I love being a missionary

Hey family, man this last week went so fast it just seems like a blur. It was soo awesome to hear from all you guys and get that big letter with all the missionary comics that everyone had written on. Man that just made my day to read those, you guys sound soo amazing. I can't believe all the work that everyone is doing and i totally forgot to say congrats to tyler for his violin playing! i just wrote him a little email but forgot to say something. Tyler man, you are a beast! I can't believe that you are tearin it up on the violin, although it doesn't surprise me, i can't believe how much you have learned and how good you have gotten. That really is an awesome thing to be first chair buddy. you're awesome. It was a blast watching the game too and i was thinking of you guys. bummer ending but still a blast to watch.

I will be honest though and say that this week wasnt the most eventful. We have some big things coming up soon but this week was just trying to sift through those that are willing to keep commitments and stuff, and those that aren't. We have this one family though that is doing awesome. Miguel, Maria and Itzel. They are soo cool! When we set a baptismal date with them, everything just clicked in their heads and now theyre keeping commitments and coming to church and reading. you can tell that they want to know these thing are true, and already we have seen a huge progression in their testimony. We went by the other day to stop by and just share a little something short with them cause she said she didn't have a lot of time, but we ended up staying for like an hour and answering all these questions that her and her husband had. It was funny cause all these concerns and doubts just came flowing out and now it seems like we just have to finish teaching them the lessons and they will be ready to go. They are getting excited though for their baptism this upcoming weekend we just need to maintain close contact with them and help them feel comfortable going into it. They know this is the right thing to do, and have felt it. We are excited and just pray that everything works out okay.

We have a big week coming up this week because we have an "invitation sunday" for the english ward. meaning that all the talks and classes are focused on the basics and fundamentals of the gospel. That way every one can understand what it is that we believe and others can come to church and just see what the services are like. I have found it hard to balance the english and spanish work. Cause we have lots of work to do in spanish and naturally that work is growing. The english work is kind of at a stand still and so i feel bad because i don't want to neglect that responsibility by not putting in the time to find and get people to teach but at the same time, i don't want to t in so much time tracting and stuff in english neighborhoods when we have spanish people to teach and find too. It's just a balance i'm trying to get the hang of still. This weekend thogh will be good, we are excited to see the turn out.

Oh yeah, this week we went on splits with the Zone leaders. We did a last minute clean up of our apartment to make sure it looked nice ;) and then we split on tuesday after lunch. I went with elder newman and went to their area, while elder Knight came here and stayed with elder Gomez in our area. I was excited to see elder gomez have to step up and play the senior for a littl ebit since elder knight didn't know anything about our area or let alone spanish haha. It was such a cool experience though! I don't know what it was but i just felt like i learned soo much! Just being able to see how Elder Newman managed himself, our companionship, the investigators, and the zone was awesome. He was super focused and just was always working so hard! It just felt like he did everything right man! I loved the way he taught too. He was so good at asking good questions and inspired questions. He just could get them to think what they needed to and they would start answereing their own questions and forming their own testimonies. He was soo bold too was a "dropping machine". Meaning if the people he came in contact with or the peopole he was teaching weren't down to keep commitments right now, then they were benched to be tried again later. I know it sounds kinda rude or even "loveless" but i just felt like it was what needed to be done. We have to find and teach those that are prepared NOW to take action, and read, pray, go to church, all those things. For us to go over to someones house and teach them all the lessons doesn't do them any goodat all! THEY have to take the action or else it's not worth any one's time. Also i liked how spiritual elder newman was, during our studies we read one chapter int he book of mormon and we would read one verse and then we would write and ask each other questions about it. Then we would read the next and do the same. It was cool to see all the revelation we got from one chapter in the book of mormon as we took the time to talk and write our thouhts about it. it was pretty cool. Oh and going with him helped me realize all the resources i have with the english work too. When i would think of finding, i would think of tracting, the least effective way of doing it. My first thoughts weren't to go through all the less actives and part member families first. I know it sounds kind of dumb that i wouldn't think of that first but, it just clicked for me ha! So yeah that's what we are trying now. We are hoping to get some referrals and reactivations out of them but we will see.

This week i got to do another baptismal interview! Our sisters are killing it in willamina haha! They are way tight too, i like being the district leader and getting to work with our missionaries. Our district is pretty tight too. We got some young guns, that bring the fire and then our veteran missioanries are pretty good too so they are teaching well and helping these younger ones find their turf. District meeting went well this week and i'm learning how to delegate!! hahah that's what i needed to learn this past week too. It takes the load off me to do that and actually benefits everyone. We divided up district meeting and had other missioanries teach whereas it is normally just the 2 district leaders. (we combine two districts for district meeting). I liked it when everybody gets a chance to teach. no one wants to just listen to us for 2 hours. It went really well thouh and i actually got a ton of revelation for investigators and people that need help. Our lesson was all about receiving revelation through the book of mormon. It was so cool for me, and also the stuff i got for our investigators. It just reminded me of really how important the book of mormon is, without it, we have nothing! It is such a powerful tool that for some reason, i think is still underused. We are working on it thouhg and just applying it to all of our teachings.

Anyway, that was pretty much the week. We have 3 and maybe 4 people that are supposed to get baptized this weekend, so we are praying so hard for them that they will take this step of faith! They know it is the right thing! Well i love you guys soo much and can't tell you how much you all mean to me! I can't believe how fast this time goes man i feel like every week that goes by there is just a little bit more urgency to do everything i possibly can to bring Heavenly Father's children back to him. Man it stresses me out sometimes :) hahah I'm doing really well though and LOVE this! My boy Gomez is doing awesome too and he is really starting to grasp the work and how to be most effective and stuff. There are a few tweaks we still gotta get out of him but those will come in time :)
I love you so much and i love our savior Jesus Christ. My faith is in him, no matter the results

ya di se cuenta que nunca les escribo en espanol. pero si, estoy mejorando y cada dia, me siento mas comodo y tengo mas confianza en lo que estoy diciendo jaja. He encontrado que necesito hablar un poco mas despacio a fin de tener un mas tiempo de lo que voy a decir. Mi companero es increible y el me ayuda mucho. Gracias otra vez a ustedes por las cartas que me envian y todo el amor que tienen para mi y esta obra. Les quiero con todo que soy yo
love elder edwards