"A Really Humbling and Spiritual Experience for Me..."

Email received 9/17/12...

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah everything is going good here!!!! We had 1 of our investigators come to church yesterday. Her name is Balbina. She's a really old lady and she said that she really likes church and she wants to get baptized so hopefully everything works out and we get her baptized by the end of this month!!!!! We'll most likely have another baptism this month too. There's this guy named Carlos that wants to be baptized, but he needs to get married first. He's been going to church for like 12 years or something like that but hasn't had the money to get married until now. Becasuse getting married here in Panama is a lot harder and it costs a lot of money (they have to have all kinds of doctors appointments and lawyer stuff they need to do and pay for) so most people just say that they're married and then just live together. But he's finally saved up enough money to get married. So we're helping him with the mariage process and we should have him married by the end of next week and then baptized my the end of the month!!!!!!! So if everything goes as planned we'll have 2 baptisms this month and that will make 20 for the Zone (the most any zone has had in a very long time) so that will be SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My Spanish is coming along, slowly, but it's coming. It's really frustrating but I just have to have a positive attitude about it and work hard and it will come. Elder Meyer is doing good!!!! To tell you the truth, he hasn't been that lazy lately and we've gotten a lot of work done!!!!! Well a lot of contacting but not very many people want to listen...And that girl who was really excited about the Book of Mormon, her and her family have been out of town this week so we haven't been able to talk to her. But hopefully this week we'll get that opportunity and hopefully she had a good experience with it!!!!!!!! And that sounds cool if you guys send those testimonies!!!!!!! That would be a pretty sweet tool to use!!!!!!! Also about the letters, I haven't recieved any of them yet. But I was talking to Elder Tukia last P-Day and he said that he went into the mission office and saw that there was a ton of letters there for me. So hopefully I get them soon!!!!! My Zone leaders are kind of "out of it" as far as missionary stuff is concerned (they only have 2 more weeks left) so they are lazy sometimes and forget things a lot. So hopefully I get them soon!!!!!!!! I'll ask them about it today.

Alright so I wanted to share something with you guys that really made an impression on me. Yesterday we went and visited 2 recent converts Nichole and her sister (for some reason I can't remember her name right now) one of them is 12 and the other is 14. We went and visited them because they haven't been to church lately and we were going to see if everything was all good. Now I didn't know these girls too well becasue they were baptized before I got here but when we went into their house I was shocked. These girls are the only members in their family, their mom is a single mother who's also a dead-beat, their house is as big as our living room (just the area with the T.V. and couches), they don't have a bathroom or a shower in their house, and they share a bed with all the members of their family. They've had a rough life. They wouldn't tell us why they hadn't been at church and they kept saying that they were doing good. But you could tell from the look in their eyes that things had been especially hard the past few weeks. Man it was really hard sitting in that house talking them and talking to them. Because seriously, their lives have been SUPER ROUGH!!!!!!!! Elder Meyer had them read some scriptures in 3rd Nephi. They are in chapter 22:10-15. It talks about how the Lord is always there for you and that He will help you with anything you need. Man hearing them read those scriptures and then looking at their lives. Man it was  hard...But I know that becasue they are trying hard (and they really are trying hard. They're reading the book of mormon and praying everyday) the Lord will bless them greatly!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh man it really made me think of my life and even though I've been thorugh trials and hardships, nothing even comes close to what they've had to endure and I know they will be blessed because of it!!!!!!

Anyways, I just thought I should share that because it was a really humbling and spiritual experience for me. And sorry there aren't any pictures this time either...I'll for sure make it work next week and I'll send my pictures!!!!