October 11....Elder Cruz was sick :(

Hey everybody, To start off I of course will answer Mom´s questions. If you don´t understand that I always do this, shame on you for not reading my past emails, and thank you for starting with this one that´s very kind of you. Anyways transfers as they call them in the States is scheduled for November 3rd I believe, which means that yes, I will be there for José´s baptism which makes me very excited. Also Mom, you asked if I have made good relationships in the office. More than anything I have became close to Elder Lydiksen, Elder Cruz, and Elder Petersen two of which have left. It is an interesting life being in the office, you learn a lot and learn not to go crazy with other people while at the same time not driving them crazy because you are with each other so much. Other question, I found a pair of boots in this house and I have used them a couple of times because the streets literally turn into rivers when it rains hard. We are about to end the rainy season, but the weird thing is I have come to appreciate the variety in the weather that the rain brings. There aren´t too many remote villages in our mission but up in the mountains it gets pretty remote. There are a lot of areas with no paved roads but the majority of my areas have had at least half of the roads paved. To end you asked if I think the Elder was fishing for a dinner invitation, yes, I think he was. You should make him eggs and beans and put cream on it and tell him, "I wanted you to experience what my son does when he gets invited to dinner." Everyone will have a good laugh I´m sure. In my mission I usually haven´t eaten dinner with members just because it can be misuse of time when teaching appointments are so easy to have and we don´t have a dinner hour. I had done it sometimes, but they members are never ready at the set hour and it sometimes can ruin the rest of the appointments we have for the night so I have just decided not to do it. President Brough has actually just made a rule that we need to have an investigator there if we are going to eat. I´m fine with that. Anway this week was interesting because Elder Cruz was sick. He has asthma (its spelled something like that) and because of a cold he had bronchitis which is a bad combination. The doctor told him he had to be in the house until today so it was a very strange week. We still went to about 2 teaching appointments each day (don´t worry I wasn´t killing my companion we just planned it so it was in the bus route and he didn´t need to walk) so it wasn´t TOO bad, but it is strange when something happens like this because it is as if the work loses it´s urgency. We worked all of Sunday and yesterday though, so we are getting back into the swing of things. We are just lucky that we are secretaries because I would have gotten very anxious just being in the house that long. He´s better now though and ready to work, as am I, so this week is going to be amazing. Due to that I don´t have a whole lot to update you on, but Jose is still coming along, he just has some doubts about tithing. He has seen how tithing is so abused in other places he has visited where the funds are not used for the right purpose and this makes him very skeptical when a church tithes. He understands it is in the scriptures and through a living prophet he is saying this is how he wants it to be, but he says it is still hard to accept. He´s progressing with that though and said that he is going to pray to know if this is what God wants. It´s interesting that a testimony of a certain principle of the gospel almost always requires effort on our part and that AFTER the trial of our faith, comes the testimony as it says in Ether. We explained to him that sometimes we don´t exactly know why God has commanded something, but we follow it because he has, and always we start to gain a testimony and understanding of that particular principle as we start to live it. He will get it, he just needs a little time. Anyways this week we are going to work very hard and find the "nice guys" which is Elder Cruz´s way of saying positive investigators. I know the nice guys are out there, I just hope to be able to find some so that Elder Cruz and his new companion can have success in this area after I leave. I love you all and thank you for all your support always. Ben