5 more days

Hey everyone,

Well wow I cant believe im gonna be calling home in just 5 days and its gonna be soo fast because of all the things we have to do this week. Tomorrow we have the missions christmas party, wednesday the one for the branch, and every other day with a member, or more then one some of the nights! Im so stoked, im definately gonna be putting on the pounds but ah im so stoked. Hopefully they will send me to the south here pretty soon so I can start sweatin off all this that iv been savin up in these cold areas! haha

Well I dont want to say much cuz I wanna have plenty to talk about! Just an update from this week is that we did have that baptism and heres a couple of the pictures from there. We got lucky that the president of the branch had a camera and so I threw my card in there. The baptism went really good though other then the fact that the water was colder then ice water and Fernando was just freezing but he was sooo happy at the same time!

I finished the book of mormon the first of this week for my first time all the way through in spanish and the promise from our mission president from when we got here that if we read the book of mormon in spanish, and our loud we would learn spanish in no time. Well there you have it and its incredible how much i understand now, and how much my accent has gotten soo much better.

Yesterday at church, ah it was so amazing. For the first time ever this year in Central America and even better in Honduras we had the first EFY here. There were 16 youth from our area that all went and we allowed them time to give their testimonies about what happened and everything that they had learned! Wow just after 3 testimonies of some of the most amazing youth, they had everyone in tears, including me and my comp. It truely was so powerful to hear them bearing sincere testimony of the things they learned, felt, and everything! Our baptism from saturday looked over at me and asked me "are you crying?" I just laughed and said yeah i am, because I went 2 years to this same program for the youth and remember the feelings, spirit, and testimony that the church, through this amazing program. He still didnt really understand why everyone was crying, let alone me but with time im sure he will learn how to find and feel that spirit that was just penetrating in the hearts of all 96 people that were there at church yesterday!

Yesterday after church we had planned to visit with this guy who has been coming to church with his daughter for almost 4 weeks now but we had never gone up to his house to find him until last sunday and then he wasnt home during this past week. So after we made the 35 minute hike up to his house and when we got there we didnt necisarily have anything set to teach him but when we showed up we decided to teach him of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and when we started we really could just see that he was a whole lot different today with us. I wispered in english to Elder Skoubye if he felt we should throw down the fetch of the 25th, Christmas, to be baptized and he said just why not! So we did it and suprisingly, without problem he accepted and then we called his daughter, who is a member, into the room and when we told her that her dad now has the desires to be baptized after telling me and elder Reyes no no no no but just said that there was something different with us from when we started visiting with him and that he was ready! His daughter just about fell in tears when we told her, cuz she also has a son who is on the mission and gets home next month and just told us how happy he is going to be! It was such a great experience to see all that happen. Something Ill never forget! I wish you all could have been there! So yeah we have a baptism Christmas Day that is for sure, and if were lucky maybe 2 more!

I thank all of you for all your support and love that you are sending me not only through words but through your prayers. They are being answered!

I love this church, love Honduras, and cant wait to talk to you guys saturday! Muah!!

Love Elder Gardner