25th Week—February 26-March 4, 2012

Does this show you why we need a GPS?  This was sent through an email forward.  We don't know when it was taken.  We have never seen so few cars on the freeways

I don't know what kind of flower this is but it was covered with blossoms and it seemed like on evrey blossom there was a bee!

          We had one of our best weeks and one of our worst weeks this past week.  I am starting out with the wonderful news first because I can’t stand to not tell!  Jaime Olazava told us he is ready set a date to be baptized!  We are so happy for their family.

Last Friday we taught him the principles of the Restoration lesson that we had not covered before. We have taught him all of the principles in the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and this Friday we are teaching the Plan of Salvation lesson to him.  The young elders will be teaching him the rest of the lessons.  We will be sitting in with them as they give the lessons.  Jaime wanted us to be there.  He and his wife are talking about being sealed in the temple so that means they are getting back together.  We don’t know when.  Jaime is very methodical and sure when he makes a decision.  Victoria offered to wait for him to go through the temple.  He told her to go ahead because she is ready and he will go through later.  He has even been talking to his daughter, Nancy Perez, who joined the church 2 years ago, but is less active now. She has told him that she is going to start coming to church again! We are so happy for their family!

          The devastating news is about the Arzu family.  If you remember we had taught him to pray last week and taught him about Family Prayer.  He did have family prayer and his daughter responded positively to it.  We met with him 2 times last week and he had asked us to come again on Friday.  Then he called and had to cancel.  We found out that the school had called him and his son Jorge was in a gang fight, someone pulled a gun and Jorge ended up in Juvenile Detention.  He told his dad he wasn’t in a gang but the gang that started the fight with him said he was.  All we know is the gang was beating him and someone who came to his rescue had a gun.  We don’t know if anyone was hurt or if the gun was shot.  The police told the Arzus to pull their daughter out of school because all of their family is in danger of being killed!  They told them, they would have to move for protection from the gang!  We were just sick.  Jorge will be in detention for at least one month.  They are buying their house and not renting so we are not sure what will happen.  We told them to go to talk to the bishop including Jorge (the non- member father).  We also talked to the bishop and he said he has access to legal counsel so I hope he can help them.  We have prayed for them.  We are scheduled to visit them again this Wednesday. 

          We also visited a 14 year old girl who was baptized 2 years ago with her brother who is 12.  They are the only members of the church in their family.  I think it is impossible for them to be active.  They live in very dire circumstances.  She was raped 6 months ago and is dealing with the trauma.  The bishop was going to get her some counseling.  However when we went back for another scheduled visit now one was home.

          Every day here we realize how blessed we are to have been born and raised where we were and to have been born under the covenant.

          We met Andres Cabrera this week.  His wife has been a member for many years.  They feed the missionaries every week but the missionaries haven’t been able to make any progress with him.  The District Leader, Elder Maddox, asked us to visit with him.  He is a very outstanding man.  He learned to be fluent in English while he was driving truck.  He was proficient in English in just 6 months.  He then went to diesel mechanics school while he was driving truck fulltime and then was certified to work on Jet planes.  He is now a mechanic at the airport and is still going to school studying energy—wind, sun, and ocean waves and he is also taking an environmental class.  He agreed to study about Jesus in the Book of Mormon with us.

          We also met the Vasquez family this week.  They were very active at one time but have just started to come back to church. They haven’t been there for over a month .  They have an 8 year old son who needs to be baptized.  He told us he needs to get ready to baptize his son.  He said his son is ready—his dad just needs  to get ready.  We are having a Family Home Evening about baptism with them tonight. 

          We also met the Estella Tecuapetla-Carlos Mejia family.  She has two children­-Joslin and Alejandro.  We started reading out of the Book of Mormon with them on our first visit.   It was neat to have the children take their turn in reading the Book of Mormon.  Carlos  says he is thinking about being baptized.

          This past week we met some new families and it was a great week.  We pray often for those who have such trying problems.  It seems like every time we watch the news here there is a teenager who has been killed from drugs, drinking, or gang fights.  The other news is Hollywood, weather and the Lakers.  (Of course, lately there has been news about the Clippers.) 

          The Shumans came over last Friday and Saturday nights to watch the BYU basketball games with us.  Friday night with San Diego was good but the Gonzaga game was not so fun to watch.