February 25, 2013 Hey Family! I am writing you hoping that all the pictures I want to send will load eventually… This week was pretty decent. Elder Moscoso is SUPER cool! I have loved working with him because I imagine it would be kind of like being comps with one of my older brothers just because he is kinda like me, and we like a lot of the same things, he´s just older haha. The oldest one in the mission as far as I know. We really did have a pretty great week though. These last emails (like since November) are going to be really important for me to keep because it has been costing me muchísimo to keep up in my journal… I am working on it though. So that being said, let me revise my agenda real quick and see what some of the highlights are… We found a new neighborhood that we had never heard of or seen before. We went there, opened the mouth with one lady and that led to a chain of references that were really great. 2 of the 3 references that we contacted there were AWESOME! One of the other people we talked to is named Beatriz, and she was just doing her laundry outside and we stopped to talk to her. We taught her a Little bit about the plan of Salvation upon finding out that she is the mother of 8 (really actually pretty common to see HUGE families here) and she accepted a baptismal date… The other cool family that we met is called the Pringles family. There must have been some hidden, LDS Homefront camera crew somewhere nearby filming us because of how perfectly everything went haha. We clapped, and then the whole family (mom, dad, three kids, neighbor kid, and two dogs) came to the gate and we told them who we were, what we do etc., and told them we would like to come in to teach them the Gospel (that is by far the most successful approach here… So simple…”We are here to teach you the Gospel… Can we come in?” I love it haha). So we talk, and find out that they were recently baptized in a different church but didn´t feel any different and were waiting for something to change or something like that. So we talked to them about that, and some other things and the parents accepted the challenge to be baptized and they are going to come to church next week.That same day we met a señora that has more than 50…yes, 50 dogs. That was a very loud lesson. One Thursday, we opened the mouth with an elderly gentleman sitting on his front steps. We sat down and talked pretty much about the church and the Gospel and family and everything like that for about 10 minutes and then he started a long chain of stories that were SO interesting! He is almost 90 and still lives with his wife, but I swear! If you shaved his stache, he is the long lost (spaniard) twin of Grandpa Dick. I will probably go back to him to get a picture haha. Ahhh, okay Last one for this week that I will write about… Viktor is the husband of a convert of about 6 years and in the past two months has started to come in and listen to the missionaries. We have started to teach him more directly though, as he seems to recieve it really positively. Well I went on companion exchanges with Elder Tingey, the new district leader in our Zone (I have mentioned that the other Elder Daybell is the other DL in our zone right?) and he totally surprised me. We were teaching the Restoration to Viktor (not miembro) and his wife and we came to the end where the two logical steps would be either, end with a prayer, or challenged Viktor to be baptized. So, as I finished teaching the last principle, I was kind of unsure what we would do… But Elder Tingey, fearlessly and without any hesitation said to Viktor, “Asi que hermano Viktor a medida que el Señor conteste sus oraciones y usted sienta que este mensaje es verdadero, ¿usted seguirá el ejemplo de Jesucristo y será bautizado por alguien que tiene la autoridad de Dios?” Silence…. “¡Si!” He placed the date with him and we challenged him to pray about it. So the next lesson (about two or three days later) we are very blessed because his brother in law is there too, and they all listen to us and after watching the Restoration video, we talked about how we too can recieve answers to our questions that we have. Viktor blurted out with the same perfect timing and gusto as Elder Tingey, “Yo oré y ahora se que me voy a bautizar el 16 de Marzo.” WOOOOO!!!!!!! We were both SO excited! It was really awesome to have someone straight up tell us that. So that is one of the miracles of the week. Lets see. Well I just hope you guys know that God lives and He loves us. He is just like me and you in the sense that he has arms, a head, legs, a body—everything. If he was here and we could behold Him, it would be like an encounter with any other being. So many times we think of God as some very important VIP sitting in His office on the 140th floor, too busy to think of us individually, after all, He is the one keeping the stars in their orbit, keeping the earth spinning and making sure that all of the living creatures everywhere recieve their sustenance. A man who knows how many hairs you have on your head (or how many you lack) certainly doesn´t have any time to listen to us right? But our Father in heaven is not only a father who supplies for our phyisical needs, and has no time to spend with us or to console us or to meet our emotional and spiritual needs. He is ALL powerful. He knows ALL. He loves YOU as much as He does ME and knows exactly what YOU need, want, think, hope for, desire etc., as much as what I want, need, think, etc. He is the only one that knows us and our hearts and he knows what happens in our lives. And every single moment, this Man is waiting for a call from you. His every action and Word goes towards us being blessed in some way, and He wants to hear from you and from me. So lets take up His Only Begotten Son´s invitation, and ask, seek and knock. I love you guys a ton and I hope you are doing wonderfully. I am! Elder DAYBELL