usted es un santo?

Hello my loyal subjects!!!!

Alright, this week we are finishing my fourth week and are heading into the fifth. Wow I have made it pretty far; three months and a few days. Ok, before I go into all of my amazing experiences and stories that you all live for, I am going to talk about how I’ve been feeling… just to mix it up a little.

So this last week has been my first real mountain to climb, it has been mentally, physically, and spiritually draining. It has been the first time I have really questioned being here and if I’m cut out for this work. The devil knows his stuff and has been throwing me a few curveballs, he has made me question my faith, made me question my worthiness, question who I am and what I want in life. Well I’m glad to say I have over come my trial of faith and wondering about who I am (at least for now).

But when it comes to worthiness I need an outside opinion. I feel that I am worthy and have repented of all, but I need affirmation so I can have a clean conscious before the Lord and can stop worrying about it. This is going to be hard for all of you to hear but I’m not perfect :0) …not even close. So if worse comes to worse, and I am sent home, I would hope that before you judge me or give me that pep-talk about how I should of figured things out before I left… know that “I know”. I could go through my mission and never say a thing and say it’s between me and the Lord. But I promised myself that I was going to do this right or not do it at all. I will not be a liar; I will not be a fake, or a hypocrite. I will do anything to have a clean conscious. This is amazingly hard to write and know that people will read it, but like I said I will not lie about how I am feeling and what is happening in my life. This is what I write in my journal and this is all very personal so please handle with care.

This is some of the most important work that has or ever been. I am honored to work with the amazing people here. This is the restored church of Jesus Christ and I know this in my heart and in my soul. I will admit that I have my doubts and fears--but I know that all will be revealed to me in time and that I need to be patient . I have an unshakable testimony on family and how the members of our family were selected for a reason. I have a testimony of repentance and the power of change it brings in peoples lives. It heals the heart … ok ok ok I’m done with that.

I don’t have much time to write so I might not be as exciting as I’d like, but I’ll do my best. This week my companion and I have been working really hard to get our neighbors married and the dad baptized and we have been hitting a lot of road blocks but all in all it has worked out and they should be married and the dad baptized on Wednesday. I’m super excited and I hope he lets me baptize him.

While I have been here I have seen a lot of strange things and met some crazy crazy people. Like yesterday, my companion and I were walking to an appointment when this guy and his friend stopped us and started talking.  So I did what I usually do... look at them, smile and nod my head like I understand, (which we all know I don’t) Well, then I was looking toward his friend (at this time I thought maybe he was a handicap, and was thinking I should keep an eye on him)  and he looked and me and stopped every muscle in his body and said, “gahsdlmnaeri “ (ya, I don’t understand it either) I then resorted to my natural reaction and smiled and nodded… he saw my name tag and that it said “saint” on it then with a look of wonder asked me “Usted es un santo?” I was still nodding my head at this time so he thought I was saying yes to “Are you a saint?” He got all big-eyed and started freaking out so we had to leave. (I later found out he was just really drunk)

I found out some more crazy things about Mexico… They don’t have a dump, or at least I don’t think they do because they have trash everywhere. The only rule is if their is trash already there then you need to put it somewhere else. They want to evenly disperse it across all of Mexico.  ...haha

Oh, and ladies breast feed out in the open!!! Like what the heck?!!! So when I’m in the city I usually just look at the ground just to make sure that I’m not caught off guard.

That is all I have time for I’m sorry if my spelling is bad, but this computer is all in Spanish and so I can’t spell check. (my entire letter is in red) Live long and prosper and remember to not judge me too harshly. Your humble servant and friend,
Elder Aaron Cranford