I get to call home on Sunday!

It hasn’t been a long time since I last wrote, but I enjoy writing and I’m sure you enjoy hearing about everything.

Friday night we went and visited a referral we had gotten and it started out really well. I guess they had been taught before and had been to church a couple times so when we gave them the baptism commitment they accepted. It was a woman and her two pregnant daughters, one of which is about to give birth if she hasn’t yet. Since they’d been to church a bunch already my companions were like, “let’s do it tomorrow!” So we had it all planned out to go in the morning and make sure they knew everything they needed to know and were ready, then we’d baptize them at like 5 in the afternoon.

The next day turned out really bad though. Elder Fraga went to correlation in the morning while me and Elder Sharp went to teach them. Latin people are funny though. They think living together counts as being married so we thought they were married, but when we went back in the morning the mother said she was living with someone she wasn’t married to. Elder Sharp is a really frank and bold person so he told her straight out she couldn’t be baptized unless they split up. She got really offended and said her other husband was baptized and then turned into a really terribly nasty person and she even said a previous elder was going to baptize her even if she was with someone. Elder Sharp just told her we can’t baptize her or the condemnation will be on us and she left the room crying.

The two daughters decided they would wait because of all the contention. The only thing is that the mom won’t let us in the house anymore. We went back but she’s too mad at us. It’s really hard for me because I know the daughters would be baptized, but the mother is now an obstacle instead of a catalyst. They need lots of prayers. We had Nancy Pantoja (ward member) there and she went in and talked to her and the lady, Laurel, said they weren’t sleeping together, just living in the same house. It’s a tough situation and I don’t know what to think. I just hope she doesn’t continue to have hard feelings to us and the church. Her daughters are named Asusena and Leslie I think.

Anyway, on to some good news. I get to call home on Sunday! I was thinking maybe you could Skype with my siblings so I could talk to them too from the phone. I don’t know—maybe I’ll be allowed to call them, but if it’s Mother’s day Mom will probably want to be one the other end the whole time. So I guess you can just use speaker phone and maybe we can try the Skype. I haven’t heard anything about it yet, but I assume it will just be in the evening. Guess you’ll find out :)

Despite the problem we had on Saturday, we’ve actually had a lot of success. Stazie and Kimberly, the 10 and 11 year old, are doing really well and they’re getting baptized this Sunday. They are the kids of one of the less active Rico families and they’re really fun to teach. Hopefully we’ll be able to baptize more in the coming weeks of this month.
Erasmo is still struggling to get an answer, but we had a special fast for him on Sunday. I hope everything works out. Personally, I think he already got an answer, he just doesn’t know it, or doesn’t feel ready.

For Julia and Rigo/Michelle we need to get them to keep the word of wisdom and get married still. We were finally able to meet with Edith/Juan again, who we haven’t talked to since I was with Elder Swenson, and we also were able to teach Juan/Mariela with a member so things are going well.

I’m having a great time here and I’m excited to talk on Sunday. That’s about it I guess. Just start thinking of lots of specific questions you can ask me over the phone. Otherwise, I won’t really know what to say. Thanks for the fun letters and the family news letters. I have the best family in the world!

Love, Elder Curtis

P.S.

I forgot to tell you, we got information about the swine flu in zone conference last week and they gave us a paper on how to stay healthy. I don't really think it's a problem here in California, but in the mission Elder Sharp is from everything is shut down! The missionaries can't even leave their apartment and all church is canceled so he's pretty glad not to have to deal with that. Don't get me wrong he was very disappointed not to be able to go back to his Mexico mission, but he's glad not to be stuck in an apartment with nothing to do.