Is it already November?! Goodness the time is going by fast. Tomorrow I offically complete 10 months in the mission! I am going to celebrate by cooking a gourmet meal of pollo rostizado, hot gallo pinto, queso frito, with a side of tajadas and some cold pinolillo to drink. I hope that just confused you all. :)

This Halloween was definitely different from U.S. Halloweens. I didn't really know what to expect, but it turns out that Halloween is only celebrated by a few people here. I didn't see any trick or treaters or candy. There were a bunch of parties for teenagers, and groups of people drinking. I did get to see a couple groups of people dressed up with masks who passed by us in the back of a truck, but that was about it! It was pretty uneventful.

 

The Lord has been blessing us as we've been patient and continued working.  It turns out that the story we heard about Jaime wasn't entirely true...the news people got the story mixed up and so all the neighbors were telling us the wrong thing. What really happened was this: a family friend of Jaime and Ana got mad at the family and started swearing and insulting Jaime's mom. Jaime got mad and hit him with the backside of a machete in the back. The family friend then ran off and called the police and told them a bunch of stuff that wasn't true. Luckily, Jaime WAS NOT drunk and he never beat his wife like the news said. Yesterday we stopped by their house and finally found them. Ana was sick but we talked with Jaime and he reassured us that everything was going great for them. He hasn't drank in about 2 weeks and we put a new marriage/baptismal date with him for the 17th of November. He is very excited about it and wants to get married, but wants to talk to his wife about it. He says that he has been able to see the blessings of the Lord in the time that we have been teaching him because he now has been able to find a steady job and they have been a lot happier. Needless to say we are feeling a LOT better than last week!

 

We have been able to find new people to teach and we are starting to work with the members a lot more. I am realizing that working with the members and recent converts is definitely the most effective way to do missionary work! We have found a couple families that are very willing to do visits with us and bring investigators to their houses to teach them. I am excited for what the month of November will bring!

 

I love and miss you all!

Love, Elder Parrish