The adventures of Elder Mason Yates: Logramos la meta!

Hey everyone! How are ya`ll doin? Super buenisimo I hope. I am doing super buenisimo, because we reached the goal! We got 227 baptisms in the month of January. How cool is that? and now I am just working hard AS SENIOR COMPANION. Wow, I didn't realize the responsibilities being senior companion carries, but it`s good. It really is testing my faith as a missionary. I feel like as long as I give my 100% then the Lord is pleased with my work. He doesn't expect much of us, just our best. And my best I can definitely give. I have learned that the Lord knows that we aren't perfect. I am FAR from a perfect missionary, little lone a perfect person. But, the Lord just wants us to give our all, even if our all isn't that much, it`s still our all. Like the parable of the woman who paid her tithing with only a couple pence while everyone else was paying with like thousands of dollars. Sometimes I feel like that woman. All the other missionaries around me are having tons of notable success while I`m just giving my own little all. Even though it is much, it`s my all and I know thats everything the Lord wants. Even though its probably not like that, at times its how I feel. I'm sure the other missionaries feel the same way but thats the life of a missionary. And everything is good :)

Other good things that happened this week is that we challenged Arcy to get married and baptized in 2 weeks! She is living with her member boyfriend and wants to get married. She has a strong testimony and everything but just hasn't been able to get married. Her boyfriend, Raul, thought he had to travel to Mexico to take out a paper to get married. but the abogado doesn't need that paper! So she went to take out her DPI, or register as a citizen in other words and we are just waiting on this paper. Well, we learned that she can go get a temporary paper to get married before her DPI comes because they usually take months to arrive. So we planned her marriage for the 18th of this month and her baptism for the 19th. So pray for her! She has been taking the discussions for a long time but never progressed because they thought they needed this paper from Mexico. But they don't! What a blessing!

Many of the other families that we are teaching are progressing too. Which is good. President Brough has really focused on the importance of contacting. Always. My area isn't really a contact friendly area because the houses are super spread out and there aren't a ton of people walking the streets. But, we have gone out of our way to find people to teach and the Lord has seen our diligence and is blessing us with these people. It has been a really big testimony builder to me. Its been great. Now we just need them to go to church!

In other news, its getting hotter here and people say that its only going to get hotter. yipee yipee joy joy. Oh well. It's all good. I like my area, the people are great. Anyway, that's about it here from my side of things. I love you all so much and I appreciate your support. Especially Kennedy Koenig for your Christmas package. It was wonderful. I love it. Especially the Christmas Tree Reeses. Delish! Thank you very much. It was so thoughtful.

Well everyone. Enjoy the pictures. Especially with the iguana. It made me miss my snake so much I almost kissed it. Then I came to my senses and realized I almost kissed a wild iguana in Guatemala. Still, stories right? :) and enjoy the one of me and Elder Vargas. We are ebony and ivory, day and night. People see us and say ``mira! Un Blancito y un Negrito!`` thats right! haha. Well I love you all more than you know. Thank you for your support. I appreciate it. And I`ll talk to you next week!

Elder Yates