Happy Conference Sunday!

Hi everyone. How are you all doing? I watched all of the sessions of conference and it was super great. I love conference now, which is something that I couldn't say before the mission haha. But now yeah its my favorite. I don't really remember which talk was my favorite but yeah I did like that one to the investigators a lot and there was one that was super good by President Eyring in Priesthood I think that was also super awesome even though I don't remember what he said haha.

     The work this week was tough but good. Juan is doing super well. He does have a baptismal date for the 15th of April but its not super solid I would say. Hes a super smart guy so he thinks a lot about everything we say and sometimes confuses himself and has a lot of doubts. We will see though and keep working hard with him. Elder Baquerizo and I get along super well yeah. He is super relaxed but is a machine. His parents are mission presidents in Colombia right now so he has a ton of experience with the mission but is still way fun and everything. My companion actually speaks English almost fluently haha but we still do talk in Spanish all the time. Hes super sick though. Monica and Sebastian were active up until a few years ago bu then they stopped going to church. I don't know how it happened. They might have been confirmed but they weren't put in the records of the church so they have to do it again. But they are doing okay. They are both pretty young, like 20 and 16 so its hard to get them to take things seriously, like the 70 said in the conference yesterday. Being ZL is a lot of work but its super fun and busy. I feel like what I do has a lot more importance for the work which is cool. I like it over all.

    

Andalien

So this first week was pretty nuts. I basically didn't work in my sector for like 3 days straight right at the beginning of the week because we had a Zone conference right away, a training for some of the missionaries and after the mission council. So that was pretty crazy. At the end of all of that I was super sick of sitting down and wanted to do anything else. But yeah this sector is super awesome. Its actually super close to my old sector kind of. Like 15 minutes in bus. Honestly I feel kind of useless because this ward works super well and I don't feel like it would fall apart without us. This is one of the biggest wards in the mission with like 150 people every week as an average and everything here like works.It's kind of nice. I'm with Elder Baquerizo from Ecuador. Hes just really relaxed and laid back with everything, but he does his job really well. I feel like I'm going to be able to learn a lot from him. my companion is kind of new to the area though. He has one cambio there so we are kind of getting to know the people and the sector at the same time haha. We should have a super good cambio as well.He is going to complete a year in the mission this week too so I think that we are going to have to find a way to celebrate. I already feel like I have learned a ton about organization and planning and managing people in just this one week that I have been Zone leader. Its super fun.  There are 18 other missionaries in the zone.We have 10 companionships in the zone and like half are sisters actually haha so it should be fun. Something interesting though is that we have like sister assistants to the president and the assistants of the president in our zone and they are just ridiculously good so we don't have to worry too much about them.

We have a few people here that are good investigators. We have a few people with the potential to be baptized so that is going to be awesome. One of them is Juan. Hes super smart and knows the bible super well but he likes the church a ton and has gone twice now. We are going to try and put him with a baptismal date this week. Other ones are Monica and Sebastian that were baptized actually but never confirmed so they have to do it again. Its kind of an awkward subject to bring up so we are looking for the right moment to break the news to them.

But yeah things are super great here. Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Parker

 The new zone leaders

 The Andalien zone

 Leadership Council

On to Andalien!

So this week was super good and we were able to find a few really good investigators but in the end I found out that I am leaving and going to another sector called Andalien. Im going to be a zone leader and Im already sick of hearing people Joke around about it actually. Ill be with and Elder From Ecuador that I dont know really well but it should be pretty fun.

We also had a conference with one of the 70 this week that was super awesome. he talked a ton about the Love that we have for the people that we serve and for everything about the mission. Elder Texeira is super cool. He talked about how if we love more towards the people, the language, the sector or whatever that we are going to be more willing and anxious to serve them and take the gospel to them so that they have better lives. I know that is true. All this week we have been asking in Prayer to love more and I really was able to see a difference in the attitude that I had towards the people and the attidtude that they had towards us. It was super awesome and I want to invite all of you to try and do the same. Ask for more love and for oportunities to serve others and I promise that you will be able to feel more of the saviors love for each one of you. Hope you all have a good week!

Jake

The sexy 6!

This week I passed 18 months in the mission and officially started my "Sexy 6" month mark. Its where I have to get somewhat into shape again, so that should be kind of difficult. And yeah the mission has passed by super fast. I'm not ready for it to end. Its been the best. But its a good thing I don't have to talk about it yet. This week was pretty good though. I think that the highlight was probably yesterday in church a guy showed up by himself. He had told us like 3 weeks ago that he was going to go in the street when we passed him but that isn't too uncommon so we didn't really believe him. He was also drunk in the moment so there was even less of a reason to believe him. His name is Gabriel and yesterday he showed up to church, really drunk, but he showed up. On top of that, last week we had stake conference so this week was testimony meeting. Gabriel was the first one to stand up and bear his testimony when the bishop turned the time over hahaha. It was pretty dang funny but you know what, his testimony wasn't too bad. He told us that he was a member though and committed himself to go next week too. Haha we hadn't even invited him but he is reactivating himself! That was pretty funny and cool. We also had a super good activity where we watched ·The Testaments". Like half the ward showed up and like half of those people were crying at the end of it. Its a super great movie. I invite you all to watch it. But yeah this week was pretty good. Hope it went well for all of you guys as well. Have a good one!

Elder Parker

weekly email

So this week was pretty normal. Elba is just right there still. Not saying no but not saying yes either. Its frustrating. Manuel kind of disappeared a lot like all of our other investigators but we are still pretty sure that if we can get him to commit a little more then he could definitely be baptized. We did have the opportunity a few times during the week to teach groups of teenagers and kids and it was actually pretty awesome because they are way more receptive than any of the people who we teach normally. So yeah we are just hoping that we can find some of them again and leave them a real commitment to find a really good investigator.

The highlight of the week though was definitely Thursday this week when me and my companion got sick from fried fish that we ate and were up all night suffering. My companion asked for blessing and in the middle of the blessing I had to cut it short to run to the bathroom and throw up haha. It was awesome. Friday, we stayed in the house for the majority of the day but we left to go to a ward family night and found one of the groups of teenagers and invited them. We ended up having 8 investigators in that Family night and it was awesome. 

Besides that, we still have a bunch of people that are just alright that still wont commit to be baptized so we are just focused on finding new ones. But that really isnt working to well either haha. But hope that you all have a good week! 

Elder Parker

weekly email... and ugly sweaters

Hows it going everyone? Hope you all had a good week. Here it went well. We had quite a few difficulties with the investigators this week but its all good. Elba tells us now that she forgot her dream and that she still doesnt know if she should be baptized. That was really frustrating. We did do a service for her though and it was actually pretty cool. We moved a wood stove that she has in her house to another room and we had to cut holes in the roof and a bunch of stuff. We werent exactly sure what we were doing but she had no one else to do it so we offered. In the process, the member that was with us hit me in the head with a wood beam and it left a pretty solid bruise that I still have. Later that day, a dog decided to pee on my shoe. That was lovely. So yeah that day was pretty rough for me but in the end it was kind of funny how much garbage had happened to me in one day haha.

Also, Wednesday we had a Zone conference and our President blew our minds once again. He taught us how to be prophets, seers and revelators in our own minds and basically know the future like Christ did. It was nuts. I'

m still working on getting it down. But yeah that was awesome and we were in the chapel all day long. Like 13 hours in total. Hope you all had a good week though! 

Quirihue and Dreams

Whats up everyone? How are you all doing this week? This week was pretty great for me. We went one day to a super small town to work in the morning for what we call a zone attack. The entire Zone of 25 missionaries went there to work to help those missionaries there. Its called Quirihue and its super sweet. We were able to enter in houses by simply knocking which basically never happens. We found two investigators that morning that committed to baptism and church. And this is in the morning. Thats the biggest miracle. We also were able to take a solid nap on a super nice bus for 2 and a half hours.

Second, Elba this week had a dream that her mom was telling her that this was the true church and that she needed to follow what we said. I was totally in her dream. But yeah that was awesome and has never happened to me before. But even with that dream she isnt accepting a baptismal date yet. but yeah we are going to see what happens.

But yeah that was my week. Hope that you are all doing well this week! Love you!