Villegas- Week #85

Hey Hey Hey

Hey Family,

Well, just so everyone knows, my foot has completely healed and I was out working again on Tuesday without any problems. So I had the whole week to work and we got a lot done. My few days in the pench were…interesting. After 19 months of being on a mission it is a little mind boggling to sit and do nothing for three days. I tried reading and studying but after 4 hours of that I wasn’t learning anything. So yeah, I am glad to be back out working in the field. We just got back from zone activity, where we played volleyball and soccer. It was pretty fun. My old comp. Elder Arriola is in the zone as well, and we celebrated his upcoming departure to his house in a week by covering him in silly-string. So that was pretty fun. The Tormenta Blanca was already planned, and it actually happened the weekend before my spider bite. The weather actually has completely changed. This week we had rain rain rain, all week long. I hate the rain for one reason…no one comes to church when it rains. Nobody has a car in the ward and all the streets turn into a huge muddy lake swamp pit so nobody can even make it. So we have been wearing huge boots all week to get through the area. Being District Leader is pretty fun, too, because today I formed secret alliances with my district and we dominated in everything. The Hermanas should be having 5 baptisms this weekend, so they are doing great, and hopefully we will as well.

So the Fernandez Family is doing great. Despite the rain, they showed their faith and came to church. It was awesome to see them come by themselves! The whole family of five came and loved it. So they have all been to church enough times to be baptized this weekend. We did a fast during the week to help them get to church, because up until that time they had never come as a whole family, only the parents by themselves, or the kids, but this week they all came. There is only one problem…Javier, the dad, smokes…boooooooooo…. Not good. We gave him some Orbit gum and told him to chew it whenever he had really bad cravings to smoke and he is going down. We want them to get baptized this weekend so badly, but I don’t know what to do, because he can’t get baptized while smoking. We will be talking to him very frankly tomorrow to make sure he quits once and for all. They are so awesome though! They signed up to give us lunch tomorrow! They aren’t even members. They are all really excited about the gospel as well. They tell us all the time about the stuff they are learning, and they are like best friends with the Martinez family now (ward mission leader). So we will see what happens this weekend.

So that is about all that happened this week. I am kind of tired from zone activity so I am not really up for typing that much. I know, don’t you hate when that happens? How inconsiderate of me. The housing sounds fine. I was talking with Hermana Daniels and Elder Cooper today at the zone activity today about BYU housing and there are various opinions and rumors about every place within 10 miles of campus from what I could gather, but neither of them knew much about University Park, so the mystery continues. Whatever. I hope the trip with Grandma goes well, and that you have some fun down in Utah. So…the fact that you are getting me a parking spot at BYU would imply me having a vehicle…do we know what the options are for such vehicle…or is it still kind of a distant future decision to be made? I am glad you both like rock band…never thought I would see the day that my parents would be so proficient at a cutting edge video game. The things that happen on a mission…well, I hope you all stay well this week and that you can see the blessings of the Lord in your lives. Pray for the Fernandez Family!

Elder Gilmore