What a Week

Dear Family!

Wow, that story was way cool about the girl you baptized in Chile still being strong in the church. Dad, you should definitely share some more of that stuff with me and the other boys, as well as some of grandpa's mission letters.  I would LOVE a few copies of some!

You said that you found a little Cuban place that you are going to try.  I hope you like it!  Out of all the foreigners that I have met in this area (tooooooooooons) - Cuban's are hands down the nicest out of all of them!  Americans all have the misconception that Cubans are all like Fidel Castro or something.  But they are the coolest, nicest people ever!  If the church could get into the country, I bet a ton of people would be baptized.

I haven't heard really anything about the uproar about the Boyd K. Packer talk, but I don't really understand why any faithful member of the church could get mad when all he said was established, true doctrine straight out of the scriptures?  Are members of the church starting to justify homosexuality of something?  If they are, they might as well just start drinking wine every once in a while because medical science says that it is healthy - right?  It's too bad that people are upset, because he is an apostle inspired by God.

Mom told me a little bit about the big storm you had last week and that sounds crazy!  Did the hail do a lot of damage to some cars or was everything in decent shape?  We have had a ton of rain this past week, but not any intense storms for a few weeks.  I still love the rain tho!  Us Arizona boys can't get enough of it.

Anyways, a little on the week over here in the DR.   We had a crazy one ourselves.  The power was out all week - so no washing machine and no fan.  We took our mattresses out on the porch to sleep but ended up sleeping on the tile floor because it was cooler.  It turns out that the light bill didn't get paid so we have been trying to work all that out.  Then today, the water got cut off (that happens all the time in this country), so today, we had to no electricity and no water - haha.  When we got back for the day, it was all back on - yay!

We have a baptismal goal/date!  There is a Haitian man named Emanuel who we have been visiting for some time and he was never a great investigator, but he would show up to church every once in a while. So, after a lot of talking it over with Elder Sunderhaus, we decided that the only thing to do was to give a baptismal goal to him and see if he would accept it.  If so, great - we would keep working with him.  Well, it turns out that he accepted the date of the 23rd of this month!  He was a little nervous about it, but I think it will all go well, and he came to church this last week - so I am really hoping that it will all work out!  President Antivilo will have to come out and do the baptismal interview, because there are no other missionaries in this mission allowed in our area.  Elder Sunderhaus and I and the President and that's all.  Not even the AP's or the zone leaders, so I hope that President will be able to make it out here by the 23rd, or it is even possible that he could do it over the telephone . . . so we'll see.

So although we had a great week putting down a baptismal date, we also had something tragic happen.  One of our investigators was murdered.  His name was Junior.  He was Haitian and he was just in town for a few months to visit his brother who lives over here.  on Saturday night he went down to the town of Veron - about a 20 minute walk from our house - to go visit a friend.  Somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00, a man from England who's wife had cheated on him, walked into the streets with a gun and started shooting everyone in sight, then himself . . . Junior just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed.  I can't help but wonder about how he is right now . . . he was accepting the message well, but if he honestly had plans to visit us in church the next day, he probably would have been safe in his house.  I am just glad that my companion and I were being obedient and weren't out late.  That could have been the end of us as well....It is a sad experience, but it has really made me realize that the amazing act that Jesus Christ completed, takes away the sting of death.

We have interviews with the President this Thursday, which I am really excited for!  The church mission headquarters changed interviews with the President from every transfer, to every other transfer - so it has been a good 3 months since I have really been able to sit down and have a good talk with him.  I really wish that the missionaries had more opportunities to get closer to the president, but I will take what the church gives me. :)

That is about all that I have to say for this week, but take care and I will talk to you next week!

Love, Elder McBride