English Fast

Getting behind again - this is Brett's email from 10/17/11

Hola Familia!

We are starting a transfer long fast of English today. So yeah, writing you guys is the only English I get to experience for the next 6 weeks. The loser has to buy the other companion ice cream, and I love ice cream, so I'm going to win.

This week has been AWESOME! Lots of work and lots of fun! I got 2 packages on Saturday, one from you guys and one from Grandma. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that the only thing left food wise is about half of the jar of peanut butter. My companion also got a package, and his went fast as well. It was nice to have American food.

So this week we worked hard and we found 17 new investigators, which was 8 shy of our goal, but I'm okay with how many we got. We've got a ton of people that we are currently working with and I'm super excited. Of course right when I thought that we couldn't find more positive people, we found 3 families in one day! Doubt not, Fear not.

I made french toast the other day, and it was delicious. You would be proud of me mom, I almost made it as half as good as you do. :) My companion loves me because I can cook some pretty awesome french toast.

Saturday we spent a lot of our time working with one of our investigators names Juan Carlos. He is golden and ready for baptism, but his parents don't like it at all. His mom refused to talk to us, but we were eventually able to talk to her. After a lengthy lesson, she said it would be okay if his dad said yes. Well, his dad lives in Kentucky, and hasn't seen Juan Carlos since he cheated and left with another woman 11 years ago. I don't know why he should be a part of this decision, but what do I know. Well, turns out that his Dad thinks we are a bunch of devil worshiping cult members who worship Joseph Smith and deny Christ. That was quite the interesting phone call. But even after we convinced him that we don't eat babies, he still said that a month and a half of going to the church and reading the Book of Mormon is too soon to be baptized........ Good news is that we can baptize him in December. The bad news is that either me or my companion won't be here. We're working on trying to fix that.

So I've been reading and rereading the conference talks from both both sessions of 2010 while we're waiting for October 2011. Its amazing! I can't believe I didn't realize how good they were before now. How did I sleep through them? Speaking of which, my sleeping problem isn't much of a problem anymore. I know that ALL things are possible through Christ who strengthens me, and through the power of the Atonement we can change and even transform ourselves into something better. I like this quote by Richard G. Scott. "We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day." I know that's true. I also like a talk that Elder Bednar wrote in this past months Liahona. He talked about Lehi's vision, with the Tree of Life and Iron Rod. So the difference between those who ate the fruit and were ashamed and those who ate the fruit and stayed faithful were the ones who consistently held to the iron rod. We need to consistently read our scriptures, pray, go to church, have family home evening and serve. Its the little things that matter most in our lives. Read or reread Uchtdorf's talk on the things that matter most if you have the time, its amazing.