Sunday. So as I mentioned before I got the opportunity to confirm Israel. I was pretty nervous before and almost asked to back out but I decided to just go for it. So I was saying a lot of prayers before hand. The Conde family was really late and barely made it before it was their turn to get confirmed. Luckily there was 5 other confirmations that day! Elder Curtis confirmed Mama Conde then it was my turn to confirm Israel. After I put my hands on his head I knew exactly what to say. I felt that some one was whispering into my ear the words that he needed to hear. So that was really cool. He was being a butt though during priesthood and we had to sit in with him but it's alright. He is proably just feeling like a fish out of water and just needs time to adjust. Me and him have a lot to relate. Sometimes I feel inadequate and like nobody wants to listen to an 18 year old kid but I know with time this will go away. Like I said earlier we also go to a Spanish branch. It's a nice small little chapel and probably has 50 people that come. It makes me feel like I am going to church in Roatan again!

I know that God blesses us for being here. I think one thing he blesses us with is love for other people. I feel like I love these people so much and I barely know them. I know that this is the Lord's work and love going to bed satisfied every night. This mission is amazing. It is the TMM.

I also wanted to talk about P-day today. We woke up and studied like normal and then we went tie digging. Ties are a BIG deal in this mission. You can get some super expensive ties here for like 1 dollar. Today we found a ton of good ties. We found about 26 really nice ones and then divided between the four of us that went and we each got about 6. It was a pretty good experience. I love you all and hope that you are all doing amazing!!

Love, ELder Hurst