Elder Dylan Thomas' Missionary Experiences in Guatemala, Retalhuleu 2015-2017: Another week, another baptism! What?

Hey everybody!

This week was pretty great! We had another baptism this Saturday! His name is Harry Ochoa. He`s 16 years old, and he`s super smart. Also, he is a living testimony of the converting power of the Book of Mormon. We taught him for the first time a couple weeks ago, and he enjoyed our message, but he wasn`t totally sure if he knew it was true. But then when we returned the next time, he said these exact words (in Spanish): I read and prayed about the Book of Mormon and I know I need to get baptized because I know this Church is true. WHAT. It was pretty much the coolest thing I`ve ever heard. So he got baptized on Saturday! It was super cool, I`m so happy for him.

Harry's baptism

We also had a meeting with all of the new missionaries with our mission president! Man, I didn`t realize it until now, but that man is a spiritual giant. I`m pretty sure he could recite the whole Bible and Book of Mormon memorized if you wanted him too. Haha but I learned a ton that day, and I`m learning so much out here! It really is so great. I didn`t realize how much I didn`t know about the gospel until I got out here! But I learn every day, and it really is so good.

We just went to the beach for a zone activity, so that was pretty fun! I have some pretty sweet pictures of that, and also of the baptism, but I don`t have time to upload them this week unfortunately. But I`m so excited this week! Our family of 7 is getting baptized this weekend!!! AHHH I`m so excited for that! So there will be a pictures and an outpouring of spiritual happiness about that in my email next week, don`t you even worry.

Haha sorry if this email is a bit scattered! I don`t have a ton of time to write today. But things are going great over here! I`ll try to send a better email and some pictures next week!

Love you all! The Church is true!

-Elder Thomas

PS...Dylan's email to us this week had some great news I wanted to share with you all. This is huge. We have been praying for this and feel like Heavenly Father is listening!

Thanks Dad! Things are changing a lot in the mission. Missionaries really are getting a lot more obedient. It`s still not perfect, but hey, little by little. Our president is really cracking down. He`s been sending his assistants to different zones to make sure everything is how it should be, and they`ve been calling people out for disobedience a lot. Things have improved so much since I first got here, and some of the older missionaries say things were a lot worse even before I got here. So little by little, things are improving.

Here are some pictures of what went on this week.