Elder Joseph Garrett

¡Hola!

So many fiestas. I mean, we´re talking about people who know how to party. For an entire week. It has been pretty crazy.

I received my first kiss from a drunk guy last Monday night. Congratulations, right? It was slobbery and it took a while to get the feel of his scratchy beard off my cheek. And we were trying to teach a lesson in this 15 year old’s doorway. On the 19th we encountered Juan Carlos, a very talkative drunk, whom we could not get away from for 30 minutes. We were almost late getting home. He wanted to accompany us, so we said we had a meeting first. And since he was going the same way as us, we ran like there was going to be no tomorrow down a side street so we could get home long before he could see where we live.

Yesterday we encountered a very angry drunk. Usually they´re pretty nice to us when they´re drunk. They just talk forever and ever or give us big wet kisses. This guy was so mad at us for being in his country, and thinking that he´s poor, when his shoes were a nicer brand than ours. He scared off the old lady we were talking to, which made us a little mad. We honestly thought he was going to hit us, and both were tempted at times to just run away from him. But we waited it out. Elder Kelson pulled a fake phone call, but the borracho told him to put the phone away. He took the fake call anyway thinking we could both get away, but instead, I was stuck speaking with a drunk man who was speaking a language I hardly know, just praying that someone would come along to distract him away from us. He told me I should stay away from my companion because he´s a bad influence on me. Haha. Another drunk guy distracted him and he let us go. He was nuts, though. Fun stuff. We are definitely watched over, I will say that much.

We had a huge ward activity with the 18th. We had tons of great food and played tons of games and such. Tons of empanadas con queso, which are my favorite.

We had a couple of really great experiences this week (Other than the adventures listed above). We found this really amazing evangelico who really tries to live what the scriptures teach. He was incredible, and we left him a Book of Mormon. We really think he will actually study it and pray about it. He told us if the book is true, we will meet again. We really think God will put him in our path again.

We got a great reference from one of the members. The wife is inactive, and the husband and children are not members. The wife was really excited to have us visit and wants to do a family home evening with another family in the ward. She said if she asked her husband to go to church he would. And she´s having problems with her 13 year old daughter, for which we prescribed church, and young womens. The young women in this ward are really supportive and friendly towards investigators. We will be doing a family home evening with them tomorrow with a family from the ward, for which we are excited.

Last night we set a date for the baptism of Eric and Marjorie. The missionaries have met with them for a long time. We bore testimony and left 2 Nephi 31 with them to read, and pray about it. They said they want to get baptized but want to get married first, which is convenient, because we need them to do that anyway. We are going to take them to visit the temple, hopefully, this weekend so they can see the great blessing of an eternal family is in their future. They have a daughter who is two or three.

Things are starting to pick up around here, for which we are very grateful. The fiestas were good, but I´m glad they´re over now....

Elder Bednar will be speaking to us on October 20. We are stoked for that.

Pray and rely on the Lord every day. Don´t forget Him.

Elder Garrett