Aug 22, 2011

All is well here. I love the work and speaking in spanish and all that jazz because it's the best.

Still no penguins. I guess I have to wait like another month. My second p-day so far has been pretty boring but we are going to go shopping and have an activity and stuff later. so that should be fun.

Umm okay so stories. We have a few really good investigators and some that aren't as awesome but still good. We found a family of 5 that live right next to us and they are all able to be baptized, they aren't to that point yet because they haven't gone to church or anything but they are living the right way and all of their kids are older than 8 and they all were present for our lesson so it was pretty cool to have that happen. Besides them we have a couple who are named Andres and Rachel, she is from seattle so speaks english and was part of some religion previously so it's cool teaching them she says she's curious about learning more about our church and they both came to church yesterday so that was cool. She asks some super deep questions too we were just teaching our first lesson with them but had to pull out like all of our information to answer the questions she had. Obviously we weren't able to answer all of her questions in that amount of time so we have more lessons set up for them. I just decided to change the saying "curiousity killed the cat" to "curiosity baptized the cat" because that's usually how it goes from conversion stories like "yeah I was curious and wanted to see what it was like and they got me!" so hopefully that's how it goes with Rachel and Andres. We taught him before her so we had a baptismal date set up (which is not going to happen but it was a goal for his preparation and we're working on it) but when I commited her to baptism she said "But I don't want to like set up a date" and she said it about two seconds before my companion would have tried to commit her to a date. But it was cool and they are good people.

We've found some other people as well and there is going to be a baptism in two weeks for a guy who's name is Mario Varas and has been taught for a long time (so it's not my baptism) so we're super excited for him because he had to stop smoking to be baptized and they did some Preach My Gospel activity with him and he has quit smoking cold turkey but doesn't feel anxiety about it or anything so it's cool stuff.

There's a recent convert here that I think Dad would like. His name is Ian and he is basically hilarious, yesterday he gave a talk and used a quote from the song Imagine (the one by John Lennon) and he plays the guitar and stuff so yeah he's cool. ummmm other stories. Ohh yeah so basically like the things you don't want to happen on your mission have happened already to me. Like being bit by a dog or having awkward contacts like the one I told you last week or being rained on all day... All that fun stuff has happened to me and my companion like everytime has said "That didn't happen to me for the longest time!"  (Okay so side note this country is soooo stuck in the 90's. It's hilarious. With the Dragon Ball Z and Simpsons and all of this music like styx playing right now) Okay so yeah uhhh My mission is awesome.

Okay so another story. Last night we contacted this old guy and we started talking but he interrupted us and said "you want to know why I go to church?" and we were like well yeah and he told us this story about how in jail he saw a spirit (he thought it was Jesus but it wasn't and you'll see why now) and the spirit reached out to shake this guys hand but their hands passed through each other and then in some other experience the clouds opened and he saw another spirit come out of the sky with a beard like waist length and he said he told people the story but they never believed him and we were like "we believe you but we know that Jesus has a body so we believe you saw SOMEbody but it wasn't Jesus" but we didn't explain all of that to him but got his address and stuff but it was like ¿Whaa!? and it was awesome because we talked about it afterward how you can tell whether apparitions are from God or the Devil by asking to shake their hands and if they are Angels they will decline to shake your hand, if they are devils they will try to shake your hand and you won't feel it, and resurrected people (like Jesus) you'd be able to feel their hands so yeah. It was pretty cool. I think we're going to work something out to send you pictures but I totally forgot my camera (fail) so We're going to figure something out with my companions camera. and it'll work well. Because I said so. Besides that I don't really know what else to talk about. I've felt like I could go throw up if I chose to basically since I got here but I don't feel sick... So I don't know what's up but I think I'm fine. Hopefully there is money in my bank account because I am going to go try and get some to buy a scarf... because I need one. So yeah. Heads up on that because I need to go work that out today in a couple hours... But hopefully nothing has been taken out since our phone call in LA so I should (key word should) be okay. =)

So I have been told by a member here (and I won't lie I just looked) that my Blog hasn't been updated since June 14th.... Just saying. Haha. I guess people would like to see that. The guy who told me is basically awesome. He should have gone to the MTC a while ago because he's been called to serve in Mozambique but he hasn't gotten his visa to the states so he spends his time going to teach with the missionaries, watching tv in english (because he speaks basically perfect english) and checking out facebook. His name is Oscar so if I have recieved friend requests from any oscars you can accept it haha. He also complimented me on my spanish because I speak it super good (apparently.... everybody says that.) he heard like a contact or something the first time he came with us and his first response was "Really Elder? You ONLY had spanish in school?" and I was like "yeah for 9 years" and he said "well everybody here has 12 years of english but does anybody speak it? No!" And then I was like ohh... well dang. But it's just the gift of tongues. Stake pres said I would see it so yeah. I'm rockin the gift of tongues! Baha.

Okay really I think I have told you everything interesting. But wait. I've had a revelation (not really but you should think that) I think as a family we've kinda sucked at keeping the sabbath day holy. especially the last few years. And since i'm a professional testimony bearer at this time I think it's important for you all to know that I think that is something we can all do better because Preach My Gospel teaches that when people don't sanctify the sabbath day Every part of their lives are negitively affected. So yeah... I think if that is made better things will work out better with everything (like axiom and money and all that) so yeah.

I hope everything is going well for all of you. I hope the Grandparents are all well. I love you all and hope that you are all safe, happy, and healthy.

-Elder Bassett

P.S. My companion thinks I'm an agent from the matrix. Because I can quote the "Mister Anderson" really well... So yeah. I'm awesome. And I will work on getting you pictures today and next week!