November 25, 2013 – Drink lots of water or end up getting dehydrated!

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Elder Froude 1,

This week was not as quite as eventful as last week, but I did learn a lot from it. However, I must first say how proud I am of my big brother Elder Froude 1 for being so quick to action in the Philippines with relief efforts for those affected by the typhoon. He has always been an amazing example to me and he is the kind of missionary I strive to be. Of course, with time and a lot of practice, perhaps I can achieve that, and boy do I hope I can!

Entonces, well then, now for my week. Elder Rocha and I had intended to invite two of our progressing investigators, Sanmi and Alexandra, to baptism for the 7th of December. We weren’t able to meet with Sanmi at all this week, tristes (sad) :( but we were able to get her to do the next best thing, attend church! We´ve been inviting her for weeks and she finally came!

Sanmi finally attended church last Sunday! Alexandra came too but she left before I could take her picture.

Now Alexandra, we were able to meet with her last week and had a lesson planned for her, but we weren´t able to teach her anything. For some reason, the Spirit just wasn´t there. Usually it wasn´t hard to keep Alexandra´s attention. However, this time around it was very easy for her to get distracted and we weren´t able to teach much at all. :( I guess she needs a bit more time before she´s ready to be invited. As missionaries, we work on the Lord´s time table, not ours. Will we fully understand how that works? No way. Will we follow it nonetheless? Absolutely! I´m glad I learned this so soon into my mission. I know a few people that don´t like it when they don´t understand why things happen. This situation, among many others, is where the Lord tests how strong your faith in Him is. Through Faith in Him we can overcome any adversity, and when we overcome adversity, we get blessed. It's that simple. Easier said than done, of course, but it´s always comforting that the Lord will lift us up when it seems like we cannot lift ourselves up.

Oh, I suppose I need to tell you that I got really sick yesterday into this morning from bad dehydration. :P We were fasting for people to come to church, but it happened that that particular day was really hot and we walked around a lot. I´m completely fine now though!

Oh yes, that reminds me! Literally the next day after p-day last week I got your first package!! It´s made me so happy! ^_^ It was during Entrevistas, interviews, with the president with the zone.  So the AP´s brought all our packages and letters to the church for us to get. Thank you so much for all the food and candy! It made me feel at home! :) I haven´t eaten all of it yet, I´m saving them all carefully until I get the next one!

And another piece of good news, there was an American family from Texas that came to church this Sunday and they were nice enough to take us to their vacation house in CAP CANA for lunch, it was gorgeous! And Dad, you´re gonna love this, I saw the most beautiful golf course there and thought ´´Gosh, Dad would love to play golf here!`` I have pictures!

The Stewart Family from Texas

Amazing golf course in Cap Cana resort

Yummy Sunday lunch with the Stewarts!

 My companion and I are going to a Noche de Hogar (It’s Family Home Evening but with more people from the ward or branch) in a member´s house tonight. I´m playing a song tonight. It´s the A Team by Ed Sheeran. A member gave me the lyrics and chords and the song is fine, no romantic lyrics in it and it´s clean, so it´s ok.  Finally, they got sick of hearing me play Hallelujah!  ^_^

Disculpome, forgive me that the letter isn´t too long this week. But I can finish it off with a good phrase of the week! This week´s phrase is ´´Me Duele Mi Alma``. This means ´´My Soul Hurts`` or ´´That Hurts My Soul.`` It actually isn´t a sad phrase, it´s used jokingly in Latin American countries. If someone tells a bad joke, someone would say Me Duele Mi Alma because it was so bad it’s painful!  :)

That´s all I have for this week. Hopefully we´ll have more Progress on Alexandra and Sanmi soon!  Until Next Monday! I love you mom!

-Elder Froude

AN E-MAIL FROM THE STEWARTS:

November 25, 2013 – The Stewart Family

Hello Froude and Rocha families:)

My name is Brianne Stewart. We had the honor of meeting your hard working missionaries this past weekend at their branch conference in Pueblo Bavaro. We have been blessed to vacation in a small area of their mission called Cap Cana. It is beautiful!!! We took your missionaries to our villa for lunch and had a great time showing them around this beautiful area. We have three sons of our own and love to take any opportunity to surround our boys by faithful missionaries in hopes that they will all serve a mission one day! It is wonderful to see the church is true and thriving all over the world! Thank you for raising faithful and wonderful sons that can lead and guide our own:)

Much love,

The Jarod Stewart Family

Jarod.Brianne.Isaac.Jacob.Zeke