!Buen día!

How´s it going guys? How´s the heat treatin ya? Its getting colder and colder here every day, but i´m likin it. The weather here is actually almost exactly like NC, maybe a little less humid, but the temperature is the same. So its all good. Right now its raining a ton, but luckily I have my super double automatic, extra durable, waterproof, umbrella from missionary mall. Haha.

Well, I´ve got some awesome news....LIDIA´S GETTING BAPTIZED!! Haha finally! We´ve waited like 2 months and she´s going to get baptized on June 6th at 5:00 pm. YES!!! Aaah she´s super prepared and the baptism is going to be great. Anyway, I´ll tell you how she finally decided. She was reading from the general conference talks on her way to work in the train (a daily routine for her) and she read Elder Uchtdorf´s talk about the love of God. She said she started thinking about how much God loves her and what she is doing to recipricate that love. Then she realized (we had never told her this specifically...aka it was the spirit) that to love god, she had to keep his commandments. And to keep his comandments, she had to get baptized! Then she said she started to cry and the 6th of June popped into her head. Well, the 6th wasn´t the soonest she could get baptized, but its better than september, así que we´re happy! Now she´s super excited about inviting a ton of people and doesn´t have a single doubt in her mind. If I didn´t tell you already, her family is super evangelista and opposed her at first. But now her whole family (including her extended family in Peru who she called) is now supporting her. Isn´t that awesome!? I think it is. So we´re trying to prepare the best baptism ever.

But, Lidia did share a super sad story with us the other day. She asked us the question if she could pray for her father. We told her of course. Then, she told us about her father. Twelve years ago, her father worked as the boss of a mining crew in Peru. During the rainy season in Peru, the rivers flood and there are land slides from the mountains. Apparently, one day while her dad was driving to work with two other coworkers, they had an accident having to do with a land slide. Lidia was pretty emotional when she told us, so we didn´t understand exactly everything. But anyway, there was this freak accident. When the rescuers arrived, only one of the coworkers was found, who only had a small bruise on his head, but couldn´t remember anything that had happened. Lidia´s dad and the other man were never found.

After Lidia told us this story, she then asked us if it was OK to pray for her Dad, wherever he was and maybe even pray if she could one day see him again. Ah man, that was heart wrenching. We told her that it was very appropiate to pray for that and invited her to read the things we had given her about the plan of salvation. Anyway, Lidia is way cool and has been through some tough times for sure. I´m so happy she´s getting baptized!

Hey so we´re seeing more success here in Virreyes. There was a change in the branch presidency and now we have an elders quorum president who´s on fire. We´ve also seen some other members really start to get excited about the work. The Balbuena family is progressing pretty well and they´ve all commited to come to church this week. Within their family we´ll have to get two married, but the father and a daughter can get baptized very soon.

We also found two men from Paraguay who accepted a baptismal date after a 15 minute lesson on the restoration! They are super humble, but very open. Their names are Silvio and Anibal, feel free to do some praying for them.

Well, I love you guys and hope your all doing awesome! Talk to ya next week!

Elder Hales

Keep the Faith