The
best part of the week is that we baptized! I feel bad because I didn't have
time to tell you anything about them before this week, but Michel and Marieli
got baptized and confirmed yesterday. It was a wild ride. Marieli had been an
investigator for 3 years, but it took forever to get her baptized and
confirmed. She'd been baptized 2 or 3 years ago, but then the missionaries left
and she never went to church to get confirmed. Afterwards it was hard for the
missionaries to convince her to do anything so time passed and it was necessary
to be baptized again to get confirmed. She did it though and now she's excited.
Michel is her niece (looks more like a cousin because her mom gave birth to her
when she was only 13).
Zone conference is the 31st. I'll be in charge of a class
on Chapter 4 of Preach My Gospel which is about the Holy Ghost. I'm excited
because Preach My Gospel and the Holy Ghost are two of my biggest focuses right
now in my studies anyway. I taught about the importance of PMG in the zone
class a couple weeks ago.
Pablo went to
Puebla. Juan and Cecilia are having some struggles right now as a couple that
are outside of our control. Pray for them.
The leadership conference was fun. I
was excited to see some old companions like Elder Alor and Elder Shoemaker. We
actually spent the night with Elder Alor and that was fun because we had a
second to talk. The main thing that I remember talking about during the conference was Preach My
Gospel. I know there were other things, but as you've likely noticed from the
email that was what stuck most with me. Every member should have one as well.
If you've never looked at it before, you might want to consider looking at it
in the gospel library or something. We went in a bus to Xalapa. We had a couple
hours before the conference started so we visited some of my converts like
Lili, Fernando, Fernanda, and Juan Jose. The older brother of Fernanda,
Fernando, and Juan Jose got baptized a couple weeks after I left. He was
excited to tell me haha.
Ejidal is kind of like Ay-hee-dahl. A lot of people in
my area grow, gather, box, and/or sell oranges. I like the members of the area
a lot. I suppose that my dislike is that the buses cost more here than in
Tuxpan. The ward has some really supportive members. We've focused a lot on getting
the youth excited because there's a lot of them and it's working. There are two
other missionaries in our ward, Elder Maradiaga and Elder Leon. Elder Maradiaga
is from my district in the CCM.
One thing I like about being a zone leader is
that a lot of the newer missionaries come to me for advice. It's both fun and
inspiring to see in them the honest desire to learn and improve. One thing that
I don't like as much is that I feel like we're constantly being put in charge
of pulling off last-second miracles. It's good though, because I know that the
experience in that will help a lot in the future.
We have a leadership
conference every transfer.
For P-day President came (we have interviews
tomorrow). We made carne asada and quesadillas and played basketball and
volleyball.
Love
you!
Elder
Finlinson
Connor with Michel, Marieli and Elder Marines
