My letter!

Hey there family!!!

How is everyone doing?! I hope that everything is going well there in Utah. It´s really, really hot today. It doesn´t help that the air conditioning where we are writing you all isn´t working. So I am writing this email, really hot, and kind of sweaty. Haha. It´s not the greatest experience ever. Hey! The air finally turned on! Now maybe I can focus a little bit more in what I am writing, that would definitely be bonus for me!! Well, anywho, as you can all see I sent some photos of fun things that have happened the last few days. :) The Salto family was baptized!! One of the happiest pieces of news that I could possibly think of. An entire family, baptized, happier than they have ever been before. It was a really amazing baptism. All of the stuff that happened before the actual baptism, now that was a crazy experience in and of itself. There was no water in the Church. (As some of you may remember, this is not my first baptism where there has been no water in the church, sadly no water company came to our rescue) The pumps that pump the water into tanks above the chapel had burned out. So, us, with a brother and his son spent all day getting water into the chapel, finally resorting to bypassing the circuit breaker so that the pump would work long enough to get some water going.
Side note: The baptism was on Thursday due to some complications with some of the members that wanted to be there. And then Friday was our zone conference, so we really needed to have water in the chapel, because the zone conference is held in our chapel. So we spent a long time trying to fix things.
Anyway, after alot of work, we got water into the font, and the baptism happened. It was one of the best baptisms that I have ever been in. One of the most spiritual as well. The mom as she was getting up out of the water just started crying and couldn´t stop. Afterward we had some good food and then had to clean everything up and get all of the stuff for zone conference ready. It was a really crazy and tiring day.

Phew. Now, on to zone conference day! It was a really good conference. The only thing we had to worry about again was the water in the chapel, but it didn´t end up being too big an issue. President gave us a doctrine on how to prepare ourselves to get answers to prayers and to more fully understand the answers that we get. After cleaning up from zone conference we went to a couple of our recent convert´s house and said goodbye to them. They are moving back to Rosario for a short time, so both Elder Palmer and I will probably not be here in Formosa by the time that they get back. It was kind of sad day, but we were able to get them all of the information about the branch that they will be attending down there in Rosario.

Now, on to what we did today during Pday!! We got up, sent numbers to the mission. Then we went and played a couple hours of basketball. Then ate and got ice cream and now it is time to write the families before going back to the apartment to rest for a little while and then go out and work later in the evening. Just a nice Pday.

Transfers are in... 5 weeks or so. It´s almost positive that I will be leaving this area. I will have 7 and a half months here. President usually doesn´t leave anyone in as zone leader for more than that amount of time. So yeah, I´ll probably go to my last area for 2 transfers. Just a couple of transfers to end the mission working without any other responsibilities. But, that´s still pretty far away, so I try not to think about it. :) I don´t want to leave Formosa though. It´s funny, every missionary who comes to Formosa ends up absolutely loving it and never wants to leave. It´s really crazy. I would love to end the mission in just another area here in Formosa Capital.

Well, that´s about all for the week. I´m happy and healthy. Our zone is doing really well. President was really happy with all of the work that our zone is doing. This coming week should just be a pretty normal one, nothing to special planned. Just lots and lots of work!!! I´m excited. Well....
I have to be going,
I love everyone!!
- Matthew