Life Is So Much Better With The Gospel.

Hello All.

So another week in the mission field has come and gone. This week we had a little earthquake for like 4 seconds. That was pretty interesting. I was in the house of my recent convert, Monica, and bang- earthquake for a few seconds. It wasn't too bad. It was a pretty little one I think. So this week we had a service project with an investigator named Octavio. Octavio is from Buena Ventura and has one of the coolest accents I've ever heard... Unfortunately I can't really understand him, his accent is sooo different. But it sounds cool though :) So he works on TVs, and electronics, and all sorts of stuff, and we cleaned out his shop/house. We took out probably 30 or 40 old tvs and reorganized everything and cleaned for probably 4 hours. It was hard work, but it was acutally kinda nice to work like that for a while. Anyway, we had an activity at the church Saturday, too. We played a little basketball, and volleyball, and of course soccer with members and investigators. That was fun, and I actually scored in soccer. I got the chance to not play goalie, and I took advantage of it hahaha. Belive it or not, my soccer skills might be improving a little bit. So everything was good until Saturday night when we recieved a phone call, and we learned that Elder Encarnacion was shot and killed. SO sad. We sat in silence, not saying much, for a long time. I had the oportunity to meet him a few weeks ago we played soccer one pday together. He seemed really nice and was a really good missionary. Definantly a bummer situation, but I'm ok. The whole mission is kinda in shock right now, but we will need to get going again, and not dwell on it too much. He gave his life in service to the Lord, and that's something very special. Prayers for his family would be good. Anyway, today for pday everybody was kinda low and not wanting to do anything, but a few of us got the motivation to go and rent an artificial grass soccer field and play soccer for an hour. It was nice to run and get our minds off the matter for a while. Anyway, I'm ok though, and I'm grateful for all your support. I hope you all have a good week and remember to pray, read the scriptures, attend church, and go to the temple, etc.. This life is so much better with the gospel, and I'm grateful for the hope it brings us. I'll talk to you all later. Love you all.

Elder Dean