Esta Bien Frio!

Family!  

Hi!  This week's been really really good!  Our numbers may have been small as far as lessons taught or anything but the people we do teach are so great!  I'm just going to jump right in, so here we go!

First things first: I don't understand Cubans.  I can carry on a conversation with pretty much any hispanic except the people from Cuba.  Even people who speak spanish as their native language can't understand Cubans half the time!  They drop off important parts of the words and talk funny and I usually end up lost.  Elder Juan usually takes the lead in those conversations because he gets lost just a little less than I do. 

Guess what!  I crossed something off my bucket list this week.  I literally walked an old lady across the street arm-in-arm!  Pretty much one of the highlights of my week.  She flat out rejected talking to us about the Gospel but was exceedingly grateful for our  "youthful serviceableness".  I'm not sure that's a word but I was grateful for the compliment!

We met with Martha again!  We walked in, sat down, started just talking a normal conversation and she said, "OK.  I'm ready.  Teach me something."  She's so great :)  We were babysitting another Elder for the day while he was waiting for his new Companion to come from Transfers (I'm staying in Sioux City for at least another 6 weeks by the way) and he was just floored by how much she wanted to learn.  I'm so excited for her.

Another AWESOME family of investigators that we've found is Jose and Emma.  One day we were looking through papers of Past Investigators that the missionaries stopped visiting for one reason or another and saw Sister Walker from the 1st Ward as a Fellowshipper.  So we called her and she said, "Oh them!  Yeah they don't want to talk to you.... but I have a really really good friend who might!"  So we went over, knocked on their house, they let us in, and now we're teaching them multiple times a week with Sister Walker coming with us!  Our lessons are really entertaining though because Jose doesn't speak hardly any English and Emma speaks both so we just teach them in Spanish and Sister Walker just sits there confused until I tell her what's going on in English and she'll bear an awesome testimony.  I think its funny that she has no idea whats going on and then she'll bear an amazing testimony that ties it all together.  The Spirit speaks all languages so she just trusts in that and miracles happen.  Jose is awesome!  He reads all the assignments from the Book of Mormon that we leave him and asks lots of questions... but he asks them to us, not our loving Heavenly Father who's just waiting to give him the answer.  Emma is just the opposite.  She prays to know if these things are true... but she doesn't read the Book of Mormon.  The two HAVE to go hand-in-hand.  That's the only way someone can know if its true.  If anyone reads the Book of Mormon, even if its just a page or two, and prays to know if its true or not, they'll know. 

Are lessons with them are our most effective lessons.  Its not because my Spanish is on fire during our time with them.  Its not because we're great teachers with perfect wisdom.  Its because their friend Sister Walker loved them enough to introduce us to them and bring them the Gospel thats brought so much happiness and peace to her and her family's lives. 

I love you all so much!  I hope you have a good week!  

Lots of love, 

Elder Paddock

PS My companion speaks to Squirrels.....

PPS As to the title: that's what the hispanics say when its cold outside.  It literally translates to "Its good cold."  I got a kick out of it when I first heard it and now we say it all the time :)

From Zack's letter to Mom:

Knocking doors is easy.  There's weirdies and druggies and drunks and just your average ornery old man, but each one of them is a Child of God.  When I remember that, there's no reason to be afraid. 

 Winter here's not too bad. I'm used to the cold. We played soccer when it was -2 last week.  My knee got really angry about that but I got a blessing and some ibuprofen and now I'm fine.  

Guess what!  I've been taught my whole life to follow the prophet and guess what!  They went camping. (1 Nephi 2:4.)  Thanks for keeping on the straight and narrow :)