Week 9 (Campestre, Atiquizaya)

This week was very interesting. I’m glad to hear you guys are doing well. Don’t worry about me, I am doing well too. I feel a lot of peace because of the plan of salvation. Not to mention too there were those great talks on the plan of salvation in conference. I have continued to work hard and that makes it easier too. 

This Saturday we have our first baptism with S..... It is super exciting and she came to two conferences. We were super scared cause we went to her house to take her to the first session on Sunday, which she needed to go to at least one session to be baptized. But we got to her house and her mom was super upset for some reason. She said she might be able to come, so we just prayed that she would be able to come. 

Well we watched conference in the church in a secluded room cause we watched it in English, and they were projecting it in Spanish in the chapel, but when conference ended we came out and she was there. We were super excited, and to make things better, she saw a really close friend of hers from the other ward that goes to that church who just happened to be baptized last week. She seems very excited to be baptized. Also she is super lucky because she is actually allergic to fish.

Dinner after the priesthood session, the guys next to my 

comp is our investigator.

Other than that we don’t really have many more prospective. The G..... guy that we have been teaching for about a month and making slow progress came to the priesthood session. He said it was beautiful, but he said he felt nothing. We thought we were going to have him with conference because he was super excited for it. He was mad that they didn’t quote from the bible and kept talking about books he had never heard, (D&C). We are going back on Tuesday and if there doesn’t seem to be significant change we have to drop him. Which is really frustrating cause we thought he was progressing. We are going to have to find a lot of new investigators this week.

Also something interesting that happened on Monday last week was we were having a lesson with a part member family and after that we were going to go get papusas for dinner, but then lesson took a lot longer than we expected, and then it came the time to pray, right before I felt prompted to tell the family how much me and Elder Rosales love them, but before I could say anything my comp said alright lets end with a prayer. I ended up being the one to say the prayer so I was like perfect I can tell them through the prayer, so the prayer was a really long and super heartfelt prayer, but in the middle of the prayer we hear a full on shoot out with guns like 4 houses down in the street. I thought they were fireworks because I am naive haha, but a guy that we always saw in the streets was killed. I didn’t feel afraid at all, the people responded like it was a car accident on Utah, where everyone has to gather around to see the damage, like literally everyone. They acted like it wasn’t that big of a deal. It was a blessing though because we would have been on that same street in the same spot going to get papusas if that prayer and lesson hadn’t of happened. The next day it was like nothing had happened.

Conference was amazing this week, and this is the first time I have watched all the sessions, and not fallen asleep.

Also this week our cook told us she can’t cook for us anymore because her job is making her work in the afternoons. So we need to find a new cook, but I think me and my comp are just going to start cooking for ourselves. And no it has nothing to do with me not eating the fish soup.

I hope everything is going good for you guys. I am just so grateful that we have a knowledge of the plan of salvation, and to make things better, Jesus experienced every time we feel sad or hapless, so he knows exactly how we feel, he knows exactly what we need. In my patriarchal blessing it talks about how we were blessed with a celestial spirit in our home, and I have no doubt that she is with Heavenly Father in a state of pure happiness.

These massive spiders are everywhere. It was bigger than my hand.

Also giant grasshoppers. This one is as big as a Jimmy John's 8-inch sandwich. Last week I was attacked by one while we were walking, they fly and one was flying straight at me and landed on me. And It took me forever to get it off.

Also, the bishops son was on his laptop and he asked me to search the place I live on google images, this was like the 15th picture. I was like hey that kind of looks like my parents.

You guys are famous!!!

Love Elder Blanchard