Week 64 (3/21/11) Email to Family

Hey guys!
First off I want to congratulate you guys on the improved performance this week. You guys improved your combined email lengths by a total of 125 lines from last week to this week. That's what I'm talking about! That's an average of 33 lines each. Yeah! I'm so proud of my family.
Anyway, things are going good here in La Florida. We're getting the members here excited to work with us here in the obra misional. My talk went great and the bishop told me it was really really good. He seemed very pleased which is good. We need his trust. The future here in La Florida is already looking brighter. When I came here I wanted to change the way I did things and it looks like it is going to be paying off. Not yet, it is something that takes time but I think I have finally found a way that works good for me.
We have an investigator here that is nine, her name is Anahí, and her mom is an inactive member that said she won't let her daughter get baptized til she turns 10 in November. Anahí goes to church every week with her grandma and her aunt with her older sister. We had never met the mom but we got an appointment with her for last night and we prepared a lesson for her focused on why baptism and more specifically the gift of the Holy Ghost is important even for a nine year old. We helped them see why it is so important and how it will help her. Its true, even after the age of 8 children aren't going to know a lot, but they can know/feel that it is the right thing to do by the power of the Holy Ghost before baptism. They aren't going to know a lot but it is something they need to help them make good choices and be protected from the influence of the adversary. It was really good and at the end her mom gave permission for Anahí to get baptized.
So this week we did back to back exchanges so Elder Watt and I went 2 days without each other, it was kinda weird. Anyway I went to Bosques with Elder Champlin (he was in Damien's class in the MTC) for part 2 of the back to back exchange. He told me that he and Velasquez, his companion, had found a list earlier in the week that lists all of the missionaries that have served in Bosques, kind of like geneology, and that it goes back to 1989. I realized that Greg had told me in a letter that he started his mission in none other than Bosques. I told Champlin that he had to show it to me when we got back to the pench. When we got back he got out the list and in the year 2002 it lists one Elder Bailey as being companions with our very own Elder Barnett. How crazy is that!? I thought it was very cool. I am honored to have worked a day of my mission in the very same area as my cousin Greg Barnett did on his mission. Yeah that's right. Good stuff right there.
Alright guys that's all the time I've got for this week. I love you guys and thanks for writing to me.:) Hasta la proxima.
Love, Matt