The Coronavirus Conundrum

This week has been crazy with all sorts of new adjustments being made to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, namely how we are no longer going to have any large meetings in the church anymore, including Sunday services, which has made it a little weird to think about how we're going to measure or make progress with our investigators, since we usually could tell if they were really progressing or not if they showed up to church. Also, they're sending people home from universities and cancelling schools too, but they are still telling us to follow our normal schedule and daily activities of going out and contacting and visiting people all day, which seems a bit backwards with all the precautionary things that have been going on, but oh well. They basically have told us to avoid large groups of people and to wash our hands a lot and stay away from sick people and that's it haha. Everyone here is going crazy for toilet paper too.

Had 2 baptisms this week of 2 teenage girls that we have been teaching. The story of finding them was pretty crazy, with my companion contacting an older man in the streets who was pushing a child stroller filled with trash he found on the street. His old companion kept walking, but Elder Sanchez got an appointment all set up and everything. We went over to teach him, and found out his daughter in law is a member who stopped going to church when she was about 11, and we started teaching her and her kids, who received everything really well. We're happy and excited for them and their little brother Martin, who also wants to get baptized but needs to receive a couple more lessons first.

Taught a lesson in English this week to 2 teenagers who were born and raised in the US and go to school in El Paso, but live in Juarez since their mom got deported. Felt really weird to teach in English, and felt a lot more personal and real to hear those words and testimonies coming out of my mouth in English.

Would like to share with you my testimony of prayer. I have had lots of experiences on my mission where I have prayed for things to improve or get better for me or my companion, and out of nowhere, they just do. There seems to be no reasonable explanation for things to get better, sometimes they just do, in the ways that I asked for them to, and it is crazy. Prayer is really powerful.

Found the same guy with his son in two different conference issues of the Liahona a couple years apart. Had fun playing with a melting snowman toy my mom sent me a while ago. Also finally received a package of letters from the youth in my home ward that they wrote and sent to me in November (the mail system is super slow here. We're actually able to receive things from El Paso since it's so close, so you guys can ask my mom for that address if you want). Strangely half of the letters were written to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Still working through some personal things that seem to be out of my control,so we're just trying to move forward and do everything we can to make the right steps in the right directions.

Thanks for all your support guys, and don't forget, you need to have food to eat first before you'll have any need for toilet paper.

-EP