Guayabas

New fruit week: Guayabas (new for Elder Crabb, anyways). Guavas in English. I give them an 8/10. Elder Crabb gives them a "better than nanches."

I had the awesome opportunity to visit Sinaloa for the capacitation in Culiacàn. We boarded a tiny Cesna in the wee hours, which meant we had a red ocean sunrise. Really, really cool. I realized that my camera was in the cargo hold, and then I realized that it was one of those incapturable mission moments: being with sleepy Mexicans on a tiny plane by the light of a Lion King sun over the Gulf of California. I was there for two days, and got to see some old friends (a few missionaries from my generation are training missionaries from Elder Crabb's generation) and meet a lot of new Elders who I hadn't seen before. It was a great learning experience. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned was the importance of faith. Everything is based in it. The "animo" that I have for the work is based on my faith. A fin de cuenta, the success that I see is based on my faith and diligence and trust in the Lord. We also instituted something kind of new: in a first lesson with investigators, we're basically like, "Hey, this is the Book of Mormon! Let's read it right now!" and then we read the first 12 verses of first Nephi, in which Lehi prays, is given a book and feels the Spirit while reading it; it's a pretty cool parallel for what is happening in the life of the investigators in that same moment.

I had a really fun birthday. We worked really hard. I didn't even have time to open my packages by the end of the day. On Sunday, the Vega family made me a fruit and graham cracker cake!

I spoke in Sacrament meeting. I related the stories of Newel K. Whitney and the prophet Jeremiah and talked about how the Lord prepares us to accept the responsibilities he gives us. I also talked about Amalia, from Costa Rica, and about how the Lord had prepared her to recieve the Gospel.

Elder Crabb and I are having a lot of fun. We're staying together for this next change and have big plans to improve the area.

Shout-out to Oliver for being super awesome.