Another day in Paradise. Well, Mexico anyways.

Date: July 22, 2013 at 10:26:56 AM PDT

¡Hola familia!

Good morning from beautiful Monterrey, Mexico! The temperature s high, the sky is grey, and the work is progressing. What more could we ask for?

So it´s been one of the fastest weeks of my life. Very different being a senior companion than a trainee and also much more tiring. I´ve been taking naps whenever I have the time and we´re not working. I had to beat the little-area mindset out of Elder Baez with plenty of walking. He´s convinced that there´s some other way to work without having to walk all day, and if and when he figures it out I´ll be grateful. I also need to get him to help out in all the record-keeping and planning. He wasn´t exactly trained as I had expected, so we´ll also have to work on that. Also in teaching him how to speak with American missionaries.

But besides my current situation with the dear elder, everything is going well here in Juarez. We have three new investigators who are fantastic. One´s named Judith and is the daughter-in-law to one of the less active members in the ward. This last Saturday she called us to ask if we could teach her as she´s been having some problems, so we rushed around trying to find a member to help us out, and we ended up going with the ever faithful Angel. It was a good lesson where we tried to boost her self-esteem with the knowledge that she has a loving heavenly father. She´s about twenty and I think could be served well with a lot of the talks from the young women´s general conference thingy.

We were also contacted by a lady in the street named Erika. She walked up to us and asked, ¨Are you Mormon Missionaries?¨ and invited us to her home to teach her. When we got there she showed us a Book of Mormon and informed us, much to our surprise, that she had read it all. It was filled with little notes and marked passages and everything. Also, during our lesson, her daughter Itatti walked in, sat down, and started listening. They both accepted to be baptized but, sadly, didn´t show up to church yesterday. But still, there´s hope.

Also, on a weird note, we had a cool little experience yesterday. We were walking from where a member had given us food (problems) to our house the other day (about a thirty minute walk) when President and Hermana Bird drove up and offered us a ride. I had been praying for a member to pass by, but I hardly expected it to be the Mission President. The Lord truly blesses us in ways that we don´t expect.

Also, most importantly, congrats to Grandma and Grandpa for their mission call to Moscow! They´ll truly be blessed in their service to the Lord. And in Russia too! Almost as great as Monterrey, Mexico ;)

Love you all and it´s great to see that you´re all doing great. Remember to help Mom and Dad and to continue being faithful in the small things so the Lord will bless you in the great things.

Love ya´ll!

-Elder Brayden Decker