17th Week—January 2-8, 2012

Be sure to lock your bike up!  This one is still locked up but
about the only things left to steal are the pedals.  It has looked like
this for three months.  Wonder if anyone will take what's  left?

Dale tries to ride the bike every day for 30 minutes.
He was hard at it!

This is one toilet you don't have to pay 25 cents to use!

Kent and Leslie Cooper--our good friends from Gilbert, AZ.
They are membership and leadership support missionaries also.

January Birthdays

January 13--Happy Birthday dear Charity--The Big 16!

January 25--Happy Birthday dear Cliff Cole--45!

January 31--Happy Birthday dear Shane--43!

Missionary News

          We had a good visit with Jose Guzman this week.  We read about Christ’s visit to the Nephites in 3 Nephi.  He hadn’t had a beer since before Christmas.  He actually made it through Christmas and New Years without drinking—that is phenomenal!  We were so happy for him.  His goal is to be free of drinking in 6 months.  That would be fantastic.

          We stopped by to see Beatriz De Le Pena.  She looks like she is doing better.  Her coloring and smile were back and she seemed stronger.  She finds out January 9 if the surgery was successful.  We pray that it was successful so she can raise her three little children.  Dale thought that she said that she still may have to have chemo therapy to complete the procedure.  She said she felt good enough that she was going to come to church Sunday. 

          As you know we have been so concerned about Matthew Perez.  We have been looking for someone in the ward who could bring him to church.  Elders Torres & Penrod told us there was someone in the ward that lived next door to him who could bring him.  Last week we stopped and met Hermano De Dios and this week we stopped and met Hermana De Dios.  They are a really nice couple.  They both said they would be very glad to bring him.  She even said that she teaches his age group in Sunday School!  We hope he will come with them.  Hermana De Dios has horrible headaches most of the time.  I don’t know how she functions.  She says that she has just learned to live with it.  She generally gets less than four hours of sleep a night.  It was interesting to hear about her family in El Salvador.  She has a son named Moroni who is the bishop of his ward.  Wonder if Walt & Eileen have met them. . . 

          We didn’t meet with Jaime Olasava this week because his brother from Mexico was visiting.  We did visit with Victoria.  She confided in us that she wants to go on a mission when her son leaves on his mission in three years.  She figures she can rent her house out and will be able to pay for both their missions from the rent if she is called to a Latin American country.  A week or two ago Jaime had shared with us that if he joined the church he wanted to help people like we are doing.  They are separated but we feel there is hope they can get back together and be sealed as a family.  We feel deep down that this is what they both want.  Also Victoria asked us to pray for her as she has a tumor and may have to have surgery.

Wednesday night we went over to the church to meet with Bishop Estrada.  He had forgotten to tell us he had a stake meeting.  While we were there Marleny Dominguez came up to us and introduced herself.  We have been trying to meet her almost since the first day we were here.  She actually wanted to set an appointment for us to visit her.  We went to see her Saturday morning.  Her husband wouldn’t come out of the bedroom to meet us.  She told us with tears in her eyes that they were getting a divorce.  He has quit going to church and will not talk to anyone about it.  He feels guilty for things he has done and doesn’t want to visit with us either.  Her 17 year old son had a liver transplant 7 years ago and he is having major health problems with it.  When we went to leave, she cried on my shoulder and I felt so terrible for her.  Sometimes other people’s problems look so insurmountable

Thursday we did our last Apt. check for this transfer.  President Baker had called us and asked up to do the mail run.  So we drove to the mission home, picked up the mail that the assistants had packed into the mission van.  We drove the van to our church building and the Artesia Ward Building where the zone leaders met us, picked up the mail for their zones and distributed it to the Elders in their zones.  After that we went to the temple.  Following the session at the temple we went to the mission office to turn in our apartment inspection papers.  We wanted to visit with the president about a problem about the wreck the ward mission leader and elders were in Christmas night.  He ended up talking with us for an hour.  He is an amazing person.  We feel so fortunate to have him as our President.  He deals with so many concerns and challenges.  He shared some of these with us and enlightened us more about helping the ward leaderships function properly and asked us to step in and share our experiences to help them improve. We are afraid that it will be easier said than done.