Another Week Down and We're Doing Great!!!

November 8, 2010

Dear Family,

Well another week down and we’re doing great!!! It’s been a blast!

Dad… about the whole coming to get me thing… you are going to know a lot more than I do. Just plan the trip the way you think best. I won’t be too sad if we can’t be there with my family for their sealing. I don’t really know a lot of details about what’s going on with them. I only hear things from other missionaries and I hear they’re doing great. If their temple date happens after I leave, it will be okay. So for now, just don’t worry about it. I don’t want to ask for an extension, nor do I want to worry too much about it either. We will just play it by ear and see how it works out and what the Lord has in store for us. As for the hotel, yes there are hotels in all places and they are always vacant, so we´ll just play that by ear too. We will stay in the hostel next to the temple for the most part, but we will plan that when I have three months to go.

We had a wonderful week and we worked freakin’ hard. Last week, because Elder Young was sick, we spent almost the whole week in the house. But this week, we went out and just tore it up! We have now set 5 baptisms for the next few weeks. Next week we will be starting with our first. His name is JORGE NETO. Kind of a weird story, but he actually called us from the hospital to ask us if we would baptize him before he died. Miracle! Strangely enough, ever since he made these plans with us, his health has greatly improved. Good Week!

We went to the temple on Thursday and had a marvelous time. We had zone conference and a great temple session. Our temple workers were from Layton, Utah and they didn’t speak Spanish. It was quite interesting. Ha Ha Ha. It’s kinda weird because now I can’t really imagine what it’s like not being able to speak it.

Yesterday in church we had record numbers in attendance. It was the first time in four years that we broke 100 members at sacrament meeting. We had 102!!!!!! It seemed so full and it felt so good. At the end, the bishop got up and bore his testimony. He said he knew that this only happened because the missionaries, Elder Young and Elder Sluder are working and doing their job. We felt so good and we know that we are seeing miracles happen every day.

Finally, this change is coming to an end. I will be starting the 10th change of my mission and will only have six left. That’s kinda crazy to think about. Change day is next Tuesday and the change will go until the first week of the New Year. We shall see what and where things will be going for me in this next little while. Cool huh?

Jake Eliason will be coming home in the next few weeks. He wrote me a letter telling me that he was going to wait for me! HA HA HA! If you see him, tell him hi from me would ya? Oh and by the way, I know Elder Taylor very, very well. That’s so crazy that he is related to Brother and Sister Dean’s grandson. I just talked to him the other day. I don’t know if you knew this, but he was almost my companion. That happened right before I got sent to Bella Italia at the last minute (due to some former missionary disobedience here in the area). Elder Taylor is now in San Jose de Mayo with my good old buddy Elder Jacobsen who was in my district last change. Crazy. He seems to be doing well.

Well I love you all so very much and I´ll see you soon!

Love, Elder Sluder