La Caridad: El Amor Puro de Cristo

Another eventful week here in Chilpancingo.  Today, we spent the WHOLE day in a bus going to and from Cuernavaca.  Elder Cangahaula got special changes to Cuernavaca so now its just Elder Quinnelly and I again.  We had a lot of fun with Elder Cangahuala and I think he learned a lot from us.  He brought a new energy into the companionship that we are going to try to keep up. We did divisions to start the week with Zumpango.  I went to Zumpango with Elder Jimenez and we had a lot of success.  A bunch of people accepted baptismal date and we were feeling the Spirit strong in the lessons.  Afterwards, we had another conference with President Kusch here in Chilpancingo.  He and the assistants taught us about spiritual planning and being worthy to have the Spirit with us always.  After the conference, we did divisions with the assistants.  I stayed in our area with Elder Forrest and Elder Cangahuala.  Elder Forrest was in my leadership class at BYU first semester so we know each other pretty well.  He was also in the MTC when I had just got there and we had fun dueling it out in bball there.  So it was fun to catch up with him and to also get some tips from him on how we can improve our teaching skills.  On Saturday, we had our bbq with the young men and young single adults.  None of the leaders showed up so we had to go buy everything for it but it turned out pretty well.  Not many of the young men showed up but a few young single adults did and we were able to talk to them a little bit about the blessings of going on a mission.  There are a few in the ward right now that are trying to decide to go or not.  We are trying to motivate them by having them come with us to appointments and baptisms.  That is something that helped me a bunch when I would go with the elders like Elder Burton, Elder White, Elder Rasmussen, Elder Da Silva, etc.  I love those guys so much and I hope to be a similar example for the young men here.  We have 2 possible baptisms this next week.  Dulce and Laura are two young girls that are studying college here in Chilpo but are from other cities or villages here in Guerrero.  They have shown a lot of desires to be baptized, we just need to teach them a little more and they will be ready.  We did a special fast with Laura last week so that she could get accepted into a school.  Things didnt work out exactly how she wanted but she was able to enter into a course that, if she passes, she can get into the university.  We are going to help them this week so that they can get baptized soon.  Also, we are teaching a part member couple that is really nice.  They are both like 23 years old, the guy is a member that is just getting active again and the girl is not a member but wants to get baptized.  She has loved coming to church and she loves the emphasis we put on eternal families because she is 6 months pregnant.  They are planning on getting married soon so that she can get baptized and so that they can later be sealed as an eternal family in the temple.  She has been pretty sick because of the pregnancy so on Sunday in church we gave her a blessing and she enjoyed that and felt a little better leaving the church.  After being in this country so many months, working so much with the Mexican people, I have come to develop such a love for them.  It is sad a lot of the time to see the terrible poverty, wickedness, etc. that is so common in this culture and also in so many cultures in the whole world.  But I love this people so much and the gift of charity that I have been blessed with motivates me everyday to go out in the hot sun, climb a mountain, and do everything I can to help these people find true joy and happiness through Christ and His healing power.  This work is my joy!

Elder Stutz