Dear Family and Friends,
I can’t believe this is already the last week of the transfer! Time is just going by way too fast. This Saturday, after the wedding, baptism, and ward party, we will be getting transfer calls. I’m really nervous. I have been here for 3 transfers now and there is a good possibility that I will be moved. I’d say the chances are 50 – 50. We will find out soon enough!
This week was a good one. I think in my weekly emails I focus too much on things we did and not so much on what my experience out here is really like. So I will try to change that this week. But first, an update on our main investigators.
Beto and Yaneth
Beto and Yaneth are good to go for Saturday! Like I said, the wedding will be at 2:00 in downtown Beaumont. The sisters in the branch are busy planning a really good wedding and Elder Hatch is going to be coming out to it from Houston. Should be a pretty sweet time! After the wedding, around 4:30, we will meet at the Weaver Chapel and have the baptism. After that, we have a combined Christmas party with the branch from Port Arthur! It should be a really busy day! Not often in the mission do you get to take so much time to enjoy the fruit of your labors. Saturday will probably be one of the best days of my mission. I was talking to Elder Hatch on the phone a couple nights ago, and we decided that the baptisms that you have to work hardest for are the most satisfying. I’d agree with that. Yaneth was the first person I ever taught out here in Beaumont. She has been being taught by missionaries since June. And she has been on board the whole way. Had it not been for the hastle in getting their birth certificates sent here so that they could get a marriage liscence, they would have been married and baptized a loooong time ago.
Juan Padilla
Juan Padilla is in Mexico. He went because his brother in law, Armando, was going there to pick up his family. He is doing good, we actually had a sweet lesson with him and got to talk to his wife and she even sat in with us! Hopefully he will be back in a week but Mexico has been known among missionaries to be something of a black hole….
Sweet Family
Y’all remember that sweet Mexican family we found last Sunday? We went by last night. What a heartbreaker. Sweet family, really nice. We go through the whole first lesson as by the book as you can go. Really great lesson, lots of scriptures and participation. And at the end of things, the wife interrupts and starts going off about how they just want to stick with the Bible and the pope is their prophet and the authority was never lost and it’s in the Catholic church… really sad. She was nice and all but just not willing to accept anything else. She even admitted that they never even go to church. It really stinks when you meet people like that. That family was so sweet. You can teach all day long, but one thing you can’t teach is desire and willingness to learn. So I guess we just look for people who are willing. It stinks but what can we do? They invited us back so we will keep trying but we can’t force them to do anything.
Maria, Miriam, and Israel
On Friday during studies, we got a phone call from a lady Elder Hatch and I taught forever ago named Maria. She had dissappeared, but now she called us and told us she moved to a new address and now we are teaching her again! But Miriam from last week, she is avoiding us. Not sure why. Same scenario as that Israel Guerrero guy from a couple months ago. I don’t understand why some people can seem so interested and then just fall off the face of the earth. It doesn’t make sense sometimes.
Christmas Without the Snow
Well, there are lights out and we have a Christmas tree up… but it just doesn’t feel like Christmas. It’s warm (80 degrees almost everyday) and muggy and humid, and it just rains half the time. Like, pours. It stinks! I miss the snow and the feeling of winter in Utah. One thing I have decided on my mission is that I never want to live outside of Utah! It’s so legit up there! Just think about it.. it’s like a little piece of heaven. I love Texas and all but I don’t see how people can live here to be honest haha. Texas is crazy.. I don’t think y’all understand. You can’t unless you have lived here. It’s so different. So it has been sweet getting to know that southern style culture, it’s definitely pretty unique. We eat a lot of gumbo and boudain and all that stuff. Last week we had some sweet Jambalaya!
Also, something else that’s different is that there are ghetto’s everywhere! It’s nuts. I think the only sketchy place I know of back home is West Valley. Another thing… CHURCHES EVERYWHERE! Literally on every corner. Last night, we got invited to go see a Christmas production at Calvary Baptist Church, just right across the street from our house. There was a lot of people. We got to see some real old style Southern baptist preaching and singing. Calvary is HUGE!! There are 9 gigantic buildings. Look it up! They have their own website I bet. It was really different worship. Really generic. I’ve gone a couple other churches on my mission, and everytime I am invited by someone I like to go. It’s a real testimony builder. That production last night had great messages and music, but I didn’t feel the Spirit at all. It was really obvious that I didn’t. What I’ve realized is that every church will talk to you about God and Christ and say something good and read a scripture and tell you that you can change. That’s all good stuff, we believe in that too. But our church is the only church I can think of that has ANSWERS. That answers questions that people have. Other churches are really generic. It’s weird.
Anyway, Elder Cope and I are really tired so we are probably going to go back to the apartment and take a nap. It’s a pretty rare treat, so I’m excited. Then we are going to play basketball until we can’t anymore! Oh yeah!
Y’all have a good week.
Love,
Elder Viitanen
