Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Hello everyone!

     This week has also been interesting, but also has been a little slow. We had a great time this weekend with the Mormon Helping Hands service in Vallejo and being able to talk to the family on Mother's Day. The family is doing great, and they are very blessed. It's weird to see, or rather hear, how much and fast my siblings are growing up. :P I can already feel that it'll be a different world when I come home, and I've only been out a little over 7 months now... It's weird to think about how utterly different it'll be when it's time to come home. I was hoping that I might receive a packet with small letters from all of my buddies from the Priest Quorum, like I know that we sent some of the other missionaries when I was in the Youth Program, but I know they're probably busy. It'd be cool to hear from them and how they're doing. So here's what has been going on with some of my investigators here in Sonoma:  

     Sara Perez - She's still going strong. She's adjusting to her new work schedule, and she's working on keeping her commitments of reading and coming to church. We hope to extend a baptismal date to her on our next visit. She really is a strong spiritual person.

     Soccorro, Estella, and Alejandro - we actually didn't get to meet with them yesterday because they were out somewhere doing something for Mother's Day, but we have another appointment with them during the week, and we'll most likely see them on Sunday too. Soccorro has a really strong testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, and wants to come to church with her family. We just need to help her move forward and get her married to Alejandro or to throw him out so that she can be baptized. She will be a great strength to her family.

     Martin Alavarez - We met with him on Tuesday before we did exchanges this week. We talked for a good long time, and we have a whole lot more of an understand of what's holding him back. He doesn't understand about why he needs to be baptized again, and why he needs to be apart of our church to have that blessings of which we speak of. We talked about receiving understand and a testimony from God about PRAYING SPECIFICALLY about what he wants to know. That seems to be a key that people we teach seem to miss... praying specifically to know the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith being a prophet.

     We had exchanges this week for Cinco de Mayo. I was with Elder Bankhead. And we accomplished a great work. I saw many wonderful things happen on that exchange with new investigators and people who we had the chance to talk to. It was a pleasure to go with him, and I learned how I can improve in talking to everyone, even English people, even though I'm called to speak Spanish as a missionary. I hope that he learned something from me as well.

     I'm happy to be here serving in the Lord's vineyard and I look forward with great hope, faith, and expectation of the wonderful blessings that the Lord has in store for His people here in Sonoma.

     Your missionary,

     Elder Mackelprang

     PS regarding your questions Mom...

     Yes your council about cookies was spot on, and I don't know about the guarantees... pictures soon.