the email number 82

okay kiddos. herés the stuff i promised from last time. i´ll try to get through it all.

the story of Elder Grilliot, Chess Legend.

i´m a chess legend here in the mission. I don´t even think that i´m the best player. Elder Saico beat me about half the time, and this one kid elder godinez beat me one time. But really. In the mission gossip travels really fast, and the gossips about elder Grilliot is that no one can beat him at chess. It´s because one time everyone in the zone got together and we played chess and no one could beat me. and now people come up to me and say, "i heard you are the best chess player in the mission" and sometimes they challenge me to a chess match. it´s kind of cool honestly.

A heart touching story about a man who went to church with us.

Jose Manuel. My first day here in nuevo linares we were walking around at night and I guy came up to us. I don´t know if he contacted us, or if we contacted him, because it kind of seemed like he was about to say something to us but we spoke first. He is a thin guy with a shaved head and a lot of tattoos. He told us that he is from Juarez and he moved over here with his family about two years ago. He talked with elders before and one of his kids got baptized.

He invited us to walk with him to his house. So we start walking with him and talking and it´s nighttime, (my comp told later me that he scared that he was going to jump us or something) and jose manuel tells us about how he moved down here because his oldest son died and it was really hard for him to stay in juarez because he had a lot of memories with his son there. He teared up as he told us about his son. I felt the spirit really strogly as we were walking around with him.

We got pretty close to his house and we stopped and sat on a bench and he told us that he was walking around because he got into a fight with his wife and he doens´t think it would be a good idea to go home yet. He told us that he wanted to pray with us and he thinks that he remembers how to pray. and he said a really sweet prayer and then his 8 year old daughter rides up on her bike and says "daddy, mom says to come home." and it was really cute. and so we walked with him to his house and we met his wife and it was already really late and so we didn´t have time to teach them. so we put an appointment to come another day and went home.

two weeks later he went to church for the first time and in sunday school he felt the spirit really strongly and started to cry. His wife later told us that he never cries. He just wept and told us about his experience later, that was the first time he felt the spirit and he is going to change his life now. He says that something is filling him and changing him and his home is so peaceful now and he can barely read but he is reading everything we give him and he looks different. We talked to him mom and she is cristian and she said that even his voice sounds different. He is changing a lot and agreed to stop using drugs and drinking and smoking. It´s really cool to see people change so quickly and dramatically once they feel the spirit.

how we helped clean up after someones roof collapsed.

it rained a lot here a few weeks ago and everyone had a really hard time with it. We helped clean up a house that had partially collapsed, it was a lot of work. We were digging and throwing out the bricks and planks of wood that had fallen. Elder Brayan is supposed to send me a picture for you guys.

how in ecuador, the sun rises in the west

It´s not true, i just thought it was a really goofy disscusion that me and my comp had. "yeah in equador everything is really different. we are on the equator. The sun moves in the opposite direction down there" and i´m like, "what?"... "you mean the sun rises on the other side?". "yeah it rises here in the east, but in equador it rises in the west". "elder that´s impossible!". "no it´s just like a mirror, when you cross the equator it rises on the other side". "no manches elder". he found other people to back him up and they all affirmed that it was true, that in equador, the sun rises in the west. I didn´t win that argument.

the famous chaves hot dog buffet

here in chaves there is an all you can eat hot dog buffet hahaha

also we played risk one time

two times! we played again today. it´s alot of fun.