Well this has been quite the week! Its been hard seeing President and Sister Rahlf say goodbye for the last time to so many people! And since we're with him a lot more than others, he kept telling us, "we'll just save our goodbye for the very last moment" and that moment happened on Friday morning. We had Elder Higgins with us since he was flying with them to Manila to get his thyroid checked out, and we went to pick up President and Sister Rahlf at the hotel and then bring them to the airport in Cauayan. It was super sad to see them leave. He's been a great mission president and I've learned so much from him and Sister Rahlf.
But President and Sister Hiatt have been really awesome so far! From the second they got here, we could feel their energy and enthusiasm for the work! The first night when we met him,he asked us, "Elders, do you have any appointments tonight? Or did you leave your schedule pretty open?" We left it open, then he said, "okay great! Sister Hiatt and I want to go out and work with you tonight!" And so they did! We went out with President and Sister Hiatt on their first night to teach the Ruiz family! Elder Higgins was also with us so we had the 3 of us, the mission president, and his wife all there at 1 teaching appointment! Haha Had a great lesson with them. We've met with President Hiatt several times since then just discussing the mission and some of his plans and just to "talk about the future." This week, we have a "Meet the President" meeting with the Hiatts on Tuesday, Wed, and Thurs in 3 different places in the mission. We'll be with him for those three days. It'll be fun! But he's a great man and sister Hiatt is a great woman. I know they were called of God and I'm super excited for some of the things that will be happening in the mission in these next few months!
But the work has been going great as usual! Brother Rey and Michael Ordoñez were interviewed yesterday and passed so they'll be baptized this Saturday! Brother Michael was literally like an ex-gang member but now he's turned his life around bigtime! They're super fun to teach! Brother Michael Ruiz (Jessa's husband) has also made huge steps! His desire has increased a lot lately and he's stopped smoking cigarettes! They have a baptismal date for the 16th so we're excited to have a couple that will be baptized this month! I cant complain at all with the success we've been having! I know that its really because Heavenly Father has been preparing these people.
I had an interesting thought this last week... Its bothered me several times on my mission, "why was I so blessed to grow up in America, with a strong LDS family, a great community, strong friends in the church, great leaders, not poor circumstances, etc. while others were not blessed with as much." I think I finally realized at least one of the reasons: to put me/us in a position to find and baptize the people that we have found and baptized and brought into the church. It was a solemn moment when I thought that and I immediately felt the spirit. No matter what our situations are I know Heavenly Father knows and understands us.
Elder Navarro
