Good-bye Elder Cortez (2-17-14)

So today, Elder Cortez took off for Brazil, he was so excited to finally go, he has been so nervous these past couple of days. I'm going to miss him.

So this week has been kind of different, just because Elder Cortez knew he was going to be leaving, so we started doing things that he wanted to do. BUT....he made me make all the choices since I will be in charge of this area for a while. I did get a new companion for this week, his name is Elder Linn, he has been out for a few months now. The area he came from was up in South Dakota, so he said it's a lot different here so far.

So we did a lot this week with Keowa, we taught him 3 times this week and one of those times we went to the Trail Center. We also watched the Restoration video with him, which is a whole hour long. They took us downstairs and we watched it on the huge projector so it was like we were in a movie theater, so that was kind of cool. He has told a few people that he really wants to be baptized so we might move his baptism date up, right now it's planned for March 22, but he has been learning so fast and we have been seeing him so much lately, that he is just learning so much.

We also met a new family that moved in a month ago. We had no clue that they were members, we just happened to knock on their door. The father answered, he's a big, buff, scary looking guy with Playboy bunny tattoos on his arm. He is super nice and friendly, they have 2 daughters, one of them has Down Syndrome, she is super funny and friendly. They were baptized 3 years ago, so they are still kinda new.

We knocked on a lot of doors this week, we found about 15 potentials in one apartment complex, that area is just crazy with people!

Other than this, nothing crazy or exciting really happened. Elder Cortez has just been packing and we have been eating at his favorite places before he took off, we have also been going around and saying good-bye to people.

Hopefully this week goes well, it will be soooo different not having Elder Cortez around and now having a new companion, so hopefully it all goes well.

Love, Elder Searle