"El Día de la Acción de Gracias"

This was a really good week. These past two weeks we have been working with an investigator named Camila, a 30-year-old single mom. She was a former investigator who had gone to church about 5 times in the past. Anyway, we had been working with her and last Sunday she went to church. Then, on Saturday she was baptized, and yesterday was confirmed a member of the Church. She is really great and it is incredible to see how receptive people are after they have prayed about the Book of Mormon and received their answer that the book is true. We helped her get her answer last week, and ever since then she accepted everything. If only everyone could just read a little bit from that great book and pray for an answer. The cool thing was that Elder Loza, who taught her when she first met the church, was able to baptize her because after 8 months he is in the ward again.

We are also working with an investigator named Andrea who is 22. She was going to church and listening to the missionaries about 2 months ago, but then she moved to Bolivia. Anyway, she moved back here and we've been working with her and she will be getting baptized this Sunday. She is really great as well... also because she followed through on her commitments and read from the Book of Mormon and prayed and received an answer that it is true. On Friday she gave us about a 5-minute summary about 3 Nefi 11. It was pretty incredible. She remembered everyone's names and everything.

Making American pancakes

 On Saturday after Camila's baptism we had a ward activity. It was a "Gourmet Internacional." It was pretty awesome. Our ward has a lot of people from different countries. We set up little stands and had food from those countries. The countries represented were: Argentina (members), Bolivia (members), Perú (members), Brasil (members), China (members), New Zealand (Sister Hemi), Chile (Elder Molina), Mexico (Elder Seda), aaaaand the United States of America (Sister Zendejas, Elder Sanders, Elder Long, and I). It was pretty awesome. Us Yankees made some pancakes that... well... they didn't look too pretty... but they tasted really good, and we invented a kind of syrup... it wasn't quite maple syrup... but it also tasted really good. Anyway, our stand was the first stand that ran out of food. We had a lot of other ideas of food to make, like bacon and eggs (supposedly bacon is too expensive here), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (it is impossible to find peanut butter), and orange soda floats (root beer doesn't exist... but also the bishop shot down that idea because he said it sounded gross...). It was a lot of fun. Also, the bishop has an American flag that he got from one of his mission companions, so it was nice to see the American flag for the first time in 16 months. What with baptisms and ward parties, it was a fun weekend.

Members and missionaries at the Chile stand... I am a giant

Have a great week! Que la fuerza les acompañe.

Love,

Elder John William Garrett