Hola familia,
Hows it going? Life down here is fantastic. Elder Beus and I are getting along great and having a blast! We always joke around and talk about things like, " Well back in the guay" instead of back in Nam, we have really similar senses of humor. We had a baptism last Saturday and let me tell you what, Satan did not want that baptism happening! Friday night somebody had broken into the church and turned on at least one of the sinks and left it like that all night so Saturday morning we went over and everything was flooded and a lot of the tiles in the floor and baptismal font were destroyed. So we spent all morning Saturday trying to get all of that situated, then at the actual baptismal service not one single member from our branch showed up! Luckily the hermanas had come with their little investigator and her grandpa who is an active priesthood holder so my companion and him were the witnesses and I baptized her. In the end it`s all good because it was the baptism of an hermana from the ward that has been reactivating and she was happy to see her daughter get confirmed and baptized. Also there were plenty of people in church on Sunday. I was a little bummed that that´s how Elder Beus´s first baptism went down but I just explained to him how important baptism is so Satan works extra hard to make sure it doesn`t happen. But aside from that we had such an awesome week. We were able to find tons of really cool people to teach and we had some of the most spiritual and powerful lessons that I`ve had my entire mission. We found this one lady whose 5 year old daughter died 2 months ago and two years ago her dad and new-born of just a few weeks if I remember right died as well. Her husband lives apart from them because I think his family takes care of him because he had an accident a few years ago and can`t walk anymore. Anyways as we were sharing the Plan of Salvation with her you could just see the hope coming back that the pain doesn`t have to stay and that she can see her children again as long as she does her part. It was really cool and we had multiple lessons this week that were just so powerful, tanto with less active members como with investigators. There is this part member family that we`ve been trying to work with because one of their kids, this youth of like 15 years, has completely re-activated and now his mom has been coming back too. We`ve been trying to get in and teach them but the dad, who also is a less-active member, always gives us lame excuses and doesn`t let us in. But I`ve been feeling like we should still stop by and just let them know that we`re thinking about them. So on Sunday the wife finally set up an appointment with us and said that her husband mentioned that if she could find him a pair of used church pants that he would like to come back! I told her I have plenty of pants and would love to give her a pair, I don`t think they`ll fit him very well but i`m going to try. This is a family that can enter into the temple here in a few months and will be a great help to the branch so it makes me super happy to be able to help them. I love being a missionary so much because you really get to help people in such a unique way. Well I love you all and hope you have an excellent week. I`m going to send you some pictures of some recent adventures (like today we went to a museum of chairs, it was actually pretty cool and it turns out the tour-guide lives in my area, is the cousin of a recent convert, used to go to our church but never got baptized, and is willing to listen to us again (he even took a picture on his cell-phone with us haha)).
Rohayhu (that means I love you in Guaraní)
Elder Zachary J. Hulsey
