Transfers this week

So Elder Hill and Jackson have been companions since the MTC as you may recall.  Also, really exciting that they have a baptism date for Shelly.

¿Que tranza? 

This week has been one of the longest weeks of the mission since the looming day of transfers was coming upon us quite quickly (but also not really). 

Monday was not all that eventful, for pday we went and played basketball with some other missionaries. Which was fun, just made me realize that I suck at basketball, but I will get better. Then we taught a lesson with our extremely solid investigator and it went extremely well and we were able to extend a baptismal invitation for the 25th of November and she accepted it. So she is going to get splashed!

Tuesday not much happened.

Wednesday we had a really weird lesson with a Bible loving Mexican who was just talking straight gibberish. He started saying that he knew everything about our church because of a show he watched on Discovery Channel, so it got just a little bit frustrating, but his Spanish is really easy to understand so there was at least that. President Innes also called late at night that night and talked to Elder Gerardo for about an hour. Elder Gerardo then informed us that one for us was transferring next week, although he didn't know which one, so to say the least, it was hard to sleep every night after that.

Thursday was a busy day, we had a couple of lessons, and 3 dinners as well. We ate dinner at our place and then the two places we went after that also fed us unexpectedly, so that was cool, but the lessons went good after that.

Friday was a normal day filled with more lessons. We taught Honduran Máximo again and that went well.  I can kinda understand his Spanish now so that's cool too. We also taught Shelly again which went well.  She is super excited to get baptized and also commited to follow the law of chastity and word of wisdom which was super awesome too. Friday night we were all super anxious since we would find out which one was leaving the next day

Saturday we woke up and not so patiently waited for the transfer text to come in. At 10:00am it finally came in, and drum roll please🥁🥁🥁 Elder Hill is transferring 😭😭. We don't know where though, but we are speculating that he will be going to Spartanburg. One of the APs is going home this transfer as well so that has been some mission wide speculation too. After all that excitement was over we taught the neighbor of one of our members, in which I got absolutely roasted. In the middle of while I was teaching him, he interrupted me and asked Elder Gerardo why I was talking to him in English - just to let y'all know, I was not talking to him in English but it was indeed in Spanish. So that was a confidence booster for my Spanish 😓. We also helped a family that is moving, by helping them make their house look a lot more presentable. So that was fun too. And in the night we also had a fun altercation with a drunk guy🍺🍺🤢😆.

Sunday not a whole lot happened, we had a stake wide priesthood meeting which was super awesome. And all the stake presidency gave super good talks.

That is all, probably going to play some more basketball today. 

Have fun all, and make sure to rely on the Lord. 

Elder Bertoch

18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. 

19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.- Jacob 2:18-19 

Also, here is a reply to his dad's e-mail which I think is worth sharing.  His dad asked for a faith promoting experience.

One thing that we did this week is that we went to give a little baby a blessing since she was in the hospital with a high fever and pneumonia. So we gave her a blessing which was really good and the spirit was so strong and everything. Then we left and hadn't heard from them since, this was like on Tuesday. Then we show up to church and there they are, with a healthy baby being all happy and crawling around and everything. So that was super cool to see.

Something else that happened was during 3rd hour with everybody gathered, Presidente Acosta straight roasted the branch because of our home teaching and visiting teaching percents. If you ever think your numbers are bad, they aren't. Last October the branch had 95% VT and 12% HT. This October we had 0% VT and 0% HT. So that is no bueno. But presidente did a really good job pumping people up about getting it started again so that was super good. 

Last week we had 13 lessons so we teach quite a bit. Any other time is spent knocking doors usually. We do all our service in the morning and visit members during meal times usually. 

I think that is all, love you. 

Elder Bertoch