"I am grateful for tough times so early here in my mission, because I will be able to appreciate the good times even that much more. "

This is Cifrut, my new addiction here in Colombia

Me and Elder Matos getting ready to spread the word...

Gold's? Express? No, Latino's Gym!

This is Zona Calima after playing futbol!

Hola Familia!

Well it has been a great week here in the Ceibas! I am starting to get used to the daily grind of missionary work, and it feels great. I can say that I have never been more tired at the end of the day than I am here in the mission. Working hard and getting after it day after day! 

Well it has been a great and tough week at the same time, a lot of the people that we contacted last week didn't end up working out this week. Elder Matos says that is a common theme here in Colombia, the people can be a tad bit "flakey." Out of the 12 that we found we only taught 3 of them, so this week we had a ton of time contacting and asking referrals from the members. 

 

I am starting to see the huge role that members play in missionary work! The only progressing investigators we have right now have been referrals from the members. It seems that the people here don't like commitments, we teach them lesson 1 and they love it and the message it contains, but once we try to get them to do something about it they back out. So as of now we are a little short on the investigators due to the division of the area. The ones we had are either at a stand still because they are not married, or haven't showed the desire to keep learning by keeping commitments. But we are still working hard! Siga adelante! (Go ahead!) As they say here in Colombia.

We started teaching a kid named Wilmer this Saturday. We contacted into him and he has a ton of desire to learn about God and doing the will of God. He is about 17 years old and we taught him the first half of the Plan of Salvation. He took it extremely well and asked a lot of good questions that showed his real intent to find the truth. Luckily he is from Medellin and he has an accent that I can understand, so this was one of the few lessons that I understood everyhting that was going on and didn't have to ask Elder Matos questions about it haha. We left him a Book of Mormon and he seems like he has a desire to read it. The roblem is is that he is always busy playing football. So we can only see him on Saturdays.

Another one of our progressers is named Jorge Octado, he is about 74 years old and his wife is a member and both of his daughters are members too, so he comes to church every week. He was raised Catholic and is a pretty stubborn guy. He has a desire to learn more about the church and shows signs that he knows that it's true but his pride gets in the way and he won't accept it just yet. But we have hope that the Spirit will break through to him. We taught him the restoration and he liked what was taught, but he didn't read the Book of Mormon and so we had to have a lesson on the importance and the significance that it has. We will see how he progresses this week...

This upcoming week we have a ton of hopefuls that we think are going to go well. They are all contacts from this past week and we are praying that none of them fall through. Elder Matos and I continue to pray for success. We know we have been working like dogs, and we know that the Lord blesses those who are diligent. I am grateful for tough times so early here in my mission, because I will be able to appreciate the good times even that much more. 

I learned a valuable lesson in the Scriptures this past week, it comes from 1Peter 2:20-21:

20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.

21 For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example.

This was an answer to a prayer for me, when we are blessed and we are patient, great. But what about when things aren't going great and we are still doing everything that we are asked? Do we take this patiently, or shout out the heavens and let our faith shake a little? We have to remember that it is after the trial of our faith that we receive a witness or promised blessings. True faith is faith on the Lord that He will bless those who follow Him. Sometimes we have to learn some things in the process. Like patience, which is what I am trying to focus on here in this challenging time here in the mission.

Doing great! Have a great week!!