Transfers!

Elder Woodburn & Elder Lopez with the family they baptized this week (everyone but the mom on the right).

Elder Woodburn's Zone.

Alright so first off...transfers today! Elder Lopez is changing to a different area here in Tumbes but ill have a new companion that ill meet tomorrow. So well see! but yeah itll be nice to have a change but at the same time Elder Lopez has been a great help to me. He taught me a lot and would always help me out. One thing i never really realized is how patient with me he was. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to teach with with someone that cant speak and sucks as bad as i do haha. But He will be okay.

Secondly, This week has been packed full of blessings and miracles. It has really be amazing to see. Usually every single week we put down 1 baptism as our goal and try and strive to find that one person that is willing to work towards baptism. This week at the start of the week I decided to put down 4...Thinking back on it, there was zero reason to think that this family was going to be baptized. They had all the lessons, they had attended church, they knew it was true. but they all wanted to wait and learn more. But we put 4 down anyways. Then came tuesday and we fasted for them. during our fast we went to their house to teach them with a member and they still didnt want to be baptized. the grandma was set on being baptized in july for her birthday. At the end of the lesson we asked one more time and the grandma said yes. just like that she changed her mind. she said she was going to travel this weekend but if we could do it before then then she would be baptized. so we set it up for thursday. we stopped by wednesday to pick her up for her interview and her granddaughter decided to come with because she had nothing better to do. During her grandmas interview we asked her when she was gonna be baptized and she said "eh maybe next week or something like that". then her grandma came out and everything was set for her baptism. I went down the hall to get a drink of water and came back and her grandaughter was in there being interviewed for her baptism too. just like that.lol so then came thursday and we spent 2 hours cleaning the church and making it all nice for their baptism. Everything went well except...well i baptized the grandma and....i struggled. The first time i baptized her she didnt go all the way under. then the second time i didnt say her name, but i also didnt say it the first time but neither of the witnesses told me so i forgot again the second time...and then finally the third time i got it right. How awful right? but at least we got it right and now i will never forget to say the name when i baptize. but after the baptism the grandson and brother came up to us and said he was ready to be baptized this saturday! boom just like that. So again on saturday we had a baptismal service. It was awesome. The only one that wasnt baptized was the mom. She has some things that she needs to overcome but having seen her whole family be baptized and having attended church i know she knows its true. we just need to help her out some more. Thank you all so much for your prayers. I know for a fact that this success wouldnt have happened without your prayers. That just proves the power of prayer though. You all can make an influence from thousands of miles away. This is such a beautiful work. Afterwards Ronny (the son) got up and bore a beautiful testimony about this church.

Lets see....Thirdly...I got 5 letters last week! it was a mid-January miracle!!! haha ;) I finally got 3 of the letters that have just been sitting in the office from Alli and then i got the one from mert too! from....november 7 lol. It came with a nice stamp on the front that said it got sent to El Salvador in Central America.lol classic. But thanks for all the letters and love! How do the letters that i send show up when you get em? cuz we just write the addresses on them and give them to the office without a stamp and they take care of the rest. Which reminds me, ill have to pay for all of these letters at the end of the mish lol probably 1 dollar each. but the mish does pay for 4 letters a month (one a week) for us so it should be a lil cheaper :)

Keep up the good work up there in the good ole U S of A. 6 More weeks in Tumbes and well see what happends after that! Love you all so much!

Love

Elder Woodburn