September 21, 2011

Hello Family!!!
Man I love hearing from you!! Guess What I got CHANGED!! I was really sad when I found out but I am now glad for the change. Elder Puentes was probably the best comp I had had so far, and definitely a blessing. However I continue to be blessed right now because I am now with Elder Riley. He is from Garland, Utah -- a couple miles south of the gas station in Riverside. He only has a change less than me (same time as Elder Hemsley), but seems like he is fresh off the plane. He is one of the most excited people about missionary work that I know. I really can't ask for more.

I am now in an area called Mitras, still in Monterrey, and actually on the corner of my old area. It is cool. The missionary before me left with a bunch of people for us. We didn't have any sure baptisms planned but we really focused on this one lady (Janeth) and she got baptized. Also two other kids (Karina 17 and Oracio 14) got bapatized that had been in teaching forever. Janeth is a really neat lady, she cuts hair and is married with three noisy kids. The husband and her sister who came to the baptism are who we are focusing on now. The sister is 14 named Vanessa, but the parents don't really want to give us permission to baptize her. We've been promising blessings so far for them. The further and further we get in the week we might have to start promising condemnations. I haven't had much practice in this kind of thing before so we'll see how it goes. Cesar Roman is the husband of Janeth. He was a really really rough character, and still has a few rough edges. He has had lots of problems with the word of wisdom, and we are having faith that he will get over the temptation and be able to get baptized. The good thing is he really wants it and is solid and plenty of people have stopped cold turkey before, but we have the Lord on our side. I have been the part of lots of extremely powerful lessons in their house. My testimony is now so much stronger from knowing them, and there is only one member in the whole family, they will be legit (this is hopefully another temple family). We actually have a lot of people we are teaching right now, and the members love us. I am really excited to work here.

As far as Christmas lists go I really don't need anything, the pants you sent are great mom. I'll probably be sending you a picture of some shoes that you could get for me but they aren't terrible yet so I'll wait on that. Some things that would be nice are the regular deodorant, shaving cream, and razors. I don't know if you can send that stuff. If not it’s ok. It’s just really expensive here. I would really like one of those cool razors that you can change the heads on. I can't use razors that have less than three blades because it irritates my face. Maybe some music would be cool. Disney is allowed here, and in Salt Lake I heard some Hans Zimmer and that I really liked. I bought a CD player that can play MP3 discs. I don't know if you know how to make MP3 discs but it would be easier for you and me that way, but I'm happy with whatever.

One more thing, the President lives in Sierra Madre, and we live with the missionaries in that area. President has called me and offered his house to us any time we need to have some people feel the spirit. So we can call Sister Romney and go over there any time they say and they will feed us and do our job for us. It’s legit. I hope to get to know President really well these next few months. We took Janeth and Cesar over there Sunday night, they loved it.
I love you guys and thanks so much.
Love,
Elder Waite