New companion: Elder Escarcega

Que tal familia?

This week was awesome. My new companion, Elder Escarcega, is from Mexico City, like 20 minutes from the temple. He has only two years as a convert to the church but decided to come on a mission! How cool is that! He has a strong testimony and is really excited to be here. He is excited to baptize and help the inactives return. He has only two changes on the mission but already knows a ton! He teaches amazing, really simple and eficient, we are working really eficient together, and I feel like we have had more time to do everything because of that. He is obedient and has a great sense of humor. We worked hard this first week and he was a little tired but he will get used to it, haha. He kept telling me that he had never worked so hard on his mission and I told him that´s what it takes to make things happen in Baxcaxbaltepec. But its nice to have a mexican companion again, it just makes things easier.

This week we prayed that we could find someone to baptize for the 4 of August, and then we searched for some old investigators that had been to church a couple of times. We found one named Rene, and showed up to his house and he told us, "I´m busy right now but I can come to church with you guys on sunday, ya?" We told him of course and passed by on Saturday, talked a little bit about baptism, and put a date for the 4th of August. He came to church with us and loved it and afterwards we showed him the baptismal font, and asked him if he was ready to be baptized on saturday. He told us yes and was really excited. Pray hard for him because we are going to teach him the comandments that he has to follow this week and satan is going to work hard on him.But wow, every single week, without fail, I grow to love more and more the power of prayer. I have learned that praying for specific things, and then working like there is no tomorrow, will bring results. Its great :)
On monday, I was still with Elder Herron, and we found a new investigador named Benito. He didn´t seem too interested or like he was paying attention during the lesson, so we just left him with a pamplet and told him to read it and that we would pass by later to visit. But during the prayer he crossed his arms and bowed his head and everything....nobody does that. And he told us that he was going to read the pamphlet and after the prayer we asked him if he wanted to go to church and he told us yes. So we left and Elder Herron told me that during the prayer, he heard a voice in his head that said "El es mi hijo también..." or "He is my son too." We thought about all the good things that Benito had done in the lesson and how we had ended kinda early and not taught him as much as we could have (sometimes we go into a lesson and if we can tell the people don´t want it or arent paying attention, we invite them to church and ask them if we can pass by, and then end a little early, because we can´t waste time with the people who really don´t want anything) So Elder Herron told me to pass by the next day and see if he really was interested. So two days later we passed by with Elder Escarcega and invited him to be baptized on the 11 of August, and he wants to do it. He came to church with us and asked it we were going to do the baptism this saturday. We told him that we still had to teach him some more stuff. It will be a bit of a challenge because he is living with his girlfriend and they´re not married, so we will have to work to get them married if he is to be baptized, but we are going to do it!

Lots of the members are super super excited to reactivate the inactives. We went and visted a bunch of less actives yesterday and want to have a week with 60 people in church. I don´t know what´s different about Elder Escarcega, if it´s because he´s new to the area and excited or what. But we feel something really special here, and we know if we pray and work hard and do everything we can to be obedient, good things are going to happen here.
I´m glad to here that John is doing good! It´s so crazy to think that he´s home... He was amazing on his mission, did so much to serve the Lord and his companions, and I´m glad to hear that although he´s grown and matured and changed, he hasn´t changed too much, haha.
Well, I love you all tons!! Thank you for your support and prayers, and send some prayers our way for Benito and Rene this week!! Thank you!! I love being a missionary, it´s the hardest thing in the world but at the same time the funnest and the most rewarding :)

Mucho amor,

Elder Eastmond