Monday, December 1, 2008

Familia,

This past Sunday we had Mario's baptism. Mario was married last week to BettyAnn. The two of them and their youngest son were baptized this Sunday the 30th.

They are going to move this week to Bakersfield, so they wanted to get baptized this past week, at least so they would have records to transfer. I'm not worried about them finding the church there or going inactive. They've been working towards marriage and baptism forever. The week before there were three kids that were baptized that we had taught because 2 of them were 9. So we've had 3 Spanish convert baptism in the last two weeks. I'll send pictures.

The father/uncle of the three kids, baptized them. Elder Olsen baptized Mario and BettyAnn. It took him three times to baptize Mario, and three times to baptize BettyAnn. Hes only 135 pounds and had trouble getting them under. When Gabriel was baptized it took Elder Olsen 2 tries. If he ate all his beans that wouldn't have happened. Luckily I didn't have to give any talks, just say a prayer and be a witness.

For Thanksgiving we basically did get the day off. We did our weekly planning, played in a turkey bowl, then played games at night. We could visit people, but we couldn't proselite. We ate turkey and ham, and mashed potatoes, so pretty regular. I think they made it because we were coming over, though. Christmas is huge among Mexicans. Any time they can party, they do.

I think the other email l wrote deleted itself so I'll write again what happened to elder Olsen last week. He was backing me up and I was idling in reverse, he was walking backwards and motioning me to come towards him. Then he tripped and fell on the curb. All I saw was one second I could see him and the next he had disappeared. He hit his wrist on the curb, and apparently he needed a brace, because he asked me to go to Walgreens to get him one. Whenever someone would ask he would tell everyone that I nearly ran him over. Then a few days later after a meeting he was backing me up again. He was talking to the Sister Missionaries and apparently they were very distracting for him because as he was backing me up, he stumbled on the curb and nearly fell over again. I think I should be the one backing him up.

I have everything I need, just send me more stuff anyway.

THE ELDER JAMES MEINERS