Gabriel

Dear Mom, Dad, Angie, Caden, Ben, Hilary, Ella, Ethan, Ryan, Natalie, Annie, Logan, Dave, Katie, Sam and Taylor--
(Just to prove I´m thinking of ALL of you)

How´re things back in the homeland? I regret to inform the Campbells, Brewsters and Angie that the Demcak children are now officially the cutest kids in the family, seeing as none of you sent me the Halloween pictures of your kids except for them. I´d love to have you all prove me wrong.

Anywho...I have some good news to tell you all: we have a baptismal date for one of our investigators, a man named Gabriel. I´ll tell you why I´m so excited about this one. Gabriel has been one of the most interesting and yet hardest people I´ve had to teach. About 2 months ago, he ran into Hna. Calderon and me in the street and exclaimed, ``Elders!`` And very excitedly invited us to his house. We came to find out that he had not one, not two, but THREE copies of the Book of Mormon in his house, each of them marked from previous lessons with missionaries. He had even had a baptismal date and everything but at the last minute decided it wasn´t for him. Apparently, back in his day, he was what he calls a ``hippie`` full of free-thinking/crazy ideas about life. This has made it difficult for him to accept the gospel, I think, because we preach about how we need to harness desires and trust in the Lord for everything instead of just living as one pleases. He had told us that he didn´t think he´d ever felt the Spirit before but we explained to him how the spirit manifests itself---the quiet confirmation of truth that someone feels in their heart as opposed to a loud, shouting voice that shakes the soul. A light came into his eyes after we told him that and ever since then he´s been coming to church on his own, studying his scriptures every day. He really WANTS to learn. At times he´s got some crazy notions and questions (which makes Sunday School quite interesting) but he truly has a growing testimony. Yesterday, our Sunday School teacher was talking about Sabbath day observance and asked questions like, îs it better to go to church or go to the beach? To which Gabriel would reply, ``Church, of course! You can´t compare anything to church!`` That made Sister Bloomfield and me pretty proud :). Anyway, I´ve got a lot I could tell you about Gabriel that I´ll save for a later date...for now just pray that he´ll keep his baptismal date for the 21st of November!

We´ve got a lot of young families that we`re finding, too, so thankfully we´re keeping pretty busy. I just love seeing people ``get`` the gospel--sometimes I feel like I don´t have the words to explain why I know these things are true. I just know it. It makes sense. It´s TRUTH. Indisputable.
I hope you all know that I really am grateful for all of you and I pray for you daily. I hope you´re all happy and doing well!

Les quiero mucho,
Hna. Brewster
p.s. Sister Ward is letting us use her CROCKPOT--life is so good right now.
p.p.s. Send recipes.