"When there's a desire, there's a way!"

The narrowest staircase ever that I climb everyday to get to our house.

We were visited by some stray cats who got in the house.

trying to understand through cell phone.... impossible.

Elder Malca fighting with our youth we took out for an activity.

On the way to Daniela's baptism!

All the Elders dressed for the Noche Blanca!

What you are seeing is rebellion. After the Noche Blanca we were going home and had to wait 2 hours for a bus! And the people finally got so fed up they stormed the streets and wouldn't let anyone pass until they got their bus.

The result... it was PACKED!

My early Christmas present. These are covers for my Spanish scriptures, they are SWEET.

Cómo les va familia?

Wow so great to see those pics of Thanksgiving! To be honest I didn't even know that it was Thanksgiving this week! That's because here in Colombia it is nowhere to be found! That's right, not even a slice of turkey or pie for me this Thanksgiving! They are already full force into Christmas here haha, no Thanksgiving. But that's okay because I still have much to be thankful for here in Valle Grande!

This week was great, we were able to meet with Ruben Cano twice this week and he is growing ever so much. He lives pretty far from the chapel, and has a broken femur, but he still found a way to make it church this past Sunday! He is incredible. And he has now read through Alma 5. He now has a date for the 15th of December! We also found out that his mother died when he was 16 years old, so the Plan of Salvation hit home in a deep deep way. I am so amazed at how mindful Heavenly Father is with His children here. 

Yamile is still confused with her weird experience this past week in the chapel and we haven't been able to clear anything up this week because she went out of town. But she did tell us that she is still reading and praying so there is still hope! Naomi however is still rock solid, and will get baptized this Sunday!! We left her Alma 32 after she questioned how strong her faith was and she told us that it was exactly what she needed. She is full of desire and that desire can work and grow in ones heart all the way until it grows into a massive tree of faith. That is something that has comforted me in the mission as well. I remember feeling so inadequate and unprepared for what is asked of us as missionaries, but when there's a desire, there's a way!

Luis Alfredo, the one we found through the menos activa, came to the very end of church this week. He couldn't attend the whole thing because of complications with work but he showed up to tell us that he has decided to get married. When he told me that I just about lost it. When we first brought up marriage last week he got way scared and told us there was just no way that it could happen. He was too scared of marriage and the commitment it brings (like everyone here). 

We taught him about families and how much better his soon to be family would be if it was within the bonds of marriage. We taught and taught and it just seemed to not sink in. We were beginning to think that he had given up, and we had prayed like we have never had before that a miracle would change his heart because he was just too solid to give up on...And the Lord came through. He talked with his girlfriend and they felt that it was best for them and the baby on the way. I marvel at how the Lord can change people's hearts. I wish you could have seen Luis' frustration when we brought up marriage, and within a week he had experienced a change so great that he wants to change to put his life more in harmony with God's will. Faith is powerful!

I also learned some great lessons this past week...

1. the Lord works in strange ways for the Salvation of His children.... we had been teaching this couple who weren't married for a little a while and they had not progressed very much at all so we were thinking about dropping them. And when we went to visit them for the last time the wife introduced us to her friend who happened to be in the house. He seemed really interested so we got his details and said we would visit him. And we went to visit him and his mom was also there with him. Turns out that she has had the worst of pasts.. it was really horrible what this woman has been through in her life. Long story short we were able to adapt the message of the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation to help her see how this Gospel can help her in her life. It was powerful, I could see the hope of Christ literally come into her eyes and start to spark an interest. She agreed to let us come back and teach her more. It was such an incredible experience to see the Lord lead us to this person in need through other people who were put in our path.

2. The importance of the Spirit in this work. I had always known it was important but I hadn't yet grasped that without it we are literally nothing. If we hadn't trusted the Spirit and just given her the regular lesson 1 routine, perhaps we wouldn't have reached this woman like we did. At the beginning of the mission I had tried so hard to cover everything in the lessons that I somehow forgot why we have PMG (Preach My Gospel), to meet the needs of the investigator. I am so grateful that we were able to listen to the Spirit and give her what she needed, not what we had memorized.

Well that about covers it! Transfers are this week and I think something is going to happen, President keeps dropping hints that something out of the ordinary is going happen. New area? New comp? Not sure, should be interesting!

Thanks for all your support and prayers! Have great week!

Elder Eliason