Mar.14,2011

Dear Mom,

First off i love you. Second off I was pretty worried about Hayden and that people he´s been serving in Japan when i heard about the tsunami. I remembered Hayden was in sendai when i heard that the worst damage was done there. I saw some pictures and it looked pretty bad. I woke up that morning and just had a bad feeling and the day just seemed kind of dark and im guessing that was why. Im glad hayden is ok though.

This week was a pretty good week like every other has been though we have hit a slump in getting people to church and baptized. Our baptismal dates for saturday didnt go through. The dad Valdemar´s mom had a stroke about a month ago and its really hard. Wednesday he left to go visit her and apperently while he was on the way she died but then came back to life.(IDK??) He didnt get back until friday afternoon so we didnt have the baptism and we havent reset the date although we are hoping and praying for the 26th of this month. When he got back he just seemed realy hard hearted. It just seems like he´s angry at the world and and like he´s looking for something or someone to blame. Friday and saturday wewe thinking and praying alot for and about him and his family. Then Sunday they didnt come to church so we went to visit them and we had an incredible lesson with them. We talked about what their vision is and the plans they had. They really didnt know. We talked about the importance of having goals and planing for them.

Then at the end i felt inspired to share with the family about Grandma McDede. Hno Valdemar had seen his mom suffering a couple of weeks and it was tearing him apart. I told of how we had seen Grandma in that state for years and though it was hard, especially on you mom, we didnt let it get to us much because our faith in Jesus Christ and the plan of atonement. I told him that we hadnt let that hard trial tear us down but build us up and help us learn and grow. I told him though Grandma hadnt been able to talk most of my life and had been bed ridden a big chunk of it that i had learned great lessons from her. I learned to serve unconditionally. I learned about the importance of family and that i learned the true purity of love from her. I told him that i had been watching him and was looking to see how he would react to the situation and i was hoping it would build him up rather then tear him down. It was a really powerful lesson and we´re going to have a family home evening with them tonight so we´ll se how he´s doing.

We also got to go to the temple on wednesday which was awesome ( and actully i was figuring that we were in the temple at the time hno Valdemar Castro´s mom didnt die). It is a great blessing to get to serve in a country and mission where there is a temple and we can go to every once in a while.

I love you all very much and thank you for all of your prayers and for the examples that you give me.

Love,

Elder Vincent

ps mom you need to go on visits with the sister missionaries atleast every other week if not every week until i get home. Please do that for me.

pps go cougars!