"I know now is the time to give it all I have."

Pic of three crosses. 

There is a place at the top of the 3 crosses to do exercise, and I took advantage to start getting the strength back! Gettin' back to the Elder Eliason before he was elder.... haha 

This is Toro, the security guy from our apartment building, he’s hilarious.

Elder Belnap, the first missionary I met when I got to Cali, came back to Colombia with his wife and stopped by the office to say hi.

First airplane ride in the mission.

Los Prince getting on the plane.

Hola Familia, 

Como me les ha ido!

Great hear from the family every week, it gives me the boost I need to keep going strong! Thanks Dad for always being so good with the pictures. It is really weird to be hearing about Haley's Senior Prom? I feel like it wasn't that long I did that! Anyway, that should be  super memorable night for her! Looks like Conno is still ballin' hard! He sure has grown up quite a bit! 

So this week was a great week full of training interviews and more training. We finished up the whole mission with interviews and it was really a fun time getting to know literally all of the missionaries. We started the week going up north, I had never been up there so it was a good experience getting know more parts of Colombia. My companion and I also take advantage of always being in the car with president to ask tips and gain doctrinal insight on missionary work. It is really amazing how smart he is and all he has learned in his time here in Colombia. 

In other news, we had limited time in the area this week but we managed to use the little we had well. What happened in our area when we got there was what inspired the training in the interviews. We got there and realized that there were a ton of families that were investigating! It sounded great until we got there and taught the first lesson. We realized that the families we were teaching didn't understand the purpose of why were teaching them. They really weren't interested in committing themselves to the Gospel, they were just interested in the missionaries coming over and having a good time with them. 

We came to realize that they weren't the prepared investigators we were looking for, and that the missionaries had spent a lot of time there without any type of progress. The importance of talking about our objective as missionaries with the investigators is great because it gives them a vision of where we see this process going. we can also tell a lot quicker if the investigator is really interested in committing themselves or not. 

So that is what we did, and we had to stop teaching a few of those families and focus the little time we have into finding the people prepared of the Lord. And this week we were blessed with a great family of 6 that we found through a contact when I first got here. Turns out that the hotel in Cali we use to shelter the new missionaries when they first get here had a worker that we contacted and finally were able to teach! They are really great and the first lesson we were able to talk a lot about our purpose and how the Gospel can bless their lives. We taught them the Restoration and immediately it was evident their interest in our message. You can tell the interest of an investigator when you are clear and direct with the commitments you extend them and how they react. 

We have also been using the members a ton here. With us traveling this month, they have helped us out quite a bit. We have had a ton of FHEs this week with the new families we have found. We basically gather about 10 or 15 members and go around house to house doing FHE with messages of Easter and games to get the members well involved and well entrusted with the families. We call it the Mormon Portable Party (MPP), it is a great tool to establish trust with the investigators and help them feel well fellowshipped. 

We headed up the mountain of the 3 crosses this morning with a few members of the MPP. It was fun about a year ago when we did it as a council, but this time I feel like I was in better shape so it wasn't as hard haha. I'll attached some pics.

Well that's it for now, I hope everything is going well back home! I feel like I am at the peak of my mission, with all of the experience gained and lessons learned, I know now is the time to give it all I have. I am really looking forward to what the Lord has prepared for me in these last 3 months of my mission. I realize I will never get the opportunity to be a missionary again and that the time will go by fast, that is what fuels me to give even more!

Thanks for the prayers and support!

Elder Eliason