April 6, 2015 - Obama's Elf, (All by Myself, get it?) As a Zone Leader

Dear Mom, Dad, Lauren, and Ian,

Boy, this week has been interesting! Semana Santa (Easter) was last week and people here celebrate it harder than New Year's or Christmas. They like to leave for the countryside and drink and party until they're purple... in remembrance of Jesus. Well, in all that celebration, all of our progressing investigators left for the whole week. In response, we set out to make new progressing investigators! Well, not a whole lot of people were around but those who were very kindly let us in their homes and rejected what we were teaching with a warm cup of Habichuelas con Dulce, or Sweet Beans, which is delicious!

So it wasn't our most successful or uplifting week but at least there was General Conference! My favorite was probably President Monson's talk during the Priesthood Session, talking about our duty. It's even better because we can use this talk to wake up the sleepy priesthood holders in this group! Yeah, can’t be called a branch yet. Conference was great this time of year. It's crazy that I'll be home for the next one! O:

I was thinking about JC Superstar all day yesterday. ^_^ I told Elder Johnson about what it is, and we agreed that even though it is complete blasphemy, it is a great musical nonetheless XD  It’s totally Judas’ perspective of the last week of Jesus. Haha!

Elder McCombs still isn't back yet though. I'm still with Elder Johnson in Amalia. Dengue is some pretty nasty stuff. When I saw him last though, he looked fine. But he's said he's felt very drained and weak, which with dengue is normal, the doc says. O: I'm not sure for how much longer he'll be out for, the transfer is almost up.

This past Thursday I conducted the District Meeting by myself. It was pretty funky. It felt really weird doing something by myself. I've always had somebody to do at least half of whatever. But yet, everything went smoothly! Of course, there were Sister Training Leaders that helped out however they could and whenever they could. I try to involve them as much as possible so that they can get experience for they are both new. But as of right now for the past two weeks, Hainamosa has had only one Zone Leader. It's so weird!

Let's see if we can get this group going because it's pretty dead. The priesthood here isn't active and the stake pays no attention to us. We've got all that to do, and to find more people to baptize, AND to lead a zone of more than 30 missionaries. Whew! Talk about pressure! I'm not stressed though. I really do feel joy in working so hard, but yet, I don't feel stressed. I feel pressured under the weight of all that is on my list, absolutely. But it's a pretty new feeling. We'll see if we can get some progress done here. This group wants to be a branch, and President trusts us to make that happen!

Well, that's it for this letter. I'm sure this week will be better than the last. ^_^ Here's to a new week with, hopefully, new progressing investigators! Talk to you all next week! Love you guys! Thank you all so much for your prayers of support :) Thank you so much for everything! :)

-Elder Froude

When we finished mopping the floor at church, I practiced on the piano.
Sneaky Elder Johnson took a picture of me belting it out!

We made a squared pizza! It turned out yummy!