Hola Familia!!
Transfers came!! My new companion is Elder Viza
from Peru. He’s new as a ZL and has a little less time in the mission
than me. He was in the MTC in Bogota with me but had to go home for
surgery and is back now. It should be a good time!!
This week went really well. We saw a lot of progress in our
investigators and had 12 at church yesterday. That just goes to show
that we are on the Lord´s timetable. We´ve been in a group of 3 since
Friday with Elder Campos, the missionary I trained in Jamundi,
which has been cool. It was fun working with him to see how much he’s
learned. We went to Jamundi to visit some converts today, it was good.
They are still active and it’s awesome to see how much they’ve grown in
the gospel. The biggest lesson I learned this
last month is that the Lord knows us. He knows what we are going
through and he knows why we go through it. Its easy to say ¨Why me?¨ but
that’s not what he wants. Faith is the first principle of the gospel
for a reason. If members of the church would just
keep hanging on a little but longer, there wouldn’t be so many less
actives. He loves us and that will never change. I’ve seen it, I’ve
taught it, but more importantly I’ve felt it. And he had to teach me
this lesson again. I love you guys so much. Thank you
for always being there for me and please know that you are always in my
heart :)
Con mucho amor
November 11, 2013
Hola Familia!!
How are you guys!? Things are a lot better here on
my end haha. My new companion is a lot better than my old one. It’s
always hard getting used to a new companion but we are working a lot
better together. We should have a baptism this weekend,
we are pretty excited. It’s a 13 year old kid named Sebastian. We found
him through a reference and a member of the church made friends with
him right away and for the past 3 weeks he’s been coming to church in a
white shirt and tie. In 2 weeks he´ll be passing
the sacrament! This area is still pretty tough, no one is married and
no one wants to get married...haha. But we are working hard. We want to
do more activites because the ward is pretty boring. In Colombia there’s
hardley ever mutual or other youth activites
and the missionaries are always the ones who have to plan them. I don’t
understand it haha. I sent a bunch of pictures in a USB I hope you like
them :) We had a really spiritual experience on Friday. We were in a
small town called Yumbo just outside of Cali.
There’s not a church there but there are a few members and we go every
week to visit them. We printed out the roster of members that same
Friday to go look for less active members and right as we were about to
take the bus back to back to Cali I was flipping
through the roster and there was a name highlighted in green. It said
¨Gomez Sanches¨ and I still don’t understand how it was highlighted but
we went to the address and talked to the grandson of a lady that was
baptized almost 50 years ago. He told us that
she was really sick and that she was in the hospital just 2 blocks
away. We met up with the lady´s daughter that told us “It’s about time
you guys showed up”...Apparently this lady, whose name is Mercedes, had
been calling out “Elderes” (Elders in Spanish)
several times the night before. We walked in on a lady so frail that
she couldn’t move on her own. We were able to talk with her for moment
and then we gave her a blessing. She smiled and said “thank you for
answering my prayers”. It was a really great experience.
I love you guys so much:)
November 18, 2013
Hola Familia!!
Well we`re a little bit sad because we didn’t have
our baptism on Saturday. The kid’s mom called me the day of his
interview and said that she wants him to wait a little bit longer. We
are going to visit them tomorrow we`ll see what happens.
Hopefully we can work with her and she will give her permission because
this young man is awesome. Crazy things are happening in the mission
right now. Between now and the end of January about 60 missionaries are
ending their missions and more than half of
these missionaries have leadership possitions too. Yesterday there was a
problem in Buga with some missionaries and President Prince had to do a
whole bunch of transfers to solve obedience issues. 2 zones were made
into one, 2 areas were shut down, and 3 zone
leaders were taken out of their positions and I’m pretty sure a
missionary is getting sent home. I have no idea what happened, I just
found out about all this stuff this morning. Crazy stuff. This week was
good, we are struggling to work with the members
right now, missionary work and the ward are not connected. It makes
things a lot harder and we really want to change that. The zone isn’t
doing too well either, the only area that is going well is ours. Its
frustrating when missionaries don’t take feedback
or are disobedient. My companion is a little weird, we don’t really
talk much. I dont know what to say to get him to open him up. He’s a
cool guy and for the most part we teach well together. Pray that we will
have baptisms! haha I can’t believe that November
is halfway over....wild.
I love you guys so much! I hope all is well :) Thanks for everything you do for me!
Con mucho amor
