Week 43

 Jeffrey's church building

 Walking the streets of Saltillo in jeans!

 Don't worry...Book of Mormon and name tags still on!

 Building a room on a house.

 Jeffrey's new house.

 Study area

New kitchen!  Wow...he might have to cook now!

Random Trolley Jeffrey found on the street.

Dear Family and Friends, 

This will be a rather short update because this was a calm week here in Saltillo with my son Elder Smith.  I am so grateful to be able to stay with him for another transfer! We are going to spend almost 1/5 of our missions together! 

This week, we finally were able to do some service and helped one of our investigators move to a new house and build a room for his new house! It was a lot of fun to hang out in the streets in my BYU shirt and jeans! However, the sun is super strong here so we had some pretty rough sunburns as well. 

This week, we had a ward activity and watched, Meet the Mormons, I would really recommend that you all watch it. Even if you have seen it! The last part, which explains the life of a missionary mom definitely gets you when you are a missionary. Miss you Mom! :) 

The most spiritual part of this week is when we met a new man, named Francisco Javiar, who went to church with his friend from a different ward. Turns out, after Elder Smith and I had met him, that he lives in our area! After lunch on Sunday, we went to visit him, and he shared with us an incredible life story.  He has been struggling with trials. He mentioned that he had been robbed, assaulted, watched his son die, and that his wife left him. However, he also said he has an enormously strong desire to change his life and improve. 

We shared with him some scriptures about the power of the Atonement of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and assured this elderly gentleman that he can repent to change his life and find the strength he needs to overcome his trials and have the peace he is seeking. This man said he wanted to be baptized in a few weeks and continue accompanying us to church. 

I love lessons and moments like this. My companion, Elder Smith said it well when he said, "man, when we have lessons like this, we know that we are doing our job."  I love my mission and am learning so much. Every day my testimony grows stronger and I know that Jesus Christ is the savior of all of us. It doesn´t matter if you are 8 or 78, you can use the power of the Atonement and the process of repentance to become clean again. 

Have a great week!

Elder Shipley