Straight outta East side Salem

Greetings friends and family, 

The word of the day is:  camarada

(close friend) 

I want to apologize for not writing last week, I was super busy with preperation all around. 

We've been working a lot in East Salem and found three new people to teach. I think this is one of my favorite places not only because most of the people are Dominican, but because of the inspiring grafitti art all over. I'll provide some photos. 

Daniel is progressing super well. He has the desire to be baptized so we are going to finish the lessons with him. 

Lizette is also progressing just after one important lesson. We went with the intentions of having to stop teaching her but that totally changed after we showed "Come Follow Me" by our beloved prophet Russell M. Nelson. She said she felt the spirit SO strong and understands why she needs to be baptized with proper authority. 

We had to stop teaching Queni and Adelfa. Basically, we asked them what was holding them back to being baptized and they said they just don't feel ready. It's hard because I thought otherwise. Because they couldn't make a commitment and make steps towards baptism, we are going to give them some space. Still love them to death, but it just wasn't going anywhere. 

Cool thing that happened. We had exchanges and Elder Uluiviti and I were looking for Brazilians to teach. We knocked on a door and a Honduran guy opens up. We asked if we could come in to share our message and he was more than willing to let us in. Because Elder Uluiviti speaks Portuguese, I taught the Entire restoration by myself. He added parts here and there but I was flying solo. Anyways all went well with that. 

That's about it for the week. Keep it up. I know things get hard and everything is telling you to turn back but don't give in, stand your ground. Keep strong! 

Love you all! 

con mucho amor,
Elder Rasmussen