November 8, 2011 CAGAUS

Hello Everybody,

Everything has been really good here. Today we had transfers, I'm
still here in Caguas with Elder Griffin. One elder left, but his
replacement and another companionship are moving in, so we'll have 10
elders in our house. It's pretty crazy. It's really exciting to hear
about Joseph's mission call! I'm glad to hear about everyone going
out, I don't know if you told me which mission Hunter was going to,
but Elder Geronimo, who lives in our house, is from a place called
Azua in the Dominican Republic. He was excited when I said that my
friend was going there. Where is Nick's new job? I was excited to hear
that he got one, I've been praying for them. And Kendall and Megan are
going to Taiwan!? That's crazy.

Things have been going well with our investigators. We took the stake
president to a lesson with Alex, and they got along well. Alex told
him about how his dad died when he was 13, and President Santos bore
his testimony about how we can be together with our families for
eternity. We told him that the first step to achieving those blessings
was baptism, and that he needed to read and pray to get a testimony of
the prophet Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel. Also, with
things changing around we started working with a 14 year old kid that
the sisters were teaching. His mom was inactive and his older brother
was just baptized a few weeks ago. So we are preparing him for his
baptism on the 16th. His name is Brailyn and he's really cool. It's
cool to see the whole family supporting each other and learning the
gospel together. We are also going to start teaching somebody the Zone
leaders were teaching. She's the wife of a recent convert who was
baptized on the same day Brailyn's brother was. He's really awesome
and has been studying really hard to understand the gospel too. We
haven't met with her yet, but we'll go over tomorrow. We taught Sister
Gonzalez's dad about the Plan of Salvation on Monday. It was really
good again to see the power there is in a family supporting each other
in learning the gospel. He's still got some doubts but I can tell that
seeing his son leave on a mission had an impact on him.

It's still been pretty hot here, the past few days have been really
rainy, but still hot. It's hard to believe it's November already.

anyway, I love you and I'm glad to hear everything is okay with the family.

Elder Brock Duclos

PS Cory, what is that smell?

November 2, 2011 Caguas

Hey!

I'm glad to hear things are starting to get back to normal at home. I'm so glad Elise is home now, and I hope everything is okay with Holly. I'm so thankful for the eternal perspective we have because of the gospel. So many people here don't want to hear what we have to say because they already believe in Jesus Christ, but it's such a blessing to have the fulness of the gospel, to know Heavenly Father's plan for us, and what we need to do to follow it. That's why missionary work is so important, and everything going on at home has really strengthened my testimony of that. It's awesome to hear about Joseph, Hunter and Evan getting ready to go out. I'm excited to find out where Joseph is going, so let me know asap as possible. Its really cool that Hunter is going to the Dominican Republic. We have met quite a few Dominicans here, and they're all good people. and good cooks.

Things have been going well here. I think I told you about Sister Gonzalez's dad the other week. We had family night at their house again on Monday, and he's been reading the Book of Mormon. We had a lesson on it and how it can be a blessing in our lives, and next week we're going to teach him about the Plan of Salvation. They keep saying I look like his son, who is leaving on his mission to Honduras in a few days. I don't know what it is about the way I look but it seems like everyone in Puerto Rico has a son on grandson that looks exactly like me. We've been working hard here, and everything is going really well. We have some goals to strengthen the ward in Caguas, so please pray for the church here. The stake president made the goal to split the Caguas ward into two wards by the end of year so we are working really hard to make that happen. We will need a miracle. Last week was the primary program, and it was really good to see that. It good to see how blessed those kids were to have the gospel in their lives, and to havng of growing up in the church.

Anyways, everthing is going really well, and the church is stilll true.

I love you, 

Elder Duclos

October 19, 2011 Grandma D's Birthday

Hey,

It's been a really good week! We have some really solid investigators that we've been teaching. Alex, the guy we found on the first day, is progressing really well. We had a lesson with a ward member the other night and we taught him the Plan of Salvation. It was really powerful to be able to teach him what his potential is as a son of Heavenly Father, that God set up this whole plan so that he could obtain that potential and that we were there for that reason, to invite him to take the necessary steps that lead toward the Celestial Kingdom. That was really rewarding to watch him learn that because we knew it was something new for him but he accepted it and knew it was true. We have also been teaching Nelson, who is a pretty young kid. We've taught him a few times and he is always really willing to learn and make appointments for us to come back. We had an appointment with him yesterday but he didn't answer the door, we were worried but he called later and said it was because he was sick and he asked if we could come Thursday, so that was a good sign. On Monday we had Family Home Evening with the Gonzales family. The parents were both born in Puerto Rico but they moved to New York and started their family there and just moved in here recently, so the kids all speak English and are learning Spanish. Anyway, we taught the lesson, we taught about missionary work and how they can share the Gospel with their friends and family. One thing we didn't expect was that Sister Gonzales's dad was there, who wasn't a member, but he seemed interested and even participated in some of the practices. At the end we had everyone choose a pass along card to give out during the week and then we gave the family a Book of Mormon to give out too. When we did that the dad said, "hey can I have that, my daughter has been wanting me to read it" so we gave it to him and marked 3 Nephi 11 for him to read. After that, Sister Gonzales said her dad had met a lot of missionaries before and had never even talked to them, but this time he was interested. That was really cool to see.

Puerto Rico has been pretty cool. It's still really hot here. There are some weird things, like restaurants only ever serve Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, 7 Up and Fanta. I don't know why but it seems like that's just what all the Puerto Ricans like. Also in my apartment there's a bidet, but I still have not used it. Also, some people will sell these things called limbers from their houses, they're like popsicles but they're just in a little plastic cup, and they're really good. They also have a sandwich here called a tripleta. It's a huge sandwich with chunks of ham and chicken and all kinds of stuff. I got one the other day when I was on splits with my district leader, and that was probably the best thing I've eaten here. Anyways, I hope everything is going well at home, I love you and I'll talk to you later. The Church is true

Elder Duclos