week 58

Hey! First of all, we are working hard. I thrashed my third pair of shoes...

But we baptized Kimberly! It was nice, there was a lot of family and ward support (probably because her family are all members of the church) so it was super awesome. 

We might have a couple more baptisms this week or the next so that will be good. We went and visited the two Paulinas that didn't show up for their baptisms a couple weeks ago, and they said they still want to. We will be working hard with them this week. We have to hike an hour straight up to visit them, I tried to make a little video of the area. 

I went on divisions with Elder Barney and Elder Castro. They seem like they are doing good. Our numbers are a lot better for the Zone this week, so that is good! That is about all I have to base how things are going off to be honest. I was in my old area in Santo Domingo so that was fun! I saw Rudy, the first convert I helped! He is doing good.

(Editor's note: Joe sent a lot of unlabeled pics this week, not sure who is who,

but these are all people he worked with during the past week!)

We also had surprise interviews this week with President and those went over really well, it felt really good. We were all nervous at first, but President Faundez is kind of a short, sweet and to the point kind of guy, which I like a lot. I was able to talk about a lot of stuff I've been carrying and it felt really good so that was nice!

My fungus is almost completely gone so that is another small victory haha. 

I will be saying goodbye to Elder Smart here in two weeks, which is super sad. Also if I stay as a zone leader I will probably get sent to Coban which would also be super sad. There are two ZLs in Coban that know Kekchi so I could easily get changed with one of them. To be honest, I'm really tired of being zone leader. I'd be really content with one more change, then they can make me a normal missionary again. It is just not that much fun all the time. But salvation was never easy for the Savior, why would it be for us? I'm just hoping that sometime soon I can just be a normal missionary in the mountains. But it is whatever Heavenly Father wants!

My spiritual thought this week comes from my interview with President. It just helped me realize how leaders in the church are absolutely called by God, not by man. A lot of times in my life I think I failed to recognize that. It was valuable for me to learn because it helped me realize that what he was saying to me was from Heavenly Father, not from him. He just knew the right things to say and at the right time, it was awesome. 

I hope you all have a good week, I love all of you!

Love,
Elder Toolson