Normal week

Dear Mom,

I had no clue that Elder Christofferson was here. I just saw on Mormon newsroom but I had heard anything before that. Looks like he made some political visits in Buenos Aires and Salta and then went to visit missionaries and members in Chile. It's incredible how quickly the quorum of the twelve travels. 

We found a young man named Robbin this week! We were walking to a less active members house when we crossed paths with Edgar, a fairly new member in our ward, and his friend, Robbin. We were happily surprised to learn that Robbin had listened to the missionaries before (he was taught by Elder Stagg, Elder Ellis and Elder Pereyra!) and wants to learn more! He told us that he had almost gotten baptized before but didn't. Something about dropping a giant lock on his foot, not being able to walk and then moving to Equador. I'm not 100% certain on the whole story but he said that he wants to start going to church again!

Sister Rosa Meza is doing well. She's decided to move to Italy in a few weeks (did I already tell you that?) to live with her cousin. That's going to be a big change for her and her daughters. We're planning on getting her ready to be baptized there in Italy. We may even get to teach her through Skype while she's there (she speaks no Italian and the missionaries there probably don't speak Spanish). She was very excited when we told her that the Church is worldwide. I think it will be a great blessing to her to be received by the ward members in Florence.

Other updates about members here: William is going strong. He works a lot so we're only able to see him once a week and in church. Brother Vaca passed the sacrament for the first time this week! The bishop has been putting in some extra time to help him out and it's working. Brother Vaca was so happy to have made it to church earlier than us, haha. He is a great man. Marcia and Katherin received their patriarchal blessings yesterday afternoon. We haven't talked to them since so we're yet to find out how their experience was. 

So, about getting to church after Brother Vaca. He did get their early but our getting there late helped him beat us. We went walking to bring a young man to church on Sunday morning (public transportation on Sunday is almost nonexistent). The streets were completely empty: 2 miles of no one, not a single person. Just as we got within one block from Umberto's house, two drunks came walking down the street. We took a detour on a parallel street/alley, but they ran after us and threatened to smash our heads with beer bottles. We stopped and were promptly robbed of our mini-cell phones and scriptures. Oh bother. They didn't do anything else to us. After a few minutes of trying to convince them to give our stuff back (I did get my My Family booklet back), they stumbled off into a pasillo and we went to church. 

Other than that the week was pretty normal. 

Hope you have a great time in Walla Walla!

Love,

Elder Smith 

They took my personal scriptures so that was kind of sad. Fortunately, I've been keeping most of my study notes in a separate notebook. I did feel a little nervous but my overall feeling was just annoyance. It's hard not to offer resistance.

Rosa is moving to Italy for work. Her cousin lives in Florencia and has work for her. Her boyfriend isn't going with her because 1. there is nothing for him in Italy and 2. there is not much true commitment in their relationship. Rather sad but the truth. 

Brother Roberto Vaca is 28. He and his wife have two kids, 9 and 4 years old (if I remember correctly).