Thank you for your emails! I really appreciate it. This past week was definitely lots better, lots of interesting things happened. On wednesday we had interviews with President Franco, so we traveled for 2 days to Formosa capital. I am one of the farthest away areas in the mission, so on tuesday we traveled in bus to Ibarreta and we stayed the night with our zone leaders and the other missionaries in our zone. I was with Elder Simmons, who is from my MTC group and it was fun to catch up with him and we talked all night. Then we had the interviews on wednesday, and we traveled back to Campo. On Thursday we had a Branch Council meeting (thats where all the members in the branch that have callings like relief society president, president of the Elders quorum, young womans presidency, etc, get together and we talk about problems in the branch, future activities, cleaning the chapel, etc.) We have that meeting every thursday. Then, on friday andsaturday, we went to El Portrillo. Thats what I told you guys about 2 emails ago, how as part of the branch we are over 2 groups called Las Lomitas and El Portrillo. El Portrillo is a group of native indians that live isolated away from society, we have to drive 6 hours to get there. We went with the 1st counselor of the District, President Fernandez, because his assignation in the district is El Portrillo. He has a car. Soon friday we drove 4 hours to a small town called Juarez, and we rented a hotel. I stayed in a nice hotel!!! It was probably the coolest thing that has happened on my mission yet. And that night we ate in a really nice restaurant! It was definitely a good break from our apartment in campo. In Juarez that day we went out and worked and visited some inactive members that live there, and we tracted and found 7 new investigators. So we had lots of success in Juarez. Then the next morning we woke up early and we drove to El Portrillo. Its 3 hours on a dirt road. El Potrillo is in the middle of nowhere! We got there and we went and visited the casique (which means chief). He is the chief of all the Nibacle people there. He is a member and all of his kids are members too. Its kind of hard to talk to them because they hardly understand any spanish and they talk really quietly and slowly. They all talk Nibacle to each other. But we attended some of the needs in the group and we shared a message. They were super grateful for the visit, they are such nice, gentle, loving people. As we were leaving the mom offered us some hand made bags that she made and hand made dolls. They are super cool and we both bought some and the ones that we didnt buy, they just gave them to us for free. So I will be coming home with a bunch of handmade indian dolls that I know my mom will love. As well one of the sons of the family, Fulgencio, brought out an amazing picture of Jesus that he drew. (See picture). I have no idea how he learned to draw so good, really impressive!
After that we went and visited some other families in El Potrillo. The goal was to give to all the men that have the priesthood the phamplet "The Family" which teaches them how to give priesthood blessings and other priesthood ordinances. One of the families we visited was the Morales Family. All of the kids in the family were very very sick, ive never seen people so sick before. And my companion and I gave priesthood blessings to all of them. We gave more than 10 blessings that day. It was amazing to spend the whole day giving priesthood blessings and visiting such humble people, it made me grateful for having the priesthood in my life and all the luxuries that I have. It was definitely an experience I will never forget.
Sunday went really good, 18 people came to church. I gave a talk in sacrament meeting and I taught the Gospel Principles class. Things are going a lot better and I think I am getting the hang of being branch president a little bit better.
The entrance to good old Estanislao del Campo
This is a page from an old "Principles of the Gospel" book in Nibacle that we are going to make copies of so that they can start teaching this class in the 2nd hour of church (up until now they have just been having sacrament meeting and then they go home). I just took a picture of this so that you guys can see how crazy their language is!
Hand made indian dolls and a bag
The Paredes Family. The man to the right of the drawing is the indian chief of El Portrillo. The guy next to me is who drew the picture. He wants to be a missionary. Super cool humble family.
Hope you all have a great week,
Elder Miles
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