October 4th, 2010

Hola familia!

Wow something did change a little during change conference, me and elder Smith are still companions but now I was made district leader! I was so shocked when I heard it, I literally didn’t believe my D.L. so I called my Z.L. and they said that is what president said. so that night I was freaking out, pretty much just sat at my desk looking at the wall for a good 2 hours, but then I said a really long prayer for help and guidance and a spirit of comfort came over me, it was a good feeling :) I had a good district lesson on Thursday and it went well, we talked about asking good questions to investigators and getting to know them instead of just teaching to teach. This district leader thing is all too hard to wrap my brain around , but we will see where it takes me. It is weird because I’m not kidding when I say half of Peten got changed, which is really rare, we have a lot of gringos here now. They are saying we got “white washed” we got two new people in the house, elder Godfrey, who’s in my group, he just got out of being an office elder.

Elder Matus who’s a latino, hes 22 but only has 6 months on the mission, hes a really cool kid and hard worker so it´ll be all good.

After the hurricane the river rose a TON! If it had got a little higher we almost were not able to cross the river to get to general conference. its about 2 feet from the street and if it goes over (which it will because October is the raining season) we will not be able to cross the river. Which is scary because we have zone conference in 2 weeks. last week we didn’t get any work done except one day because we had to show the new elders where all their investigators were, and that took like 2 days because this place is huge!

General conference was AMAZING! literally every talk was amazing. its so weird how much better conference is as a missionary. I listen to it so intently and get so much spiritual insight out of it. My favorites were when they talked about following the prophets. Because that’s what I’m trying to teach the members and investigators here. Since we watched it live in San Benito, which is like 2 hours away from Sayaxche, only 17 members showed up :( it’s really sad because they don’t have enough money to come and the branch wont pay for it. so we are going to hold our own little general conference at a members house who has a really nice computer and watch it on that with all the members and investigators that couldn’t come :) so hopefully it works out and it happens cause these people really need to hear the messages! Conference was so good I cant wait to get the Ensign....in 3 months! We always get it about 2 to 3 months late. There is a lot of stuff I want to share with the investigators that was talked about.

Today we went to Libertad, and made a cake for elder Castro then played ultimate Frisbee with water balloons and the basketball rims were the goal. so it was really fun and tiring, haha I’m so lazy I barley ran and about diedbe cause I’m so out of shape, I need to start running. Then we played 3 flags up with a football. We got 4 new people in the district and they are all sweet. I am so lucky to have a good district, we all get along so well and that makes things a lot easier for me.

I love you family so glad you all are doing well I do miss you guys ..so much you have no idea :)

love elder toolson