October 1, 2012

Hey Family! Are you guys starting to count down the e-mails? I'm sure everyone stopped reading these things (besides Mom and Dad) about a year ago, but can you guys believe that I'll only be sending...5 more of these bad boys? Hard to believe I know, so you guys better get the most out of each one. I'll try to make them as interesting as possible, some crazy stuff goes down in this place, this Country is sort of nuts. But I've somehow grown to love it (but that doesn't mean I'm not pumped to be back in The Land of Gracious Living).

So this was the first official week of my last change with my new companion, Elder Montiel. It was really good actually, I think. But first I'll tell you guys about the new companion. People say he looks like he's 15 years old, (he's 19) but he's a solid dude. It's funny to think that when I came out here I was just 19 years old, and now that I'm 21, I feel like 19 is totally young. Slowing becomming old man, how awesome. But yeah, he'll be a good last companion, we're working really well and I'm expecting some good things over the next 5 weeks. This week I saw the biggest dog I have probably seen in my life, literally like Sandlot Dog big. It's always fun working in the poorer parts of our area, you never know what giant animal will be around the corner...giant dog, giant donkey, giant horse, giant pig, giant horse, giant goat...freaks me out everytime. But I guess Via Madera still has it beat, I have yet to see a giant Emu out of nowhere. But like I was saying, we've got some cool people we're teaching. One of them is the Camacho Family, they've been in-active for like the past 15 years! The son, Carlos Comacho has a sort of near-death experience that made him realize that he isn't ready to take off, so he's having this whole 100% turn around and taking his family with him. We had him, and his Mom in church last Sunday for the first time in forever. Total miracle. We even had a few other people who haven't been in years that came to Church finally! They're not baptisms, but it's really the same thing when you think about it, just inviting people to come to Christ. And that's what it's all about, Hans.  

Today we hit up the other mall here in Torreon (there's just two), it's called Gallerias. I'm sure the Brea Mall makes this mall look like Chuck E. Cheese, but I still feel way out of place in places like that. I guess I've gotten pretty used to the more humble sort of style and being in places like that is always a weird feeling. But we did manage to take a picture with a statue of Michael Jordan, so no complaints. But anyways, life is good out here in the middle of Mexico. I've been studying Doctrine and Convenants a lot lately, and it's been pretty rockin'. The book is full of promises for Missionaries, I probably should have studied D&C a long time ago, but I guess I never got a good feel for it. But now that I am reading it, it's awesome. Really just reinfoces the truthfulness of everything pertaining to the Gospel. So glad I have this knowledge in my life, people really are so lost without it.

How is life back at home? Are Mom and Dad with their missions yet? Who knows. But either way, there are for sure good times to be had around the corner at Abby's place. I'm excited about it for sure, but gotta finish up strong out here without any regrets. So I guess that's what I'm trying to do now. It's not a really big deal to me at this point to have baptisms and all that, I just want to do what the Lord expects of me, and if I can do that, I'm cool about it. Hope everything is awesome back at home as it always is. I love you guys, Church is true, and that's what it's all about...eat my dust!

Love

Elder Abbott