Happy fourth of July!!

Woohoo the fourth! God Bless America :) Elder Goldsberry and I listened to the Star Spangled Banner practially all morning! haha cant believe its july already! 

So, I haventy mentioned too much about it before, but the world cup has been crazy here! Even though Mexico lost, as well as the us (darn!), its still a big thing here to see everyone wearing the jerseys and such...haha one lady even came to church wearing the mexico away jersey...just shook our heads at that one. but yep, the world cup fever is still contagious here. 

Also, i think i mentioned before that there is a mission Choir here, and I sing tenor in it. we have had it for a few months now, and we practice every sunday. Its nice getting those spiritual songs stuck in my head on the Lords day. anyway, well Elder Norris, another tenor in it, who is one of my best friends out here because he went to orem high with me, got transferrs to Cuauhtemoc! (another city), and so he is not in the choir anymore. He had a solo, but everyone is like "oh just have Elder Newman Sing it" and so i now have 2 solos in that song (well, a duo w Elder Womack :) , and a trio). also, i get to direct 2 songs! man, i really hope we get to perform or something...word on the street is that an apostle is gonna come...

Also, our mission president had told the leadership, who then told us, that He had had a dream. in this dream of his, He was visited by the Lord, and was given instruction on something that the Lord wanted him to do. He said that he had been told By the lord that another stake would be formed here in Chihuahua, and that He would have 2 months to do it. WHAAT!? oh man, we love Presidente Chavez! so, fyi we are working hrder than ever to get going on hastening the work here in Chihuahua. 

Elayne got baptized! oh, it was a wonderful time. She was definitely prepared to hear us, because everything just went so smoothly in teaching her. we had our lessons at the same time everyday for 3 weeks, and she was baptized on saturday. We are so happy for her! She is a great convert with a really powerful testimony. its because one lesson, we were reviewing the baptismal interview questions, and she apparently had a doubt with Joseph Smith really being a prophet. so, nervous, yet calm, we immediately helped her undertand this topic, and turned to the scriptures. ah, this experience was so awesome! ok, so lets see...so we opened to 2 nephi 3 in the book of mormon, and read with herhow Lehi teaching his son Joseph about 2 other Josephs: Joseph sold into egypt, and Joseph smith. It says that Joseph who was sold into egypt had a prophecy that in the last days, the lord would call a prophet, AND HIS NAME SHALL BE THE SAME AS MINE (totally referring to Joseph Smith.) She could hardly finish reading this verse aloud for us, because the spirit literally in that moment confirmed it to her that yes, Joseph smith IS God's chosen prophet, and that what we were saying to her was true. Neither Elder Goldsberry nor I have seen this in our missions, but we now have a testimony that one verse of scripture really can make all the difference! 

We Love the Lord, and we serve him. There are hard times, yes, een for missionaries too, but its like President Uchtdorf said in his talk "You can do it now": our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward. 

i love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Jason 

**Elder Newman**