Elder Mike Payne: Week 65 - November 11, 2013

What a crazy week!!! We have been working super hard with J. and it was an awesome experience. I don't think I have had an investigator with such a strong repentance preocess. He has had a rough life and has been doing great. This last week we passed by everyday, as we knew Satan would be workng hard on him all week. His baptism was on Friday night and it was great, the members really embraced him.

We also have another investigator that is 17 years old and has also had a strong repentance process. He is one of our investigators who believes in the ´Santa Muerta¨ and has a tattoo on his arm. We talked to him last week and we put a baptismal date for December 14. He turns 18 on Decemnber 11 and his parents won't give him permission to be baptized so he is going to wait until he turns 18. He is already making plans to serve a mission. His girlfriend is a member of the church and also wants to serve a mission so they are trying to work things out so they can both go at the same time!

Also on Saturday I was able to baptize an investigator for the sister missionaries in my district. I have been able to get to know him pretty well and he is an awesome dude. Saturday was a pretty stressful day because our ward secretary told us that he was going to clean the font and fill it for us, but he forgot! I was so stressed because we didn't have the keys to enter into any of the doors to start the boiler or turn the water on. Finally we started to fill the font at 2...the baptism was at 4 and the font takes 2 and a half hours to fill up. So as I entered the water I realized it was only up to my knees. I think as I put him under the water his back hit the floor, but it all went well!

This last week was pretty crazy here because the Morelia Monarcas (The soccer team in my area) won the championship. Everyone was super drunk and it was funny because we left our house the next morning and found tons of people passed out on the sidewalks. The people here LOVE soccer!!! It's awesome!!

We found some new investigators last week and it is super creepy. I don't know what to do because they are super interested in the church but they are nuts! One of the girls is like 28 yeras old and is obsessed with me. She told me a couple days ago that she wants to kidnap me and keep me in her closet so that no one can touch me. Her mom was running around to all their neighbor's homes telling them to come outside and look at the ¨guapo guero.¨ (Blonde handsome man) It was super funny but its just getting creepy. I'm pretty sure we are going to drop them this week because I feel super uncomfortable when I am at her house.

We had a super awesome experience this morning. One of our investigators, has been so strong and doing all that he can to make changes in his life. Last night we went to their house to talk to them and it went pretty well (they had an argument before we got there). We talked about the Proclamation to the Family and we read it all. It was so nice. Right now they are struggling with money and he says that he works from 6 in the monring until 11 at night and many days he doesn't even eat because they don't have much money. They have three little kids and they spend lots of money on them. Well this morning, the bishop's wife, Elder Bernal, and I went to the market and bought tons of food!! We bought food for the next two weeks so that they could have good meals. I may have spent lots of money but I think they needed it more than I do. As we brought the food to their house they started crying and telling us how happy they were and how much it meant to them. I have really grown to love this family. Such an amazing experience...the only bad thing is that now I don't have money to eat for two weeks... but I'm fine and doing great!