Everythins changin

Hey familia!

Great to see that you all had such a good time up in Utah. I really want to head back to Zion´s when I come home. And Colby, you´re huge! Probably going to be bigger than me when I get back. Not that I can help it, we don´t really eat as much here as we do at home.

This is my last week of my training. 11 weeks in Mexico. Still feels a bit weird. I´ve become really comfortable with my area so, obviously, it´s time to shake things up. Next week we have exchanges and Elder Diaz and I feel like they´re going to split the area, and we´re both going to stay in Juarez training new misionaries. They´re splitting the ward at the end of this month so we´re pretty confident in our prediction, but we´ll see.

Also, President Walker is officially out and President Bird is in. We´re all waiting with bated breath for the new rules that are going to come. We´ve already been told that we can´t wear backpacks with two straps, so I´m probably going to go buy a shoulder bag after this. Also Carl´s Jr. (Flip yeah!) but that´s beside the point. I have faith in the new President, but it´s a little hard for the old guard to trust him right about now. Especially because we haven´t heard from him or seen him yet. Very interesting that he didn´t write us this week.

The area is progressing in a weird way. We had 8 new investigators last week but only have one baptismal date. We´re trying to figure out how to keep the investigators we have and get them to sacrament meeting. Problemas problemas. We´re also having a meeting with the bishop this Wednesday to coordinate our efforts with the ward, but with the ward splitting at the end of the month we can only do so much.

Our one progressing investigator is a lady named Juanita who´s paralyzed from the waist down and whose husband abandoned her. She´s been taught by two pairs of missionaries in the past but seems finally ready to be baptized. Not sure how we´ll baptize her, but we´ll figure that out when the time comes.

I wish we had members like you guys here in the ward. Apparently Elder Diaz and his old companion got a few donuts every day from an hermana in the ward, but, thanks to Elder Diaz, I don´t. He has a weird belief that members shouldn´t give us food... He told me that he feels like they don´t look at us as missionaries anymore when they drop food off. (?) Then he told me about all of the cheesecakes, pies, and pizza he´s gotten from members and how much he hates it (loony right?) With the hermana with the donuts he told her ¨no¨ and then paid for his donuts. Understandably, she stopped coming by with free donuts. After hearing this, I was a bit peeved, and now every time I hear her shouting ¨DONUTS!¨ in the street I think that I could be eating them if it wasn´t for Elder Diaz and his weird beliefs. I also pretend to shoot him. 

I´m always hungry...

So yeah. My story of the week. I´ve gotten kind of bad at writing/speaking English so if there´s anything in that block of text that´s poorly written, I´m sorry. Elder Diaz told me that all of his American companions had difficulty speaking English, and that one even had to have his brother-in-law translate for him while speaking with his family. Loony stuff.

Well that´s all for now. I love you all and are praying for you every night. Thanks for the prayers and keep on working at being the best you can be.

Lots of love,

Elder Brayden Decker