Week of July 21, 2008 -- To Mom

 Dear Mom and Family and Friends,

How is all in the world outside of IOWA?  I hope all is fine.  Mom, the letter I wrote you is really just "I would like you to send me" letter.  Besides, writing letters on another day than P-day is so hard.  But I was so glad to have gotten letters from each one of the kids.  It made me miss home a bit, that's why I responded as soon as possible.  I am learning to live off of letters, because hearing from people once a week is awesome, but no fun at all; and there is no variety in the day if I check the mail and there are just ads or letters to elder McLaws.

I guess I should tell you a little bit about Elder McLaws.  Now that I've lived with him for almost 3 weeks, I seem to know him a little bit better.  I kinda noticed that I didn't talk about him when Granny just wrote that he's from somewhere in Arizona.  Well, to clarify, Elder McLaws is from Timpe, Arizona; I'm sure you know where that is, close to Phoenix (and I don't even know if I'm spelling Timpe right).  He has two older siblings, a brother and a sister; and he has two younger siblings: two other sisters.  His older brother has served a mission in Washington, close to Spokane area.  His brother sent him a picture of his wife and his kid, and well, his brother looked like a homeless guy because he had long hair and a beard.  Elder McLaws thought it was funny because he said that that is how life was going to be after the mission.

Elder McLaws is stinkin' awesome person (pardon the expression).  When he came out, he didn't know really any spanish, and now he is almost fluent, and working everyday to get better at speaking the Spanish language.  He learned all his spanish out here.  He is unsure about what profession he wants to take up but he's either sure that he will follow the footsteps of his father and become an architect, or he will become a mechanic because he loves cars.

Him and I are awesome at speaking out to people on the streets and since we know spanish, we talk to pretty much everybody we see.  There is a statistic that we take at the end of each day that is called OYMs or Open Your Mouth goal.  He has a goal to get 20 every week and last week we broke that goal and got 142 OYMs.  This week has been harder and we got 107, but still not that bad.  Numbers only mean what you are trying to focus on.  It means that we were focusing on getting more lessons taught, or working with the less actives.

The best thing happened yesterday!!!!  An investigator came to church!!!---NOt to mention we got a whole lot of Less Active people to come back to church.  Not only that, but the Bishop (Stimpson) asked me and the other somewhat new (6 months) Elder to give a talk.  It was great because the investigators that were there and Less actives had some familiarity with the speakers.  My  topic was awesome, also.  I got to speak on Pioneer Heritage and sacrifices people have made.  Mom and Dad and the rest of their families, you were my talk.  I didn't even have to think; I just was able to share many experiences such as dad being a convert from Peru and all the Peruvian culture I have.  I shared the story of our ancestor that we have on Mom's side that survived a raft collapsing on the Mississippi River when a man spit into the eyes of the oxen.  I shared, and later I felt bad because I felt like I took the time of the Bishop and the other Elder.  But sunday was great.

We also have to great families that we are teaching.  A group of investigators named the Fonseca's.  We were trying so hard to get ahold of them and really, we didn't know why we were working so hard because they blew us off so many times.  But finally we were able to get into their house and they are so ready.  The mom has been investigating the church by reading as much as she can.  She says that she has been having the book of Mormon on her mind constantly.  She has three daughters, that haven't been working as hard as her but they are so awesome.  The other family is Part Member.  They were also hard to get ahold of.  When we finally got an appointment to meet with the father; we decided beforehand that we were going to teach the importance of going to church.  Crazy thing, when we got up to their house, the first thing that came out of his mouth was...I want to start going to church!!!!  It was crazy.  Apparently he, and his family has felt the emptiness of not attending church.  Another crazy thing is that he went out with us the same night to visit families because he wanted more of the spirit in his life.

The Lord touches people's lives for good here in Marshalltown.  Although sometimes we meet unreceptive/rude people, there are always those one in a million that listen to us.  Funny thing, we were walking to an appointment and a man yelled at us from across the street "Hey Mormons, after you are done over there, come here because I need you!"  We were like oh great, this guy is drunk but we went after visiting the house.  Turns out he is an investigator from Cedar Rapids, his house was totalled in the floods and it was a big ordeal for him.  He describes his experience this way, "The water was up to my chest and I was carrying my cat on one shoulder holding an umbrella over it because cats don't like to get wet and carrying a bag  with everything in it in my other hand above the water."  Also turns out, as he was investigating the church and after the floods had destroyed everything he was in dire need of help.  The red cross cars would come by and they brought things that they need.  Well he received a round bucket of stuff, that said "a gift from the church of Jesus Christ of  Latter-day Saints"  The Lord has truly blessed this man's life.  A cool thing is we have been able to pray with him, and he makes everybody takes turns praying...we just feel the spirit so strong.

Well, time's up, I hope everything is going well with all and this letter comes as good news to all who read and remember, The Church is True.

Love ya all,

Elder John C. Gonzales