August 11, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,
Seems like everyone is doing well. Everything is going well here in Argentina. I want to thank mom again for the package I received as everything turned out perfect, thanks a lot. I also want to thank dad and beckie for sending some photos and would like to know if you can send some more next week, maybe some of my farewell or the mtc. The memory card reader however does not read my memory card so I am not able to send any photos through the internet. However I stopped by a photo shop and loaded all my pictures from the memory card onto a cd and I will be sending the cd today when I stop by the post office. I will be sending it to dads house, let me know when you receive the cd that way we can tract how long it takes to send mail from Argentina. The photos are from the day I left the mtc until this baptism we had this last weekend. I hope you receive the cd and I think you will enjoy it and also have more questions, hah. So as I mentioned this past Saturday we had a baptism for Julia. The baptism went really well and I was able to perform the baptism. Julia has a lot of faith, and I am very grateful she chose me to perform the baptism. Getting the baptism to start was a different story. We stopped by the chapel Saturday afternoon to start to fill up the baptismal font which was scheduled for 7:30. We then left the chapel because we had some appointments and returned around 6:30-45 and the font was perfectly filled and heated. Everything was organized, all we had left to do was wait for Julia and the members from the ward to show up. Now this is when it starts to get a little interesting. My companion E. Tate suggested that we empty the font a little and refill it with hot water so that it would be perfect by the time the baptism starts. I was not too sure of the idea but we did have about 45 mins until the baptism was supposed to start. E. Tate began to drain the font and set his watch for 10 mins. We came back to the font after the timer went off and found that almost all of the water was gone. I was shocked, E. Tate quickly began to refill the font. It was now past 7 o' clock and Julia still had not arrived. We tried calling and received no answer. Then came 7:30 and Julia still had not arrived and the font still had a ways to go. The members began to arrive. Finally around 7:45 Julia arrived. The rest of the baptism went perfect, it was just getting it to start that was interesting. The font was filled back up just in time and I was able to baptize Julia. It was an amazing experience, hard to describe with words, but the spirit was strong. The next day was Julia´s confirmation. Here we have another interesting story. Before church we went and walked to our investigators houses to wake them up and bring them to church. We passed by The Celle Family, which is the family we have been teaching. Not all of them were awake so we told them we were going to stop by some other investigators and return to pick them up. When we returned back to the Celle´s house some of the kids and also the dad were still asleep. We did not have much time until church started so I suggested we go in an wake them up. Long story short we went in the house, woke everyone up, and got them ready. Unfortunately we showed up to church a little late and ended up missing Julia´s confirmation. I felt bad we were not able to make it for her confirmation but Julia was ok and understood. Well this was just a little of what took place this last week. This week we have interviews with President Benton this Friday and also three more baptisms planned for Saturday. I am very grateful for this opportunity to serve and appreciate for love and support. Take care and have a great week, con amor Elder Brooks.
Reminders, if you can please continue to send those other pictures and I would also like to know where Uncle Jim, Uncle Ben, Uncle Steve, and Aunt Amy served their missions. I know the country but would like to know the cities as well. Mom, I received packages B and C and everything listed in them, package A is the one that we were told that got sent back.