December 5, 2011 Email

Hello Mom : )

Thank you for getting the garments to me in such a timely fashion. I'm glad you are all feeling better from your bout with the flu. I have been very blessed with my health throughout my mission thanks to that awesome blessing. It's been pretty cold here the last few weeks. But it's snowed here only like once in the past century so my chances for a white Christmas are pretty slim. We've had a pretty good week, teaching a lot. I'm starting to wonder if maybe we are spreading ourselves too thin. Maybe if we focused more on specific people we would have more baptisms and more less actives back in church. Something for us to think about...

Mayanin is showing amazing courage by continuing on with us, despite heavy opposition from her family. She is the first person in her family in recorded history to study with a different church. Her brother and her daughter are especially giving her a hard time about meeting with us. Obviously the spirit is working with her, to see her continuing on despite putting cherished family relationships in jeapordy. It's a testimony building experience for me to witness. Thank you for praying for her.

So I don't know if I've mentioned much about the Zamora family, but it's a couple- not married - nonetheless they have 11 kids together, that the missionaries and ward alike have been working on for years now. We taught them and 9 of their kids all at once the other night. It was crazy. Like half of the kids are already baptized. Hermano Zamora needs to get divorced/stop drinking first, but both parties have set a goal to be married and baptized in the future. It will be a great day that I won't be here to witness, but we are going to help them continue to make their way towards it

We had zero contact with Paul last week. His phone is off and we can't find him home so that is worrying us. Well I got to get but thank you for all of your prayers. I hope Andy gets the chance to dunk over someone in his city league. I'm super jealous that he has that ability now. Well I love you all.

Love, Elder Flake