This week was also really fast and really slow for me.  I have very officially realized that it is very hard to speak English seeing that we just talked to a guy that lived in the US for 15 years.  Needless to say he made fun of my Spanish but he did tell some good stories.  My companion just stood there staring at us.  He's learning but definitely not very fast.

Today we went to Panuco for a Zone activity.  It was pretty fun and we did enjoy our time there. But this morning my testimony grew about the power of prayer.  We set the alarm for 5:15 to be able to get ready and eat before we went.  But at about 6:15 my companion got up and woke me up.  Turns out that someone put the phone on vibrating mode for church yesterday and never turned up the volume again.  So it just buzzed.  Now usually that would wake us up.  Vibrating phone on a hard plastic table does make a decent noise.  But that same somebody put the phone on their planner last night so we weren't able to hear it sound.  So miracle number 1 that my companion woke up.  If not I think we are sufficiently tired to sleep in until about 10:00 without ever noticing.

So we hurried to get ready and running out of the door it was 7:17.  The bus leaves at 7:15.  So we had two options run and hope that maybe the bus leaves just a little bit late.  But something told me to say a prayer.  So we paused in the door and offered a prayer praying for protection and that the bus would leave late so that we could make it.  And then at about 7:22 we ran and made it to the bus stop just as the bus was leaving so we stopped it and got on board.  No doubt that God answered that prayer and helped us make it on time to Panuco.

I keep laughing about the 3rd base play and hope that dad can calm down and not get so upset at the umpires.  But it is a good funny experience.

This week we also took 11 Coconuts to Panuco last Wednesday for our district class.  We could have fit them all in my luggage but When we stood it up we realized that the poor little wheels would not have made it with us.  It weighed about 70 pounds.  And I might say that that is a conservative guess.  So we split it up and took all of them to our companions in Panuco.  We opened them all with the machete and had a great "party" eating coconut, mangoes, lemons, and coconut water.}

We finally did it.  The members are finally starting to work.

We have been passing by with the members, actives, in actives, less actives, more or less actives, and almost actives, new members old members and just about everything in between.  And even though less members came to church yesterday they are starting to talk about the Gospel with friends and coworkers.  They are starting (only starting) to visit the other members.  They are starting to ask us when they can come with us.  We are breaking the reputation of Ebano.  We hope to keep up  this work and that in about 2 weeks all of our work will be purely member based work.  It's not easy but it will be much more effective here in a few months.  We are excited and hope to be able to see Ebano Ward before we go home.

We also got permission now to go to Ponciano.  A little town (I think that town would be the equivalent for Ejido) about 35 minutes from Ebano.  There are about 15 members there and about 15 more people that are willing to learn more about the Gospel and hopefully a few of them accept it.  A few members are going to accompany us and are going to visit less actives while we are there.  We are going to spend the day there on Friday and we hope to have a lot of success in that work there in Ponciano.

Carolina keeps learning.  Slowly but surely.  She won't accept a baptismal date but keeps reading the Book of Mormon and coming to church.  We are trying to get her to pray.  She says that she has no idea what to do with her life right now.  Look for a husband.  Go home to her farm.  Stay here and get a job.  Stay single.  Get baptized.  A lot of decisions and we just tell her to pray.  If she doesn't pray then I don't think that she will every know.  But that is the battle that we are having with her right now.

Perla was finishing up school this week and she had a lot of after school assignments so we couldn't hardly see her this week.  She didn't come to church but hopefully next week.

We also found a very promising young family.  Jonathan and his wife are happy but very full of questions.  They believe in God but not so much in the Bible.  They think that it has been manipulated over the years and although it does have a lot of truth he doesn't believe in everything that it says.  I told him "we believe the bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly" and we also believe that God has cleared up the "plain and precious truths" that have been lost.  He seems very interested an although he goes to school Sundays in a few weeks he wants to come to church with us.

Love,
Elder Alllred

"Our coconut trafficking this week was very successful.  We had a very good time and enjoyed it a lot."