May 22,2011

Dear Mom,

Im sorry about the snow. Snow in may is the worst. Im not sorry that im here and not there though. Its the hot time of year here and im loving it. Your emails last week were kind of crazy and reminded me how much has changed since i left. I guess i still feel like im in my own little bubble and nothing is really changing back home. There were atleast 3 people in the pictures that i wouldnt have even come close to recognizing if you hadnt had told me who they were.

Things are going really well here. We are seeing lots and lots of blessings. We sould have two baptisms (of a couple) the De Paz Family. They´ve had their trials though so they can use as many prayers as possible. Also i think it was hillarious, refering to your reaction on the phonecall. Did you think someone kidnapped me or something? What happend was there is this awesome family here, the saravia family, and there dad lives in the states and for some plan they have they get tons of free minutes to the states. One day we were talking and i guess i said the phone number for the house and i guess they wrote it down. I didnt even remember but they called me monday night to tell me that they had called you but that no one could understand. They told me that all you said was ¨Si¨ and ¨Que¨ haha. They just wanted to say hi to you. I told them it´s probably best if they dont call now though b.c. im here and you wont understand.

So some other news from this week is that i got a new companion. His name is Elder Phillips and he´s from Costa Rica. There arent many Costa Ricenses here in the mission but they always seem to be around me some how. It´s all good though b.c. i get along well with them. If you´re looking at his name thinking that its not very latino its b.c. his great grandparents came to costa rica from england. He´s a really good missionary and i think that we are going to have an incredible change. We are planing on working with all that we have and pushing the zone really hard so that we can see more miricles. Some missionaries live below their potential and abililties and we cant let that happen. We have to help them grow, change their missions and change their lives.

So i just wanted to write you a little about a talk that elder holland gave at the mtc a while back. We watched a recording of it and it has really helped motivate me and change my mission and probably my life for the better. He talked about how preach my gospel came to be and that it was because president hinckley was so worried about so many returned missionaries going in active. He realized that they have to get to the missionary before they can every get to the investigator. He talked about things missionaries aren´t good at and ive seen these weeknesses in me and i´ve really tried to change to fix these weaknesses. He also talked about how we need to be persistent and said that their is an Evan lady on his street that is more persistent then us and that she only sells make up. If people can be so persistent and try so hard with things that dont really even matter why cant we be more persistent and have less fear about the greatest message to the world that there is.

He also talked about the last chapter in John and that apostles not knowing what to do when christ left and so they went fishing. Christ apeared to them and told them to feed his sheep. Elder Holland said ¨we need to feed his sheep and do it forever¨. It was truely such a powerful talk and i will definately go over it with you and teach it to you when i have more time.

Please remember to love God and to feed his sheep. Always work hard and look for every chance possible to bless the lives of others. I love you very much.

Love,

Elder Vincent