We Living In The Good Old Days

Hello everyone! Hope that all are well!

Ever since the office, I've been getting progressively worse at sending emails :( Sorry 

It's really been a crazy ride. I've only written one email since I've gotten here. But I don't think I've ever seen an area with more problems. It is almost impossible to get anybody to go to church. Everyone is this town is either drunk, breaking the law of chastity, a robber, or only 7 years old. It's bad.

Shocking fact... we are serving in one of the smallest towns in the mission. We work in an area of 3 blocks by 10 blocks, which is not a lot. In this tiny 3 x 10 block town... there are 39 churches.  

38 of these churches teach that all churches are of God and that we can do whatever we want if we just pray. The worst part is that our Church is in the smallest ugliest looking building in town. It's a little hard to say to the people, "Hey! We know that there's a beautiful, giant 3 story church building just around the corner, and a million other fancy churches around here, but the true church is the little brick building by Mister Sotelo's house that only 4 people go to on Sundays." To make matters worse, the church building has been robbed twice in the last 4 weeks. Amazing

The good news... we traveled outside of our little coffin town to a place called Coronel Bogado. It's an hour bus ride from here but still in our teaching area. It was so incredible. When we got there they told us that we were the first missionaries to arrive there in the last 6 years. Everyone we met was so amazing. We found members that had just been forgotten. There used to be a branch out there but it closed before the pandemic.  

We met a family that wanted to send 3 kids to fsy this year but nobody invited them. They didn't know it had even happened until they saw the pictures on Facebook. We met another member who lost her book of mormon 8 years ago and almost cried as we gifted her a new one. We met another family and when the mom came out she almost burst into tears. She had prayed that very morning for a miracle and later she walked out of her room to find the first missionaries she had seen in 6 years. Those are special moments. Nothing compares to the feeling of knowing that you are exactly where God needed you to be. After a long day visiting these faithful members, we hopped on the bus. We were so full from the free food that we kept receiving that we almost threw up. Those are good times.

I love being a missionary. I love being a disciple of Christ.

Elder Blacker 

Pics include: good days, good life. (Whenever there's a skull in the street, it means that some family had a good dinner last night... yes they eat pig and cow head frequently)






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