June 20, 2011

Dear Mom and family,

Last week was interesting. The conference got canceled AFTER
we already went to the Zone Leaders house the night before. So we
didn´t have anything to do that day because we were planning to have a
conference all day... So we went contacting all day long. :P Despite
all that mess we have gotten a ton of new people once again and they
all filtered out to only one of them being a good potential baptism.
He keeps telling us he really wants to get baptized, so we set a goal
for the 2nd of July. The only thing that might hold him back is that
he might be drinking. He says he stopped a while ago but some
neighbors say they saw him drunk just a few days ago... so we have to
keep good contact with him every day so that we can make sure that he
doesn´t drink. If he does we will have a problem with knowing for sure
if he´s being honest and it will be difficult to baptize him. All that
being said he is EXTREMELY excited to get baptized.
His name is Marcedonio and he has kind of a sad story. He´s probably
in his mid to late 30´s he lives in a little scrap-made shack on the
side of the mountain with a little land where he grows corn. His wife
died not too long after they were married not too long ago, and that´s
what got him started drinking. He has a desire to rebuild his house to
be nicer but doesn´t get very much money at all. What makes that worse
is that the little money he might get he has probably spent on beer.
I´m hoping he can get some of these things straight and that he can
start getting support from the branch to help him find a job and that
he can start the long and slow climb in his life.

This week is going to be interesting as well. I don´t know if we´re going to
be able to get much done. We have planned two conferences tomorrow and
Wednesday. Tomorrow for all outside of Xela and then Wednesday for all
the mission. That pretty much takes away the whole week. we´ll probably
be getting back Thursday morning and then we´ll be in Sacualpa (where
Eulalio and Manuela live about 30 minutes in bus from Joyabaj) that
afternoon. Friday in Chuaquinum (where Marcedonio lives about 5
minutes out in the other direction and then a few minutes hiking a
dirt path.) And then Saturday possibly changes or just organizing
everything so that sacrament meeting goes well and inviting other
people.

That´s what we´re looking at for this next week. Then Monday we get a
new president. It´s sounding like plans are already changing though
since the Zone Leaders are talking on the phone with assistants. So I
don´t know... We probably just won´t have the conference that we
outsiders are supposed to have that the people in Xela got a couple of
weeks ago. There´s been a lot said about President being Baggie (our
word for trunkie out here) and seeing as all these things are
happening it wouldn´t surprise me. Things are kind of falling apart
but we all are hoping that President Bautista brings a few changes to
the mission. I appreciate the service our President has given us and I
don´t want anyone to think he was a bad president because he has done
many great things for this mission. I just think that there will be
complaining by missionaries no matter what happens, good or bad.

Love,

Elder Landon James Crapo