Well, ayer fue el bautismo de J---! it was awesome.

The service was at 3 o'clock, right after church, so there were a good amount of members that stayed around to be there! His less active wife and 2 of his active sons came. Elder Clarkson and Elder Moreno made it, and said prayers so it was great to have the original Santa Maria team back.

He will be confirmed next week in sacrament meeting.  There’s no better way to finish out than with a baptism of a part member family with their next goal being getting sealed in the temple!

E--'s baptism is coming up in a couple weeks as well!  And we finally had a break through lesson with E---- this week as we read all of Moroni chapter 8 with him. After studying for him, we decided to be bold and read all about how baptism is for the repentant and those capable of committing sin and the gross error of infant baptism :) The spirit worked on him and he humbly agreed with everything we read. After all this time he finally understood the apostasy and importance of Christ's one true Church! He said: "Wow, I need to start think about changing religions."  E----'s baptism also coming up soon :)

Elder Herrera is so awesome.   He's doing well and I have full confidence in him and his ability to follow the Spirit, work with the members, and take care of the area. He is light years ahead of where I was my first transfer. He could train next transfer and be totally fine. 

There's nowhere else I’d rather be right now.  I’m going to give it all I’ve got and sprint through the finish line.  It’s a weird feeling knowing I’ll be going home next week, but I’m not sad, because I know I have done my best and that even though I will soon be removing my nametag, His name will still be printed in my heart forever. 

For service, we built some retaining walls/planters for a less active member in their back yard.  As we were putting up these big 8 ft posts, Elder Herrera swung around with one and clocked me square in the face. It felt like I got punched by Mike Tyson. I thought I was going to black out.  It was nice to feel some real pain for the first time in a while. Haha.  I was hoping I'd have a sweet black eye to go home with, but to no avail, not even a bruise, just a sore face. Haha.  Elder Herrera felt so bad. 

There ya go, mom, I wrote ya an extra long email, so I don’t have to write one next week! ;)  See y’all next Wednesday! 

Love, Elder Parrish ******

#HurrahForIsrael

#BestTwoYears