June 13, 2011 E-Mail

Finally some pictures!  I think this is Rodi's baptism.

My mind isn't functioning to well so I can't really think of everything that happened this week. First off, we went to visit Anabel and she told us how she had received an answer to her prayers.  That was really cool.  She had been praying that her son-in-law would find work. So he went out and started to look. Then then the next day he came home and told her he had found work. And he has gone a long time without work. We are still working with her husband Juan, he just has some bad addictions that control his life. But we have had a few really good lessons with him and he is thinking about being baptized. So please be praying for him!
Rodi was baptized this past Saturday. It was awesome. Then he was confirmed yesterday. I was able to baptize him and the Branch President confirmed him. In his confirmation it talked a lot about serving a mission if he has the desire. He acts like we wants to, and he will be receiving the priesthood next week. He is such an awesome kid. I'm really grateful for the opportunity that I had to meet him and to work with him.  He will continue to strengthen his testimony and be a super strong member.  I can't remember if I have mentioned Ruben or not, but his son is a member of the church just not very active right now. Well we have been teaching Ruben and he wants to get baptized. He was supposed to get baptized next Saturday but wasn't able to come to church yeseterday. So we gave him the goal to be baptized on July 2nd. But he too will need a lot of prayers. So please pray for him!!! So many great things are happening in our area. And little by little I see my spanish improving. I still have so far to go but I've had a few people lately tell me that they thought spanish was my first language.  That made me feel pretty good. Then I'm immediately humbled when I try to say something and I can't. But I have really seen God's help with the language. It has been great.
Every Thursday morning we go to the bishops house for breakfast and correlation. This past Thursday we pulled up and his dog was going insane. I'm not sure what kind she is but she's a little smaller than Kimber.  Well what happened was she was eating a round bone and she forced it up around her bottom jaw and over her teeth and she couldn't get it off. Her whole jaw had swollen. So the bishop tried ripping it off but couldn't.  Well he also has another dog who is a great dane who probably is about my size. He looks like a pony. And the problem is that the big dog will kill any other dog when they are in pain just to put them out of there misery. So my job was to control the big guy. It was very interesting. He tried to eat me a couple of time but we had some good bonding time and I found his sweet spot right by his back leg. I had to do that while the bishop zip tied the legs together and the jaw on the little dog and ground the bone off with a grinder. It was one heck of an experience.  Other than that not much happened. I had a district leader training in Moses Lake on Tuesday then we had another training there on Wednesday for new missionaries and trainers. So we really didn't spend a ton of time in our own area. But the Lord still blessed us.
I'm so grateful for the gospel. Yesterday I was translating a talk and the lady was saying how we are here in this world, but as members of the church we are different than the world, well at least we should be. We should hold ourselves at a higher standard. And as we do so we are blessed. I've really been thinking about commandments and rules and stuff like that. They are only there to help us be better people. I'm so grateful for the Book of Mormon and the teachings that it contains. I love you all so much and thanks for all you do!!

Elder Schvaneveldt