Week 11 in Sonsonate

A great week, and then it all comes crashing in.  This was a tough letter to read.

Subject:  “You want to be in love in a movie!”

This email may not be fantastically long. Just a heads up. I'm running out of time.

This week has got to be the craziest roller coaster ride of my mission. Seriously, I was flying for most of the week, and it was by far the best I've been in the mission as far as success goes, and then today it all plummeted. It's the biggest contrast of feelings I've ever felt in my life.

Let's start with the good. We worked fantastically this week. My comp still just generally sits and listens in the lessons, but I feel like I've been teaching really well. And we're having fantastic success. We had nine investigators in church on Sunday. That's awesome. And all of them can be baptized this month, which is also awesome. Saul also got baptized on Sunday, and almost all nine of the investigators stayed for the service. It was stake conference yesterday, and it was a special broadcast with Elder Packer presiding, so I'm sure it was fantastic. During the actual conference, though, we had to run out to another area to bring baptismal clothes that someone had forgotten. But we came back as it was ending.

The baptismal service was amazing, and I'll send pictures next week. My mind is kind of messed up right now, so I should probably wait. We went all out and had given invitations to everyone and everything. After the service, I went and talked to Christopher, whom you all may remember from several weeks ago. He was the one who had come to church for a couple months but just never wanted to get baptized, since he felt like it would be playing with the things of God. It was authority that he couldn't quite agree with. Anyway, we had dropped him, but invited him to the service. I asked him after how it was, and he said it was very interesting and that he had never seen baptism done like that before. I asked him what he thought, and he grabbed me and basically said, "Next Sunday, it's my turn!" Nice! So he's getting baptized on Sunday! I was so stoked. Seriously I just couldn't stop smiling all day. And we're really close to putting dates with the other families that went, which were the Paz family and Wendy and David. This is going to be a great month.

Oh, and remember Juan Carlos, the one whose wife was going through some stuff that made it so that she can't get married? Well, we talked to her about it, and she basically said that she doesn't want to go to the states anyway. She wants to study cosmetology here. So she's dropping all of that, and she and her husband are getting married on the 31! And Juan Carlos is getting baptized! Flor, the wife, is already a member, but still! I loved this week.

That's about all I have time for, unfortunately. Just know that I am doing amazing, and that not only is my area leading the zone (by a lot, but I don't know about the rest of the mission), I feel like the Lord is helping me do what I need to do. And I'm feeling the growth. It's amazing.
Thanks for all of your emails and support! I love you all!

Elder David Arrington

PS: I wasn't sure how to work this into an upbeat email like that, so here it is: this morning I got an email from Sarah that no missionary ever, ever wants to get. I think you can all guess what it said, more or less. I won't bore you all with details, but just know that I am going through a very trying part of my mission. Please keep me in your prayers. I'll need all the help I can get to trust that God knows what He's doing and that everything will work out well. And to keep myself focused on the work. Thank you all in advance!