Hey Nicki!
It was good to hear from you! Hope all is well there in Idaho with
school and all. It's good to hear that you're doing well. Mom and dad
always e-mail me and tell me that you're doing good so that's good to
hear. I'm glad you're enjoying BYU-I. Continue to work hard there so
you can make mom and dad proud. I know they support you 100% in your
work there and your decision to go there so don't let them down. Work
hard and keep it up!
Things are going great here in New York. We just recently baptized an
eleven year old girl if you didn't know already and also we got three
more baptism dates for March 6th! Things are definitely going good
here for us. The weather has been getting better too. Almost San
Diego-like which is good. I can go out without a jacket and it feels
fine. Don't know if I'll say that come summertime though. It will be
hot! Hope the weather there in Idaho is getting better.
That's cool that there is a good group of deaf people that go to
BYU-I. Can you understand the interpreter? I couldn't understand a
lick of anything in the MTC but now if I were to watch an interpreter
I would probably catch on really quickly. I'm enjoying the English
program but I do miss the ASL program and miss signing all the time.
Will definitely love it when they put me back there but until then I'm
doing my best out here. I was just recently called as a district
leader again so that's some good news. Maybe there will be more
leadership roles for me in the future. That would be fun to
experience. Sometimes I think it's kind of overwhelming but I will do
my best. I was called by the Lord for a reason and I will find out
what that reason(s) is.
I can't wait to teach you all the sign I know and how to finger spell
fast. You'll be all pro and stuff and it will be fun because we'll be
able to communicate using sign language. It's always cool how we can
sit on the subway here and we'd be a couple of seats away from each
other but we are still able to have a good conversation and share
laughs and stuff. It's fun.
Thank you so much for writing me Nicki. I miss you and I love you
lots. Hope all continues to go well there in Idaho. Keep up the good
school work and stay away from the boys. :P Hope to hear from you
again soon! Talk to you then ok?
Love always,
Your big brother Elder Derrick Joseph Castro
Hey mom!
Good to hear from you this week once again!
This past week has been great! The weather is clearing up! It
is still really cold at night and in the mornings but the afternoon
weather almost seems comparable to that of home and it's really nice
to be able to go out and not have to worry about a jacket. Maybe there
will be no more snow. It's just been lots of sun the last couple of
days so it's been good.
Earlier this week on Monday we visited with our investigator family,
the Fernandez family. They are a great family and like always were
ready to learn more about the gospel. We talked about church and we
invited them to attend this coming Sunday. They accepted and said will
come to church on Sunday! That's not even the best part though.. we
then got on the subject of baptism. The father of the family, Anthony
was talking about his baptism and so we got into talking about that
more to the point where we extended a baptismal date to the three, the
wife, Sue and the 10 year old boy, Maurice and the 8 year old girl,
Jordae. They all accepted and now will be baptized on March 9th! Woo
hoo! Three more baptisms! Isn't that great news? I knew from the
moment that we met the family they would become baptized. Their great
interest in wanting to learn about the gospel and the participation of
the children were just good signs of things to come. Elder Ibisagba
and I are very excited for them.
On top of that Julia who was baptized two weeks ago was confirmed a
member and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost this past Sunday. It
was good because she was excited for that part. Her mom was in
attendance too which was good because she hadn't been to church in a
while because she had surgery which prevented her from traveling lots.
But I think now with the good weather we will be seeing Julia and her
mom, Roberta at church more often. We are still waiting to hear from
Julia's dad if it will be okay for us to teach him. He has expressed
great interest in wanting to learn about the gospel but as the saying
goes, "actions speak louder than words" so we will see if he will
contact us soon. Every time we see him we always ask if he's ready to
learn but nothing yet. We keep him in our prayers that soon he will be
ready to learn about Christ's gospel.
Transfer calls just happened last night. Only a few moves are going on
in our zone. Elder Ibisagba and I are still companions but the other
two elders in our district are transferred out and now are replaced by
sister missionaries. And just before I started typing this e-mail I
was called once again by President Smith to serve as a district
leader! More leadership for me again. Hopefully I can do a good job
here. I know President Smith trusts I can do a good job only being out
here for one cycle. Will be interesting to see how things go in these
next 6 weeks. I am still wondering how much time I will remain in the
English program. Maybe for not too much longer.
I also see you are all still very busy with branch activities. That's really good. It's also
good news to hear that the branch just keeps expanding and expanding.
Always good to hear that things are going well there. Hopefully the
hard work of the missionaries there will pay off big time and the
branch will be able to transform into a ward. That would be great to
see coming back home. It was always a goal of the deaf branch here to
become a ward. Would be good to see both the branch at home and the
deaf branch here accomplish that goal.
Thank you mom for continuing to keep me in your prayers. I know it
helps and blesses me a lot as I also keep everyone at home in my
prayers. Don't worry about me here. I'm taking good care of myself. You
and dad taught me well! I miss you all and I love you all very much.
Continue to do good there and I'll do my best out here. Thanks for
writing me this week. I'll talk to you again next week! Take care!
Love always,
Your son Elder Derrick Joseph Castro
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