Difficulties

Dear everyone,

In case you were wondering, patience without diligence doesn't work out. You can be as patient as you like, but if you don't work towards a goal, you won't ever get there. Passage of time does not equal progress, but hard work and the grace of God most definitely do.

Perhaps if we work hard this week, we'll have two baptisms in the next, but there are a lot of obstacles to overcome, most of which we created ourselves. We are struggling to find new people to teach and those that we have found are reluctant to keep commitments. In spite of all these many difficulties, I don't lose hope that things will get better. That's one thing that has kept me going for a long time now. Persistance is the key to long term success, and by persistantly repenting and self evaluation, we can become even as Christ is. Hope is the greatest gift that He has given us and if we lose it or fail to recognize its value, faith turns to fear, repentance turns to rebellion, and membership in the church becomes a burden instead of a peaceful and happy contrast to worldly chaos.

I don't really have any funny stories from this week, I'm just kind of trucking through challenges right now. It's really great to have the Lord on your side, or perhaps better said, to be on his side. It makes things a bit easier to deal with.

Love you all,

Elder King

The Plan

Dear everyone,

If there is one thing I need to learn right now, it's patience.

Things are going well here. Our investigators are doing well and we had six people show up to church this week! It would have been great had our goal not been eight... Kind of sad when people say they will go but then for some reason don't. My advice for this week is keep your commitments!

Elder Falabella's visit was great. I hadn't felt so good in a while. He talked with us about the doctrine of the plan of salvation and it was really humbling. He explained just how little we do for our salvation. Christ made it possible, only in and through him can we obtain it. All he asks is that we try to be like him and we do our best to try. He asked us "how many of you are going to pay for your sins the way he did?" And the answer is none of us. We can't pay for our own sins and still get into God's kingdom. He taught us about repentance, how many of us view it as a painful process. The pain we feel as we repent is merely natural consequence for sin. Joy is the feeling that comes from repentance and it is also what changes us.

On that subject, I had a really spiritual experience in taking the sacrament yesterday. I just felt as though through my efforts my past errors had been cleaned through the atonement. However, I know that I need to continue working hard or that remission of sins won't last long.

Fun fact: there are these cool little banana things that look like half-bananas and taste like apples. They are called "manzanos" around here, but I don't know if that's their real name.

Anyway, Love you all!

Elder King

Bull Fights and Other Shenanigans

Dear everyone,

In case you were wondering, in Colombia, people really really really like to party. Like a lot. The town has basically been closed down for a week. Needless to say, we didn't get much work done. this will continue until tomorrow. Frustrating, but what can you do? Maria Jose still doesn't feel ready to be baptized, but she comes to church. With a lot of faith, luck and miracles, we could have 3 or so baptisms for the 4th of March. Which would be extra special for me. (It's Elder King's Birthday that day.)

We didn't find many new people, and anybody not partying left Planeta Rica to avoid the partiers, so most of the new people we found were not able to receive us this week. But this next week should be interesting, what with the coming of Elder Falabella. Did I mention that Elder Ampuño is in my district now? If you don't remember him, he was my first companion here in the mission. We had our bittersweet reunion last friday.

Well, if you have any questions about my life or about life in general, now's your chance to "ask the missionary"

Love,

Elder King

Dear Everyone,

I guess the miracle this week is that I'm not banging my head against the wall. We found more than twenty people to listen to us this week, so this next week should be packed with work! Next week a General Authority will come see us. Elder Falabela is his name. I'm doing great, gonna stay here in Planeta for another six weeks with Elder mischa. We'll see if I survive haha. Also the Bull runs are starting up this wednesday, so life is going to be very crazy the next few days.

I don't have a spiritual message aside from my testimony that this church is true. There are no others that compare. Remember to be an example of the believers. That's the first step to being a good missionary.

I love you all, I just can't think of much to write. Sorry!

Elder King