Families make the missionary VERY HAPPY!

Do you want the good news or bad news?? Read in the order you want...

BAD:

Well, the unfortunate news I have to share is that my kid, Elder Haws, chose to go home. It was a wild week filled with interviews with the mission president, phone calls home, and his stake president even called us directly on our cell phone, and it turned out that Elder Haws was just feeling overwhelmed by all the troubles of home and being away that the decision was made. The positive hope I have is that I insisted and gave him probably a thousand different reasons why he needed to come back out after his short time home and finish his mission. So for now I´m in a trio, but it looks like I´m going to receive a new comp who is a youth from another stake that is preparing to serve a mission so I´ll still kind of be a dad and he´ll have the chance to serve a mini-mission with the Maquina Mundell! ;)

GOOD: 

This week was a gold mine for finding awesome families! One family of 4, and another of 8!!!! The family of 4 was a real miracle because the dad has been inactive for the last 18 years after being baptized when he was 10 years old and so his wife and 2 daughters had no idea that he was even a member... But he is a truck driver and one of our most active, faithful members is a mechanic who repairs all the broken machinery and it just so happened that this dad remembered the face of the member and asked him, "Hey, Remember me?! I remember you... Are you still active in the Church of Jesus Christ?" The member was surprised for a moment, then answered "Of Course!", and invited this guy to receive the missionary lessons again. The next day we passed by with the same member and found this perfect little family just WAITING to receive the restored gospel in their lives! Then the next day they all went to church AND LOVED IT, and now it looks like they will all be baptized this 29th of March! 

That same Sunday after church we went out to re-contact some contacts that we had met a few days earlier and set up some visits but almost all fell through... ALMOST ALL, but not all. We found a family of 8 (but just 6 were there) waiting with the door wide open for us to come by at the time we had set up with the mom a few days earlier, having no idea how big her family was! We taught about the importance of Baptism and found out that none of the children had been baptized and the parents were baptized in other churches when they were babies. After explaining the importance of salvation and the commandment of baptism for the remission of sin, we invited all 6 of them to be baptized this April and every single one said YES!!!! 

I truly don´t think there is any greater happiness I get on the mission than teaching a complete family and inviting them to become an eternal family!

On top of these 2 big families, I´m also teaching a Mom of 30 and her 12 year old son; The husband of a recent convert; and whoever else will listen to me! Haha

There´s a lot of study time on the mission, so now on top of reading the Book of Mormon, I´ve also started studying the Bible and have seen a huge improvement in my teaching abilities as I´m more able to relate to people and their understanding.

OH. MY. HOT DOG! They´re called "Cumpletos" and are like a hot dog on steroids!