Eddie Got Baptized!!!

Dear friends and family,

So much has happened this week! One of our Zone Leaders was asked to be an assistant and so some things got changed around and we ended up in a trio with Elder Hanks--one of the English Elders here. We ended up running both areas for about half the week and got to go to two sacrament meetings. It's been a lot of work, but trios are always so much fun!

This was also the week of storms! We tried to take pictures and videos, but they just don't do it justice. One night we went to stop by to see Maria Luna (one of our investigators; see picture below) and you could see a very large wall of black clouds coming at us really quickly. It started to rain lightly and Maria started to freak out a little bit and ran inside and told us to come back later. By the time we had said goodbye, the light sprinkle had turned into a complete monsoon and we had parked about 3 blocks away. We all broke out into a sprint and by the time we got to our car, we were soaked and laughing uncontrollably. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't even get the keys to unlock the car out so we sat even longer in the monsoon. It was a crazy storm!

On Tuesday we got a call from the Elders up in Rockford and they told us that our investigator Eddy was getting baptized on Saturday. We were doing service at the Food Pantry at the time of the call and I might have shouted and leapt for joy when I heard that. Whatever...everyone there thinks we're crazy anyway.

It was so cool and so much fun to get to go up to Rockford again and it was so good to see all of those members again. The thing that impacted me the most was Eddie's wife Zaira. When I left she always looked tired and sad and I don't think I ever saw her smile; but she was smiling the whole time we were up there! Eddie changed a ton too and it was the most powerful baptismal service I have ever been to.

Just a cool story from today: we went to Steak and Shake for lunch today (the Guacamole steakburger is sooo good) and as we were sitting there eating, this man came up to us and asked if he could buy our lunch. He said, "I'm not mormon, but I know who you are and I know that you're good people." That was such a blessing to find some nice people in the world and Elder Wightman even said something like, "I didn't know that people like that lived here."

I know that this church is true and that the best way to be a missionary is just to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. By being friendly and by serving others, we represent our Savior and I'm so greatful for this time to be doing just that. The Church is so true and I love each and every one of you. Thank you for all that you do for me and have a blessed week.

Elder Arkoudas

 [Future] Elder Luis Gastelum

Illinois cornfield after the monsoon.

 Maria Luna (she's such a stinker and will never take pictures with us. But we can speak in English and she doesn't understand and so we conspired against her. This was the best one we got)

 Eddie's baptism

 After the monsoon