15 July 2013

Dear Family,

This has been kind of a slow week. It seemed like every house we went to the person wasn't there or had something going on so we couldn't teach. We did teach; it just wasn't our best week.

We did have a baptism on Thursday, which was perhaps the highlight of the week. On Wednesday, I went to ward council for the first time. I could only kind of follow what was going on, but I did pick up on the fact that people in the meeting were not shy about speaking their mind.

Remember the young man who got baptized a few weeks ago? He started coming to church because one of our investigators, Walter, invited him. This week, Walter got permission from his father to get baptized, so we're going to come full circle.

Today we deep cleaned the apartment. The thing about concrete floors is you can slosh water everywhere. You don't have to worry about getting the carpet wet or anything. Concrete floors are also useful because you can hang your laundry to dry inside. Once a week I give my skirts and shirts to someone that I pay to wash my clothes, but I wash my white clothes on my own. So I'm pretty much pro. Okay, not really. My current companion has been washing clothes by hand most of her life and she actually knows what she is doing.

Another thing I am learning is that everyone here is related. Either by blood or marriage, there are a lot or family ties within the ward! I am also discovering that there are a lot of inactive people. Yesterday we visited a member. Her friend was there. When I asked if she was a member, she initially said no, and I thought that we had found a potential investigator. As it turns out, she had been baptized years ago, and then she started going to another church, and now she isn't going to any church. I am starting to think that we should just work on rekindling the testimonies of people who have already been baptized. We would have our work cut out for us and our schedule full. But we should probably also give new people a chance to hear the gospel.

Hna. Davis