Letter from August 20

I have some great news, the transfers came and went and I am still here in Cerro.  I was a little worried that President might be moving me since Elder Mitchell and I finish our missions at the same time.  I mentioned Jenny and Elizabeth last week.  Well they are progressing wonderfully.  Their baptismal date is for this Saturday.  They both attended church yesterday as well as a fireside in the church.   They continue to read the Book of Mormon and I feel that there won’t be any problem this week in them getting baptized. They are going to be very strong members.  You can usually tell if someone is going to be a strong member by how they complete their Book of Mormon reading.  

Also we are planning the Jose´s baptism this coming Sunday. He has to attend 1 more time before he can be baptized so we are planning for Sunday afternoon after church. He will be arriving tomorrow from his village and will be here for a while.  He is Hector’s nephew as I mentioned last week, but one of them always has to be in the village to take care of the animals, so when he comes Hector goes.  Hector should be receiving the priesthood in about 2 weeks.  He is progressing well, the best part is that he is faithfully paying his tithing, I think that and keeping the Sabbath day are the hardest commandments for the new converts to keep, but he is doing a great job and staying strong.  We also have Elsa, she is a little bit tougher.  She is progressing, but slowly. She has a hard time accepting being baptized but I think here in a couple weeks she will feel the need and make the decision.

A couple of weeks ago with the Stake Presidency we planned an activity to excite the members and receive a bunch of references.  Well it was planned for this past Thursday.  Every ward was in charge of a little activity. There was a bunch of different rooms with different activities like dancing, a movie theater, a store, a room with missionaries teaching, and many others.  Well we were hoping to have around 100 to 200 people show up.  I was a little nervous because the last activity we had in the ward didn’t go so well, about 8 people showed up.  Well to my surprise around 500 people showed up, and to enter the members had to write down a reference.  It was the best activity! We had quite a few investigators there which was great. In the end, the stake President shared a message about the Plan of Salvation.  It went really well. Love you guys!!

Elder Riggs