My dear ones,

Another great week. Super busy as always without a lot of time to breathe, but getting a lot done and seeing really positive things happen. 

One special experience this week was seeing a family we taught and baptized one month ago prepare themselves and enter the temple to do baptisms. It was a goal we had set with them and with the mission president as a sort of pilot program to see if it was possible. They did it! Interviews, family history work, priesthood, everthing came together really well and this last Friday they entered as a couple and were able to take the names of 5 different family members. It was a really special experience for them and we will be presenting the case to the whole mission on Tuesday in the mission council. 

These next four weeks are going to be crazy! Aside from the two conferences we have this week (one of which is with the Guadalajara East mission as well) we now have 12 different visits to make. Manzanillo, 2 in Colima, Cuidad Guzman, 2 in Lomas Guadalajara, 1 here close by, 1 in Independencia Zapopan (where I was for the first year of my mission), Santiago, Tepic, and 2 in Puerto Vallarta. That is a lot of traveling!!!

Besides that, we are working right now with a young man named Fernando. He is in a really critical point in his life where he will either make the decision to keep studying, or drop out and start working. He is 13. His friends and influences are pulling him to the street scene, his parents are worried and pressuring him a lot, making him really confused and more likely to pull away from them and rebel. He is smart and a good kid. But since the financial situation is really difficult it is hard for him to attend school and be able to do all of the assignements they give him since it requires buying materials etc. This week we were able to gain the confidence of his mother as she recongized we are there to help him. We are working to instill hope and patience in her so that she can support her son to continue studying. His father is a less active member and also wants what is best for him. It has been great to teach Fernando and see how he opens up and expresses his concerns and conclusions. We have a lot of hope for him and are going to continue to encourage him to study and to avoid the bad influences all around him.

I also got the tender mercy to be able to give service this week. The kind that I really like that we did a ton of in my first area. We helped to move a bunch of concrete blocks from the ground level up on top of a roof. One by one tossing them. I worked on the bottom, throwing them up. I love that satsifying feeling of getting a hard job done and knowing it would have been near impossible for the single mother to do it herself. My hands got pretty torn up in the process, those concrete bricks are pretty sharp and heavy. Sure is great to be able to aliviate a little bit the hardships and burdens of others.

Well, another week flew by, and before I know it I will be here writing again.

Hope everyone is great and making progress in all that they do.

Los of love,

Elder Brighton