12-12-2011

What’s up my fam.

Happy Merry almost Christmas. It is coming very fast!!! Thank you for the letters mom dad and Nicole.  It was great to hear from you! Dang mom you are all over the states, but your trip sounded very fun. I’m glad you enjoyed passing time with your brothers and sisters. Hey how is basketball going for Braiden and Caleb? Braiden what is happening let me in? I just got done playing with my companion elder paladines and he actually knows how to play a little the little Latin. That or i am very bad at basketball right now... which is very true. Everything is going very well here in Pilar. Our zone here in Pilar is awesome. It’s one of the smaller zones in the mission but we baptize just as much as any of the others cause the elders are so dang awesome. I have done divisions twice already to try and help prepare the baptismal candidates in the other areas for their baptism and it is looking very well. There is a missionary that is in his third change and is already training... very young, but an awesome missionary and we have many Latinos in our zone. It is so cool! Dad as for the answer to your question, ya we still have a lot of time to work just time to sleep is what is killing me ha. 5 nights in a row I got like 3 or 4 hours of sleep due to traveling to other areas, but we have bikes here so we can get to are appointments pretty fast! It is so cool, we are having a lot of success, and I have found that my prayers have gotten a lot longer now and more frequent due to all the people that i pray for now. This last week we found a great family that accepted a date on the first visit very willingly and are reading a lot!!! We didn’t have to much luck with amount of investigators in the church but this next week we are going to do better i know it! Another thing that i am learning here in Pilar is how to work with members. Everybody always told me you will never have real success if you don’t work with the members and thought thank you i already know but really it is all about the members. We spend all day every day teaching the Freidns cousins and family. It makes it so much better! I love this work it is so much fun.  A mission is hard, teaching, walking, eating, and baptizing tired but at the same time it is so much fun. You can laugh and love life living the law of consigaration. Braiden you are going to love the mission i hope you are preparing a lot because if you do i like me in... 6 months you could have your call!!!! YA BOY!ª!!! (Maybe he thinks Braiden is a senior)  Dad i took your advice and starting studying the bible dictionary... it is full of information. I don’t have much time to study it but i still study.
 Oh one story before i go! We were doing an activity where a family writes down the friends and family that are not members we do a kneeling prayer together and they ask God which of the people are ready to receive the gospel. This woman said one of the most powerful prayers i have heard! She had so much faith in her voice and then after the prayer sat there and with our looking at the paper said a name... Catolina. We then went out side and sat down and began to plan what we were going to do. Right when we finished guess who entered... ya Catolina and here family. It was one of the coolest most obvious answers to a prayer i have seen. We were all so surprised. We then talked to her and her family what we had planned and it went well. A little testimony that God answers prayers and to keep praying. I love you and am excited to talked next week. This is the true church and it is so awesome! 
love you elder shaw