6-1-09

Well well well. My life got flipped upside down. I guess President Clark didnt feel that Parras was a good enough learning experience, so he decided to send me to Sombrerete, Zacatecas. A short 9 hour bus ride from Parras. What can i say about Sombrerete? Well ive already counted 15 Giant Catholic churches, and who knows how many small ones.
The Vatican comes and visits here every year. Something that ive never seen before is they have got the whole city surrounded by Crosses to protect it from "evil". There are prolly more than 5000 crosses surrounding the city. And then at the top of mount Sombreretillo is a giant cross that gets lighted up at night. At least I wont forget how Jesus died. I mean id rather remember him living, but ill never have to worry about forgetting his story.

I am the Senior companion here. Also the Second Counselor in the Branch Presidency, and the Gospel Principles Teacher. My companion completed 5 months in the mission yesterday. His name is Elder Hernandez and hes a great guy.
Even though everyon says this area is the worst, we are still excited to see what we can pull off. We are gonna change the way everyone looks at this area. Change a lot of stuff here.

Before, they had to go to a different area in order to baptise, but we found a font that will work perfect. So this week we cleaned it up and got it all ready. The challenge that we still have to figure out is how to fill it up with water, but we are working on that one. Also apparantly, a lot of members hate the missionaries, because there have been some really crappy ones. So i just walk around, pretending im a naive gringo, and talk to them like they are willing to do anything for the missionaries. Weve actually seen some success with that. We have the people we want to focus on, and thats what we are going to do. Im kinda excited to learn and show the mission that every area can have success.

Ive also gained a reniewed sense of obedience. Im really going to test the Lord. Just in one week, Ive seen a lot of really amazing things happen. But, I also can see how hard satan works to discourage and to stop what hes built up here. We are gonna win though.

Well thats my weekly report. Im really gonna miss Parras, but it was time for a change.

Love you all!
Elder Turley