Hello Family!
Well this week was pretty normal; we
just had a lot of rain. It’s not like it was even raining very hard but it was
raining for a good majority of the days this week. But as for my investigators,
not much has been changing with them. 2 of our investigators are progressing
really well but they are only 12 years old and we can’t baptize them alone
until they are 14 and so we are working with their parents so they could get baptized
together but the big problem is with the parents’ work and so they normally can’t
come to church. But hopefully we will see some changes in them. We are also
still working hard in finding new investigators. The goal is 20 news for the
month (or 5 news every week) and so far in November, we have 9.
I can’t remember if I said this last
week but the president gave us a promise that if we go to less active members
and focus on talking about their baptisms that they will be more likely to give
us a reference of someone (most likely a family) that will progress. So far it
looks like we are starting to see that. For example, we talked with a less
active family this week about their baptisms and asked for a reference. They
gave us one of their cousin and her family but told us that she is very hard
and direct and that if we contact her she would probably just tell us that she
belongs to another religion and doesn’t want to talk to us. But we went anyway.
We were able to talk to her and she was ok with taking out an appointment with
us for this next week so that was pretty cool, hopefully she will listen to our
message and progress. But other than that, we have a baptism planned for this Saturday
with the dad of the Yuca family (Victor Yuca) and we called him this last week
and he says that he is still excited to go through with it so at least if all
goes well, I can have 1 last baptism in my mission. With the rest of our
investigators, there are still little things that are halting their progress.
But I think that at least 2 others will be baptized in the transfer after I go
home. But we also have a few rescues scheduled before I go home so that will
also be nice. But I think that’s about it for those who I’m teaching.
But I did hear about the terrorist
attack in France, our pensionista told us about it. But man that really is
pretty dang sad. I’m kinda surprised however that they didn’t have better
security at a concert. Normally it’s big group events like that that are the
targets for terrorist attacks. I heard that they also closed down all the
airports in France for a bit.
But the thing that I did this week
that has strengthened my testimony was a fireside that we had yesterday. It was
only for the elder’s quorum but it was really good. One of the counselors of
the stake presidency came down to talk and we focused on the power of the
priesthood and did practices to help the elders with their home teaching
assignments. But I really have come to know how important home teaching is here
in the mission. A lot of members think that the ward will only progress
depending on the missionaries and leaders. But we can really only do so much.
It’s important that every member can not only know but also understand that the
progress and well-being of the ward really depends on every one of us. If we
want to bring people back to the church, we need to do our visits. If we want
recent converts to stay active, we need to do our visits. If we want our own testimony
to stay strong, we need to do our visits. One of the best ways to feel our
Heavenly Father’s love is by serving our fellow man. Because like it says in
Mosiah - when you are in the service of your fellow man you are only in the
Service of your God- (I can’t remember exactly how it’s worded in English
because I mainly read it in Spanish XP )
The thing that brought me the most
joy this week was probably being able to find new people to teach. I always
like teaching new people for the first time and hearing what their needs are
and to hear what they want to learn or take out from our lessons. Then we, the
missionaries, can then apply principles of the gospel to meet their needs and
help them in the ways that they need. It’s always a fun experience for me and
to see how each time it changes in the way we start to teach people.
The funniest thing that happened to
me this week was in a lesson, some members invited us to hot chocolate. I don’t
know why, but I tried to take off my gloves with the cup still in my hand and
in the process spilled like half the cup all over my leg. It was hot. I felt
worse for their floor though than my leg because it looked like I was a drunk
trying to serve my drink to the floor.
But that’s about all I’ve got for
this week. Today is the anniversary of Espinar and so I hear there is going to
be a parade and so we'll see if I can get some pictures of that. But until next
week, I love you all very much and hope you have a good week!
Elder Halverson
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