June 27, 2011 Email

Hey Mom :)

Thanks for the e-mail and the package in advance. Before I forget, my new address is:

Salinas, CA 93907

It's a nice apartment. One of the nicest in the mission according to Elder Wynn, the housing coordinator who came down to help us move with his truck last Monday. We are going to love saving money with the washer and dryer.

So I said my goodbyes to Pres. and Sis. Jackson on Friday at the leadership meeting in San Jose. They were both super tired. They ran to the finish line. They go back to Mesa tomorrow. I will meet Pres. Watkins this Thursday at a Zone Conference in Sea Side (Monterey).

Not too much exciting happened this past week. We are still trying to help Lorenzo get his answer/realize he's already received one... I interviewed a cool man named Juan for baptism. The other Spanish elders are teaching him. We had a really spiritual discussion, during the course of which he revealed that he was living with a women who he is not married too. So he wasn't able to be baptized this weekend, but I explained to him that we (us as missionaries, as well as God) were going to be with him to help him make the changes in his life necessary to qualify him to receive the gift of baptism. He's having a tough time in his life but he has a lot of faith that baptism will help to restore peace to his life.

The Lord blessed us to find a family of like at least 8 people, who we taught for the first time last night. The room was just full of people and they were all paying attention. It was cool. We taught lesson 3 and it went pretty well. We have another appointment with them next Saturday. We also found 2 other new investigators the past week, which is great because our teaching pool was getting pretty shallow.

And finally, yesterday, Reyna and Odilia had us over for dinner and after we taught them about the priesthood and gave them there first blessings. Odilia has been having some major back pains due to the back-breaking work in the fields. So we gave her a blessing of health. And so, to not leave Reyna out, we gave her a blessing as well. It was a good experience.

So thanks mom, for sending the envelope full of all my buddies letters + the memory card. Sounds like they all are having amazing experiences. It sounds like Darrel's wedding was nice. I hope ya'll have a good time at lake Powell. Tell Andrew not to jump off of any cliffs that I wouldn't jump off ;)

So I hit 18 months this week. crazy... It's crunch time now :) Well thanks again for everything Mom, Love Elder Flake