Hey Family!
Well I officially got my toe taken care of yesterday. That felt so good! Now they do not take all of the nail off, just part of it. Getting the shots in my toe was the only part that hurt. She put about in five of them, but after the first two or three I couldn’t feel anything. I will spare you guys details but let’s just say I’m surprised how far up into my toe those scissors went to be able to cut the root off the nail, then watching the doctor pulling on the nail with all of her strength to be able to pull it off. It was super ingrown and it would have been better to go in about two months ago. I can walk but the rule is not much because if I do it will have problems again, and I have to use flip flops or crocs. She said no working for a week, but also that I could get out and walk a little bit, so we will still be able to do some of the important visits.
Now on a brighter note. The baptism for Axel went really well. We had about forty people in attendance, like always we started late. Seriously, I remember Kylie telling us about activities on her mission and people were always late, and its true. People started showing up after five, sometimes up to forty minutes late. Even to sacrament meeting. But everything went well and he was confirmed a member on Sunday. We are hoping that he will receive the priesthood this Sunday or the following.
Unfortunately, Mom, that is not the church building. The building looks like a normal church. I will take some more pictures and include more details this next week. I will be sending some things home and will have them in the office in time for when MyanXpress comes. I can’t believe it snowed! Hopefully the heater in the shop just has something that is not quite right and you do not have to get a different one. But either way, that will be amazing to have.
This Sunday Jose Gonzalez, who we have been teaching with all of his family, was not able to go to church because he was sick, but three of his kids came to church on their own! His family consists of Jenny - 16, Fernando – 15, Jackalin – 13, Dielin 9 ,and his wife, Tere – 32, and Jose is 35 years old. His three daughters were the ones who came to church. We are seeing really great progress with them, now if the mom can just get new work or get Sunday’s off, she can start attending also. She works cleaning a school, and at the end of this month she has a break, so she will start being able to go to church with her family. A family baptism would be a great Christmas gift for the family, and us. :)
Do your guys remember Gladis? Well she showed up at the baptism on Saturday! And then we passed by her place on Sunday and she went to church with us. We will be starting to visit her again. We are also going to have the sisters help us out a bit. President told us that, even though there are limits, if there is somebody in our area that would be better served by the sister’s, it is ok to them come into our area and help. And the same goes for the sisters, if they have somebody and it’s better for the Elders to visit them, we can cross into their area and teach them.
We are trying to go the temple this Saturday with Hermano Santos. He has been progressing slowly. He usually reads the assignments and he goes to church, even though he told us that he really doesn´t like it because it is so quiet and different than the other church that he used to attend. The biggest thing is that he really does not want to get married! So we are thinking that if we can take him to the temple on Saturday, he might be able to have a change of heart.
So this change and the next change there is a lot of pressure on zone Jalapa, and especially those 6 areas actually in Japala, to really work hard and not waste a lot of time. So as part of the calls that are done at night, there are always questions like “how long were you in the house of members” and other question like that to make sure that missionaries are not wasting time. Well, one of the sisters thought that I was asking those questions just looking for something that I could get on their case about. She finally couldn’t take it anymore and snapped at me over something really little. She then later told Elder Fogg, the ZL, that she had a problem with somebody in the district, he asked her who and she didn’t want to say because Elder Fogg and I are best friends. She finally expressed her thoughts and feelings to him about the questions that were being asked and that she felt like I was just out to get them, because normally these questions aren´t asked. He explained to her that these questions are coming from president and that the District leaders have been asked to do them. She then realized that I was not trying to catch somebody wasting time and apologized. This just shows two things. I could have done better at explaining myself, and the other is that we should try to have all the details before jumping to conclusions!
I love you all so much and hope that everything is going great!
Love, your brother and son,
Elder Marks
Woo Hoo!!! Go Hawks! I hope you guys have a great time at the game and that you are happy with the outcome!
Well I officially got my toe taken care of yesterday. That felt so good! Now they do not take all of the nail off, just part of it. Getting the shots in my toe was the only part that hurt. She put about in five of them, but after the first two or three I couldn’t feel anything. I will spare you guys details but let’s just say I’m surprised how far up into my toe those scissors went to be able to cut the root off the nail, then watching the doctor pulling on the nail with all of her strength to be able to pull it off. It was super ingrown and it would have been better to go in about two months ago. I can walk but the rule is not much because if I do it will have problems again, and I have to use flip flops or crocs. She said no working for a week, but also that I could get out and walk a little bit, so we will still be able to do some of the important visits.
Now on a brighter note. The baptism for Axel went really well. We had about forty people in attendance, like always we started late. Seriously, I remember Kylie telling us about activities on her mission and people were always late, and its true. People started showing up after five, sometimes up to forty minutes late. Even to sacrament meeting. But everything went well and he was confirmed a member on Sunday. We are hoping that he will receive the priesthood this Sunday or the following.
Unfortunately, Mom, that is not the church building. The building looks like a normal church. I will take some more pictures and include more details this next week. I will be sending some things home and will have them in the office in time for when MyanXpress comes. I can’t believe it snowed! Hopefully the heater in the shop just has something that is not quite right and you do not have to get a different one. But either way, that will be amazing to have.
This Sunday Jose Gonzalez, who we have been teaching with all of his family, was not able to go to church because he was sick, but three of his kids came to church on their own! His family consists of Jenny - 16, Fernando – 15, Jackalin – 13, Dielin 9 ,and his wife, Tere – 32, and Jose is 35 years old. His three daughters were the ones who came to church. We are seeing really great progress with them, now if the mom can just get new work or get Sunday’s off, she can start attending also. She works cleaning a school, and at the end of this month she has a break, so she will start being able to go to church with her family. A family baptism would be a great Christmas gift for the family, and us. :)
Do your guys remember Gladis? Well she showed up at the baptism on Saturday! And then we passed by her place on Sunday and she went to church with us. We will be starting to visit her again. We are also going to have the sisters help us out a bit. President told us that, even though there are limits, if there is somebody in our area that would be better served by the sister’s, it is ok to them come into our area and help. And the same goes for the sisters, if they have somebody and it’s better for the Elders to visit them, we can cross into their area and teach them.
We are trying to go the temple this Saturday with Hermano Santos. He has been progressing slowly. He usually reads the assignments and he goes to church, even though he told us that he really doesn´t like it because it is so quiet and different than the other church that he used to attend. The biggest thing is that he really does not want to get married! So we are thinking that if we can take him to the temple on Saturday, he might be able to have a change of heart.
So this change and the next change there is a lot of pressure on zone Jalapa, and especially those 6 areas actually in Japala, to really work hard and not waste a lot of time. So as part of the calls that are done at night, there are always questions like “how long were you in the house of members” and other question like that to make sure that missionaries are not wasting time. Well, one of the sisters thought that I was asking those questions just looking for something that I could get on their case about. She finally couldn’t take it anymore and snapped at me over something really little. She then later told Elder Fogg, the ZL, that she had a problem with somebody in the district, he asked her who and she didn’t want to say because Elder Fogg and I are best friends. She finally expressed her thoughts and feelings to him about the questions that were being asked and that she felt like I was just out to get them, because normally these questions aren´t asked. He explained to her that these questions are coming from president and that the District leaders have been asked to do them. She then realized that I was not trying to catch somebody wasting time and apologized. This just shows two things. I could have done better at explaining myself, and the other is that we should try to have all the details before jumping to conclusions!
I love you all so much and hope that everything is going great!
Love, your brother and son,
Elder Marks
Woo Hoo!!! Go Hawks! I hope you guys have a great time at the game and that you are happy with the outcome!