Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God: Almost Christmas

Hey guys! So this was a pretty interesting week with transfers and having a new companion and all that jazz. So Elder Ramirez is from Chimbote, Peru, and is a really interesting guy. He is literally the Latino version of Nathan Dougal. THE SAME PERSON. They look the same, act the same, laugh the same.. its weird haha. He's super quiet and we dont talk a whole lot when we're walking around, but he's a great missionary. We go to work! This might not be the most fun transfer I have, since we dont have a whole lot in common and he doesnt talk much, but we work hard and get stuff done. In one day this week, we had more new investigators that we found than I ever had in a week with Elder Perez. He just knows what to say and knows how to get to the root of the investigator. I learn a lot from him every day!

So a miracle happened today! When a couple wants to get married here, they have to go and present all the paperwork and then the person who works for the Municipalidad have to accept or reject the paperwork and set a date. Usually after presenting the couple we have to wait at least 21 days to get them married, but we presented them today and the set the marriage for this Friday! It really is a miracle. We taught them about fasting this week and we fasted for them that the birth certificates would get here on time and that the people who set the dates would be able to set the date for this Friday and they were able to do it! I know the Lord had a hand in this, because if we would have had to wait for another date they would have had to cancel everything, tell their family not to come and all that bad stuff. So they're going to get baptized along with their 8-year old son this week and we couldnt be more excited for them. Look for some baptism pictures next week!

Rodolfo is a stud. We bought him the D&C videos and he already watched all of them, including the Joseph Smith video and some other church movies. He told us that the night of his baptism he faced more temptation than he ever had before. He drives taxis for his job and said that night some guy got into his taxi and was offering him free booze, a chance to meet a bunch of women, and other pretty bad stuff. Then he told us, "I told that guy to get lost, I was prepared for the crap." I almost died laughing! And then yesterday at church in priesthood meeting the teacher asked when the Relief Society was founded. I was like shoot, I dont know that, but then Rodolfo turned to me and whispered "1842" and smiled at me. How does he know that?! He's been a memeber for 3 weeks!!! And then he was talking to one of our other investigators named Ricardo and church and was telling him all about the church and how much he loves it and how happy it makes him, all that. We didnt know any of that until we taught Ricardo yesterday and now he wants to get baptized too. I swear, Rodolfo might be the prophet one day.

Anyways, that was our week this week, hope you guys had a good one too! Merry Christmas! Everyone look up the video "He is the Gift" on youtube or mormon.org, its awesome! Really reminds us what Christmas is all about!

Love you guys!

Elder Matheson