Cumpleaños

I'm am being transferred to McAllen! I'm going to be in a bike area and I'm replacing sisters in that area. I'm excited for the change and the things that will come of it. This week was stake conference and it was great! Leroy came to the adult session and also the general session of stake conference. The large focus and emphasis was on the new come follow me program and what it has done to bless the families. It was spiritual and powerful! Yesterday we went and visited some members to say goodbye to them. When we got to their house they had balloons on all the gates and fences. They threw my companion and I a surprise birthday party!! They had BBQ chicken, ribs, sausage, and homemade cake and ice-cream.

Notes from mom: Leroy has his baptism scheduled for this Saturday between General Conference sessions!  Unfortunately Elder Blackham will be transferred before the baptism.  He is excited to be moving to a new area and closer to the border again where he can use his Spanish more.  Last week the missionaries had the privilege of having Elder Katcher from the seventy visit.  Elder Blackham's 20th birthday is this Thursday and I'm sure he would love to hear from all of you to wish him a happy birthday!  You can reach him at ablackham@missionary.org

Un otro bautismo!

This week was a great one! Maya was baptized this past week. It has been amazing to be able to witness the change in her life and her family as she has accepted the gospel! We stopped and talked to a couple walking down the street this week and they said that they were headed to a shelter because their house just burned down. They said the only thing that survived the fire was a wooden cross they had in their home. It is ironic to me that a small simple piece of wood is the only thing that survived a house burning to the ground. There are small signs around us everywhere that show us that there is a God!

Maya's baptism

Rick! It seems like every time we pass by he is outside with a football. We stop for a few minutes to talk to him. Unfortunately his parents are not open to listening to our message but hopefully one day when he is older he will be able to accept the gospel.

La Sandia

This week was successful! We found a bunch of new people to start teaching and a lot of them have high potential to progress!  One man we met has been handing out Books of Mormons to his friends and he's not even a member.  Maya attended church yesterday and has a baptism set for Sunday!  The branch members have been very helpful planning the whole baptism.

We have been working on a service project for some members helping them clean/repair a house they are moving into. And for work they sell watermelon. He gave us a watermelon and we diced it and mixed in Chumoy and trechas (which is a chili powder used for fruit).

El Espíritu es Poder

This week was successful. There were a lot of great things that happened. One of our people that is progressing towards baptism has received divine help and inspiration in her life!  (In Elder Blackham's phone call he mentioned that Maya has a baptismal date set in two weeks.  She has been struggling with getting to church because she has a hard time getting up in the morning but she can't get baptized until she has attended.  This week she prayed that she would be able to wake up in time for church on Sunday and she woke up one minute before her alarm went off and was able to attend church yesterday.)

We have been looking for new solid people to teach and found a lot. We have a long list of people to go back and visit that have the potential to progress in the gospel.  (Elder Blackham said on the phone that  their schedule has been so full of appointments with people they are teaching that they have hardly any time to fit anything else in. The branch continues to grow and the missionary work is going great in Alice right now!)

We had zone conference this week and we talked about becoming consecrated missionaries and what we can do to improve. As always the spirit was powerful and motivational. We had a branch baptism this week as well. The branch president's son turned 8 this past week. During the baptism the spirit was overwhelmingly powerful. I thought about why I am on a mission and what I want to accomplish. I thought about many past experiences and things that I have learned. I am on a mission to share that feeling with everyone possible. I want everyone to be able to have that overwhelming feeling of joy, peace, and happiness! We also had a very powerful fast and testimony meeting Sunday. A returning member got up and bore his testimony. He was wearing a t-shirt that said "team Jesus". His testimony was so powerful and once again brought that overwhelming spirit into the meeting. It was an amazing experience to see to power of a simple testimony.

Robstown Zone

Zone Conference in Corpus Christi