First week in Espinal

Greetings from Espinal, aka La Goma. I arrived on Tuesday in Papantla which the biggest city that's "close" by and even then it's 45 minutes and a good 50 pesos. My new companion for the next little while is Elder C. He's from Guatemala and is 22! And well he's my "son" (; partly. I showed up to find out that we already had some really cool investigators that want to learn and be baptized (every missionary loves these people), one of which we baptized this week! In the RIVER! The really cool thing about Espinal is that it's far away from everything. On that note the area is super beautiful and mostly untouched. Some small notes about the areas is there's lots of hills, a river and about 2,500 people living here. The next pueblo over is the next biggest with like 700 people and yeah it just gets smaller and smaller as you go further out. It's super green so my Christmas will be a green one.

As for the members there's like 40 or so out here. It's a branch so we don't have many. Our "church" is actually just a house that's been painted white and had lots of chairs and small piano that nobody knows how to play. Man I should have learned (; but in all reality I love it here. I needed a change and this is exactly what I needed. My companion loves to work and we get lots done every day. In my area it's just us two with the closest missionaries being in Tajin, which is like 30 km or so from the Espinal to really far in their area.

But now I wanna talk a little about the baptism we had this week. Her name is hermana Y. Her testimony is already so strong and you can tell she had been waiting for this message and thankfully to missionary work she was able to have it, way out in Espinal middle of nowhere (; Anyway we went to church and we had the services. After we announced the baptism and well all 35 or so members went! What a cool experience it was to be down by the river with the whole rama of Espinal singing hymns and then the baptism. The spirit was so strong and I really love this area.

On the way there I got to hold a crazy big lizard and on the way back the Stake President got his car stuck almost falling off a small bridge but we all helped him out (; I'm super excited for the adventures and fun times I'm going to have here with the people of this area. We have plans to go to some cool waterfalls next Monday and then one after that there's some more undiscovered ruins so we might go there (: MEXICO is awesome! Also go look up banda music cause that's all that plays in the streets and its super catchy (:

This week I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish for the first time and man can I tell you that this book is true and although I didn't understand 100% of the words as its all in Spanish, the spirit and comfort and joy I have felt through reading this book is the same. No matter what the language the spirit can be felt by all. I would encourage all of you no matter how many times you've read the Book of Mormon, or maybe you have never read it before. Go get one and start now. I love this book so much and its helped me through the tough times, I know it can do the same for each and every one of you (:

Love,

Elder Babcock