Thanksgiving Dinner and Fredirico

Hey Everyone!

        Thanksgiving week was quite eventful and Elder Reeves and I did get to eat. The Familia Pioquinto, members in our area and our apartment managers prepared us a dinner over in the ward chapel along with the other Elders serving in our ward. A lot more people here cooked more ham than turkey this year, because its 10x easier and cheaper. Not many people here have large kitchens, and usually they have large groups of people come over for dinner. We visited one Family who the Husband is a recent convert, Jose, and his wife Silvia is an investigator.  They are from El Salvador and they love the missionaries. We had a conversation about Thanksgiving dinner and somehow we got talking about fruit, and in El Salvador they grow a lot Cashew Fruit (I forgot the name in Spanish). Apparently cashew nuts actually come from a fruit. I HAD NO CLUE! Silva made us a cashew fruit drink, and It's probably the strangest flavor I've ever tasted. It’s super juicy, but it has a very dry taste. I was stunned. Anyway, concerning the missionary work, we had plans to have a baptism with a man named Fredrico. He is a super intelligent man, who has come a long way to receive a testimony of Jesus Christ. We usually teach him once or twice a week, because it’s hard to get contact with him because he doesn't have a cell phone. Recently he has had thoughts that he didn't feel ready to be baptism because of fear of responsibility, however Elder Reeves and Elder Rosales were able to clear up those doubts when I went on splits in another area. The day came that it was Fredrico's baptismal interview; we were waiting 3 hours at the chapel until we got note from Hermano Pioquinto, the ward mission leader and his friend that he was not ready and felt really rushed. We got super bummed. We fasted and prayed for him on Sunday, in hopes that he would be able to resolve his feelings about baptism. We taught him after church, and we were able help him understand the importance of baptism and how he should do it because of his desire to follow Christ. We explained that his Book of Mormon reading will help him resolve his fears, and his testimony will grow. He reassured us that he wants to be baptized in December, so it was an answer to a prayer that he isn't going to postpone it any longer. Besides Fredrico and a couple other investigators, the work in Crenshaw is really slow mainly because the part where most of the Hispanics live in our area reside in a place called the Jungle where it’s full of gated apartment complexes and it's super hard to contact them. However Elder Reeves and I aren't discouraged. Even though we might not have many people to teach, we do see quite a few things out of the ordinary. I'll just say that there's quite a few people here who are "under the influence" some things are probably inappropriate to write. But it’s been fun. Haha. and I hope everyone enjoys the start to Christmas Season!

Os amo tanto

Elder Marrott