Dear family and friends,

Boy howdy this week sure has passed fast! Here are a few awesome hilights.

This week I went on divisions to visit my first area in Auditorio. What an incredible blessing!! Everything went great, right on down to the family we ate with. Luch was scheduled with the Ramos family, a family we worked a lot with and came to love a ton while I was there. She is currently serving as the relief society president and he is now the mission leader. (We ate hamburgers and I maintained my good reputation, eating 3 large ones against 2 by each of the other 3 Elders.) It is a family that the more you eat, the happier they are.

Also while there we had a few more significant and special experiences. Among them, two of the people that I spent a lot of time teaching are now going to be baptized, taking the decision to dedicate themselves to live the commandments of God in their fulness. One is the sister of one of our first converts, who was baptized December 1, 2012. She will be baptized today, December 14, 2013. The other person is the father of a young lady who left for a mission while I was there. We began teaching them, and he was just starting to soften his heart when I was changed. His wife had progressed well and will likewise soon be baptized. What a blessing to see their progress after all this time.

We were also able to meet with a faithful sister and her husband in the evening and share fish and vegetable soup and our testimonies. A great, simple moment.

So that is one super awesome thing in the week... but it does not end there. 

One of the families we are teaching has decided to be baptized the 28th of December. That means they will be confirmed on my birthday, the 29th. Great present, the very best of them all.

Also, this morning we were invited to the house of President and Sister Wagner so that my companion could take an English test. Great news.... he passed!!! While he took his test I got to sit and help make some paper snowflakes and converse with both the president and his wife. Always a blessing to be around people who are examples of a deep and lasting happiness reached by obedience and dedication.

While there, a companion that I had for 3 months but finished his mission 5 months ago came into town for a visit. It was great to see that he is doing well, has lost a lot of weight, and is happy. 

And the last news for the week. Tomorrow the new assistant will arrive to be my new companion. And it is going to be.... Elder Umaña!!! He was my second companion, the first person I trained. As a quick review, he is now 27, is a public accountant, graduated with a masters degree in his field of study, and is a great friend of mine now in the mission. I especially enjoyed being with him because while together we could both be 100% focused and dedicated to the great mission work we have been called to do. His maturity, dedication, testimony, knowledge, and ability to reason things out, as well as the great communication we developed in our time together will be a great blessing for me. He gets here tomorrow and I am looking forward to this next week together.

Here is a brief outline of what this next week will be like for me.

Sunday evening- last dinner with the generation of missionaries going home in the home of the Mission President

organize and communicate the companionship changes in the mission

Monday morning- leave the offices at 5 AM to get those missionaries to the airport in time for their early flights

Recieve 3 sister missionaries that get here early from the MTC in Mexico City

Train them

Recieve a new Elder arriving from Nicaragua

Return for the 3rd time in the night to recieve 10 sister missionaries and 1 Elder that are arriving from the MTC in Provo (they are going to be the first american sister missionaries in the mission)

Tuesday- train the rest of the new missionaries and get them to their areas

Wednesday- training with all the leader missionaries in Colima, Manzanilo, and the Cuidad Guzman. We will be driving out with the president and his family to Colima where we will meet wiht all of them for a training and afterwards a Christmas celebration

Thursday- same thing as Wednesday, but here in Guadalajara

Friday - same thing, but this time headed out to Tepic, to see them as well as the missionaries from Santiago and Vallarta

and that will get me back to next Saturday.

It is going to be a great week. We have a million logistics planned that we are praying will all work out smoothly. I am excited to have the chance to see all of the missionaries of the mission all within a period of 3 days. 

Anxiously engaged in this, the Lord´s work. 

Yours truly,

Elder Brighton