An email and pictures from Elder Stimpson

What's going on? Things are going well. We have been working well just running into a lot of dead ends. We have been teaching someone who is kind of progressing but always gets stuck with one thing, marriage. She really wants to get married but her husband can't and it looks like it won't be fixed for a good several years. I am not totally sure he wants to get married. She has been taught for about 6 months by the missionaries and has developed a good testimony. Though, the only way she can get baptized from what we have studied is that she has to separate from him. One of the biggest problems is she doesn't have a job. She has family nearby who would be willing to let her stay with them but I think she is very nervous, scared, and unsure. They don't even have a good relationship, the husband is fairly rude from what has happened. But we are hoping she will make a decision soon, Because we are thinking about dropping her.  (Mom's note:  Missionaries generally needs to give people time and space to make decisions on their own.  Missionaries will continue contacting her over the time).

One morning I was doing my studies in the missionary library in a book written by M. Russell Ballard called Our search for happiness. There was a story in there that hit me. It was about a man Who was traveling the U.S. looking for meaning and direction in his life. He was walking down the street one day and saw two men on bikes in suits wearing name tags and holland to them. He asked them if they were selling anything. Later on the missionaries started sharing with him. This man was a little gross when the missionaries met him. Unshaven, long hair, hadn't bathed in a while, and holding a cigarette in his hand. but the second lesson the missionaries had with him he cleaned his cluttered house, took a bath, and tossed out his booze. The missionaries asked what had happened and he replied that he felt it was the right thing to do. The lesson after that he shaved and got a haircut along with other things for the same reason. The same thing happened with our convert jon and his family. Its really cool to see how the spirit of the Lord causes to improve their lives.

I learned of some terminology in my mission. Everyone in the mission has a black year and a white year. The black year is the year you don't see your family while the white year is the opposite. some missionaries say that the black year is the longest year of the mission. This year is my black year but I feel like it will go by pretty quickly.

Last Wednesday I got sick and we had to stay inside. That night we got fairly hungry but were not sure what to eat. Both of us were very tired so we didn't want to cook. we ended up going down to the neighbor to get a phone number to a pizza place, Which by the way it was a little expensive. while we were getting the number the neighbor asked if we had any girlfriends. We had told him no. So he started telling us that he could easily get a couple for us because we are gringos. He even offered his own sister who already has a husband and kids.