Dear Wonderful Family,                                                        2/29/16

This week was....... AMAZING! Are you catching the pattern?!? Every
week is....... AMAZING! That is just the way missions are. You have
ups and downs and then you sky rocked up and then you nose dive, but
when all is said and done and you look back at the week it is........
AMAZING! I am growing and changing sooooo much. You are going to
hardly recognize me when I get home! By the way... Can I extend or
not? :)

This week, again, was supper busy. We started off with an exchange
with the zone leaders on Tuesday. It was awesome... For our exchange
Elder A, who was previously the Assistant, came into my area. He
is this massive Samoan guy who weighs about 315 and is 6'4"ish. So we
went to little Ir's restaurant, and he barely fit in the kitchen! It
was so funny. Irma, who is from Guatamala is about 4 feet tall. It was
pretty funny to see the two of them working together in a tiny
Guatamalan kitchen. Irma and her family are progressing quite nicely.
Irma is reading ssssooooooooo much of the Book of Mormon, and they are
finally becoming committed to our gospel message! Mo is getting
baptized the day before Easter on March 26th. That will be cool! Could
you email me everyone's exact birthday? I hope Kate liked her
Mexican candy! Everyone eats that stuff down here! It is crazy! We
also briefly met with B the one that gets into lots of fights,
this week. And now she just carries brass knuckles on her fist
everywhere she goes. She has been really sick and in the hospital
lately, which has halted her progress a little. We also had a super
intense lesson with an old man professor of theology. We started with
what he believed, which, was faith. Then we moved to repentance. Then
once he agreed there, we moved to baptism. And then we got to
priesthood authority, and that is where it got intense. It is a bold
message that we bring: none have authority besides us. We say it a lot
nicer, but that old brother came to that conclusion on his own and it
about knocked his sox off. The spirit was so powerful, Elder B
and I were teaching in perfect unity. The spirit was there. He was
just to afraid to try our promise to find out If the bold message that
he recognized was true. Friday was fun! We picked up B
Rn, and then went straight to the temple to meet with M.
With M, we watched about eternal families, and then had a short
discussion about the priesthood, and we came across the exact same
concern that the old theology professor had! It was so hard to except
that all her friends who are wonderful people, did not have a valid
baptism. It was brutal on her. But instead of leading with her doubt,
like our old theology brother did. She lead with her faith. She said
that she didn't understand it now, but that she would definitely
understand it in the future. And then we watched Joseph Smith prophet
of the Restoration, and she was floored. It was so cool to see two
different people deal with the same concern so differently! "Doubt
your doubts before you doubt your Faith!" So that was cool. We also
came across and old investigator, and we decided to baptize him next
week. His car got attracted by people so we helped him clean all the
glass out of it. He is super prepared and ready for this step in his
life. I hope! And that is the best thing we can do as missionaries.
Hope for the better. Have faith in people. And have charity for them.
He even got his interview on Saturday. On Saturday as well, we went
and cooked a massive meal for the Mwanamulinda family. We made some
chicken Alfredo, and I also marinated some pork! They were thrilled.
Rafael said that he is never ever going to forget what we did for
then. It was pretty special, and we just made some food! Usually, the
kids don't really get fed. At their house, all the kids eat on the
ground and, basically, get all the crumbs. They scarfed all that food
down. Church was nice and stressful... As usual. But lots of people
showed up! Including Elder B's less active brother. We dropped
B off Sunday. He loved his few days with us! And I am not going
to lie! It was pretty awesome! I played the piano for the French
fireside. It was fun! I love you all! Remember who you are! Sometimes
it is easy to forget that these days. See you on the other side :)

Love Elder Flake

Oh, yeah, and I officially got switched to be a French Elder on Thursday. My mission language is No longer English or Spanish, but French! President will most likely keep me In A Spanish area doing Spanish and French.