This week flew by. I don’t know how but we are already at Monday again. I am now 1/3 of the way through my mission. That is so weird. I feel like I haven´t been here a month. Soooo fast. 

This week we worked hard with the members to try to get their support a little more. We are having family home evenings with them to invite investigatores and menos activos (less actives) and it has been pretty good. 

Haha this week we were in a lesson with the investigator Hermana Juana and she was telling us a story about how she heard someone talking bad about "the Mormon church" and she stepped in and defended the church and said that she was a Mormon! Hahahhaha she is so funny. She has only been to church once and says that she is Mormon. She is really great and we love her. But, she can´t get to church very easily.  We have had the members who have cars invite to give her a ride so there is hope. 

But milagrosamente (miraculously), in this week when we passed by the houses of people we had committed to come to church and none of them could come, we came upon one of our investigatores that we hadn´t been able to visit in the week and he was all ready to go to church. He calls himself "Percy" but his name is Porfilio. He climbed up the bus and we all arrived and had a good Sacramant meeting with two babies blessed and Christmas music. It was great up until the sacrament. We were all sitting quietly waiting for the deacons to offer the sacrament when a cell phone went off. The cell phone of hermano Percy.  When he took out his phone I thought he would reject the call but no. He answered and started talking on the phone when all was SILENT. I was horrified. I did not know what to do and I was trying soooo hard not to laugh out loud. The members all looked at us with frowns, with smiles, with confusion. What is more, he couldn’t hear the person on the other side of the call very well so he put it on speakerphone. "Yeah I’m at church what do you need?"  The other guy said, "Oh it is ok,  I just wanted to know what you wanted for lunch..." and the phone continued speaking "because there is a special here for sopa de gallina do you like sopa de gallina?" and percy responded "sopa de gallina? yeah!" and the conversation went on!  What felt like an hour was only two minutes, but the most embarrassing two minutes!  I did not know what to do. It was so painful and funny at the same time. 

Something that was very sad that happened this week was that one of our investigators passed away. It was a shock. His name is Hermano Jose and he had a problem with his kidneys. He had to go to the hospital for dialysis and was really quite bad.  We had no idea it was so bad.  Every time we went to visit, we found him outside with a smile. He was young too… only about 55 years old.  We were passing by his house when we thought we would check in on him because we had visited him with a member the week before and he looked healthy. 

When we got closer to the house we could see the candles and the very catholic sisters. I tried not to cry in front of them. Now we have to teach them the gospel so Jose can get baptized becuase we need their permission. But they don´t want to change. They are veerryy vveeerrrry catholic.  Jose was really hopeful because he had also had an experience with the missionaries when he visited California. But at least the sisters thanked us for helping him be happier. It hurt. But there is hope. God´s plan is perfect.

We went to the Colonia Kury (must be the name of the bakery), and we got conos (cones) which is what I was eating in the pictures. Super delicious.

There was also a mariachi band in front of our house this week. They were celebrating the birthday of one of our neighbors. They sang and played and it was really great. We entered the house when they were there and watched from our window. I took a video of them but the file is too big to send. I´ll show you in a year ;) 

But that is what happened this week. 

Our investigator Nelson got to go to the temple to see it with his friends that are in our ward. He really is progressing and he wants to know if the church is true.  We keep inviting him to read the Book of Mormon and he is little by little. 

I am praying for you all and I looooooovvvved reading all your letters this week and all the photos. Very cute. 

I loveeeeeeeeeeeee  youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Hermana Ashton