Wonderful Week

Dear Family,

   I'm jealous of your tans. When we went to go buy toilet paper this AM they were showing the Olympics. It was the men's synchronized diving. They were really tan too. I miss my swimmer's body! And my swimmer's tan! You are not going to want to go anywhere with me when I get home! I'm happy that you all like Nick. From the vidoes Aleksi and Cassie sent me, I assume his voice is the one that has a HUGE Utah accent. He talks like all of my Utahan companions. Very well. I'll get to know him soon enough. And I will have to be the one to tell Max the truth! I remember when we were younger, mom told us that she'll be blatantly honest about who we're dating until we decide to marry them. I'll be the same.

  This week was wonderful. Merry Christmas in July! The celebration was a blast! My favorite Hermana made a ton of tamales. Two of my converts made a delicious cookie atole (which is a drink). We watched certain Christmas videos and did a tour of the church for the non-members. There were in total 169 people there (including children), but only our converts were the ones who brought non-members. Lame. Really. I'm grateful for our converts, but are the members that selfish and uncreative? One hermano played the guitar while a few of us missionaries sang "The First Noel." I messed up and started singing the second verse too early. SO embarrassing. jajaja! At the end of the activity I shared a brief message about how we can remember Christ and Christmas all year (the sacrament). Then I asked everyone to say "FELIZ NAVIDAD!" to me since it was my last Christmas in Mexico. Jorge (one of my converts) said the closing prayer. He prayed for me especifically. It was sweet jaja. So Christmas was wonderful here.

   Yesterday was the best day! Nivardo, a scientist husband of a less-active woman (who we've activated), is one of my favorite investigators. He's now ABOUT to get to 3 Nephi 11. Yesterday he FINALLY accepted to be baptized. Coincidentally, he found that in two weeks is his anniversary. So on August 11th he's going to get baptized. We're thrilled. The best part was that he wouldn't answer ME as I commited him to get baptized. He wanted Elder Turner to do it. But he made Elder Turner do it THREE times. Elder Turner is dry and nervous in his teaching and committing. So Nivardo took a moment to kind of grill him on how to convince people. He told Elder Turner that if he gets another companion who is the same as him, they're going to end up crying on the sidewalk. Jajaja harsh! So Elder Turner took heart and with a simple testimony, invited Nivardo to get baptized. The Spirit was really strong finally. That's when Nivardo pulled out the calender on his phone and said, "The 11th sounds like a good day." Wow. It was neat how he already wanted to do it, he just wanted to help Elder Turner learn something really important. Wow.

   I love you family!

Love,

  Elder Poirier (Mitch Poirier)