It has been a super stressful week. J. and L. have their baptismal date set for this Saturday (the 19th), but out of the blue J. decided to change his last name, a lengthy process that takes about two months, and would mean that he wouldn´t be able to get married and therefore baptized for another two months, so until December. His fiancee is pregnant and due in November which would complicate things even more. I fasted harder than I ever have before, my companion as well. When we went there yesterday to talk to them about it L told us that they decided to put God first and worry about something small like that later. It was an answer to our prayers and I think of it as a miracle
So this week we have to hurry and plan the wedding and make all of the arrangements for the baptism. But that's a good problem to have as a missionary. They are going to be a huge help to this ward as well. They have already given us a reference to another really positive family and yesterday J. asked us where he could buy the missionary pamphlets so he could share them with all of his friends, we told him we would have a stack of 25 for him today! He is going to be a great member-missionary and will help the elders here a lot I am guessing. He has already left with us to visit people and was sharing his testimony and everything. They are going to be great! I will be sure to send lots of pictures of the wedding baptism.
The week after that this guy named R. C. should be getting baptized, he is a 24 year old and we met him through a member over in Sonzacate, He says he will get baptized on the 26th and is reading the Book of Mormon and going to church. Hopefully everything goes smoothly with that. Right now I am doing my best to look for new investigators, with almost nine months here in Izalco I have a feeling that this change will be my last here. I don´t want to leave the next missionaries with no one to teach and basically having to start from scratch. Right now they would be left with a bunch of people with some church attendances but super positive people not really. so this week the focus will be get the people baptized that we have committed to baptism and find some new positive people so that Elder S. and his new companion will be able to continue right from where we left off.
We are writing super early today because we reserved a soccer field here in Izalco and we are going to go play soccer as a zone. Most likely it will be Latinos vs. Gringos again, in which case we may or may not lose. We won last time, but our gringo zone leader last change played soccer and was a beast so we´ll see how it goes this time around. Elder S. played soccer in high school as well so he will be key, really the only thing I have on the Latinos here is my size, they are all short and thin so I have to use my size to my advantage. Either way should be a great way to get some exercise and also to relax a little bit. Sometimes push ups and sit ups just don´t cut it. Right now we have a bunch of cool guys in the zone so we need to take advantage of our time together, its almost over.
We´ve been having some problems with the missionaries in one of the areas of my district. President is going to come and do interviews for all of them today. It's been pretty frustrating and has made me pretty mad. There is nothing that sets me off more than a disobedient missionary. I would say I am very patient with almost anything else, but once someone messes around with the churches reputation, and the Lord's work I take things very seriously. Hopefully it will all get smoothed out today with President. Anyway that's mostly how things are going on my end of things. Working hard and enjoying every minute of it. I didn´t get to hear from a lot of you but I guess that's what I get for writing a little earlier in the day, hope everything goes well and love you all!
Elder Schriever
