Happy Thanksgiving!

Bon tardi, Buenas tardes, Good Afternoon,

 

It was another fantastic week.  I am truly loving it here in the office.  It's just like you said Mom, it has been right up my alley.  It's amazing to see how the Lord shapes us in our life so that we can fit into the mold of what He needs us to do in His vineyard.  This has been a wonderful calling for me.

Thanksgiving was great!  I can't wait to be back on Thanksgiving next year and ride the bikes with you guys again.  I was thinking about that while I was here.  Here we had District meeting and then went to Outback and then it was a pretty normal day.  But get this, one of the sisters here is from Fort Thomas, and she is actually sharing our area with us right now!  She said that she had been to the Thanksgiving dinner in Fort Thomas too!  So it was cool to know that there was one other person missing out on the very same thing that I was, but I did great, it really helps being in the office.  Her name is Sister Ward.  Darleen actually knows her, haha.

 

Things are still good with Jonathan.  We got him interviewed on Thanksgiving, and he is good to go for baptism this week on Saturday.  That is a huge blessing from the Lord, because alot of times because of office things we are unable to work in the area as much, but He has blessed us to be able to help Jonathan come unto Christ through it all.  Jonathan is actually a really cool story.  I guess that the missionaries found him while my companion Elder Ellis was on an exchange with the missionaries from the MTC here in Santo Domingo.  I guess in Gazcue, my new area, we get to do exchanges with them twice a transfer.  That will be sweet!

 

Wow, you saw Sister Payne?  That is so awesome!!  You have to tell her hi for me.  That is awesome.  (We ran into Sister Darlene Payne this past weekend at a wedding reception.  She was Jeff's Primary teacher in our old ward when he was about seven or eight years old . . . so a long time ago.  The first thing she asked us about was how Jeff was doing.  She asked us to tell him hi for her and let him know that she will pray for him.  Wow!  That's an awesome Primary teacher!  She was so good to him way back then and continues to show love and concern for him even now, after all these years!  I want to be that kind of Primary teacher!)

 

I'm really sorry but I pulled out more money today from my personal debit card.  It got me some really cool stuff at the Haitian market and some money to buy fabric to make a shirt and make pants.  I'm going to make two pairs of pants and one shirt, so if you haven't been able to get those yet for my package, don't worry about it, but if you did, even better, and I'm really sorry I made you pay for four pairs instead of just two.  Also, I would love all of the Church movies that you can send me.  It doesn't matter what it's about as long as the Church's symbol is on the back, that just means that it was made by the church.  Especially the Doctrine and Covenant's and Church History DVD Pack (it's big, like three or four DVDs), it has the Joseph Smith movie from the Visitor's Center on it, but we can't get it in English here, so it would be awesome if you could send it to me, but if you can't find it, don't worry about it.

 

Other than that I think that everything is good, I've got everything I need.  I am so grateful for the blessings I have received from the Lord, He truly has blessed me more than I ever could have imagined.

 

I also have received a couple of letters, some of which got sent to Aruba before I got transferred, and they have to try to send them back to me in the DR now, so I am very sorry for people who have written me and I haven't gotten back to.  With our office responsibilities and trying to cover our area, I have hardly any time to hand write letters to mail out like I did before, so I'm going to email those people back instead of writing out the letter, so I apologize!

 

Other than that, I think that everything is good here.  Every week, it is amazing to look back and see how far I have come since I left a year and some months ago and headed out on the next adventure of my life.  Now I'm a little bit older, a little bit bigger, a little bit balder, but most importantly now I can tell you without a doubt that I know that this is the Church of Jesus Christ, I know that He lives, I know that we have a loving Heavenly Father with a perfect plan for us.  I know that Joseph Smith was and is a true Prophet, and I know that we have a living Prophet today named Thomas S. Monson.  I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and that a man will get closer to Him by living its precepts than by those of any other book.  I know that the Savior walks with us each step of our day, even if we don't feel like it sometimes, and I know that He can heal us from whatever trial life may send our way.  How grateful I am for this Gospel.

 

I love you all and hope that you have a great week, I'll have to try to attach some pictures another day when I have my camera, sorry I left it at home.  And tell Dad that we live on the street directly adjacent to the Church, about 200 feet down the road.  (Henry likes to use Google Earth to try to figure out where Jeff is in each area he serves in.  He's very good at it!  It's our version of "Where's Waldo" except our version would be called "Where in the world is Elder DeSpain?")

 

 

Love, 

Elder DeSpain