Howdy!!!

Wow! So I have officially hit 5 months! Also this week I will hit the point where I only have 18 months left in my mission!!!! I am glad that you guys had such a good week and that you made it a good week for the missionaries as well, that’s awesome!!!!

So, this week was our big push for 40 lessons together because Elder Hansen has an appointment for his toe tomorrow and he might get surgery which would mean we would be in the house until changes next week!!! So pray for him! Also, wow I can’t believe that changes are next week!!! Wow this change flew by!

So Monday, we had a really spiritual lesson with the bishop’s mom, Consuelo about how she can feel the spirit better while reading the scriptures and I got a prompting to talk about the scripture journal that dad gave me before I left and challenge her to keep her own scripture journal! End of Monday 5 lessons!

Tuesday we had a zone training by our mission president and oh my gosh, that guy is going to be a 70 if not a 12, it was the most spiritual meeting that I have had in my entire life, it was incredible!! He just talked about how the commandments and all of that aren’t rules but they are a way of life that prepares us for how life will be in the celestial kingdom. Exactly how dad said to me once that it’s not breaking the commandment that will keep us out but the unwillingness to follow in order to become the person worthy and ready to live that life that will! Then he connected that to the mission and how it is here that we learn how to be the fathers, husbands, bishops that we will need to be afterwards!! It was so cool!! It outweighed any lesson we had that day by far! Also, Elder Hamilton (who is an assistant in our mission as of this change) came to our area on intercambios with the zone leaders! So it was awesome talking to him and about all of the things we remember from Seattle, he is super humble, and super awesome!!!! By the way, assistants have their p days on Friday so that’s why his dad heard about this first! But, at the end of Tuesday we had 10 lessons.

 

Wednesday we got asked to bless a house because a woman had been hearing a bunch of weird sounds, so I was kind of hoping to get a super cool story to tell you all about seeing a ghost or feeling a spirit but nope it was just a regular old prayer! But that afternoon we had a lesson with Alicia and she finally accepted a date for baptism so she will be getting baptized this Saturday which is so awesome!! After Wednesday we had 18 lessons!

Thursday I had intercambios with Elder Yerena from our district, he is almost done with his mission and was a leader earlier on, so he is an awesome missionary. We taught a story lesson to him from 3 Nephi 3 12-14 I think and I would like to challenge the family to read this especially after Elder Oaks talk and see how Laconeo is like mom and dad and how Giddiani is the devil and what things you can do to build fortifications and have the guards day and night!!! They started bawling and it was so cool!!! Haha we ended that day with 24 lessons! Friday I got the prompting to visit Maria de Jesus again who sadly we had to drop a couple weeks back because she wasn’t progressing, and nothing had changed which was really sad to see because she really wants this but just doesn’t want to do anything!!! We ended Friday with 31 lessons!!

So the day of truth was Saturday and sadly I went on intercambios with the zone leaders! But I learned so much from Elder Herrera, he is such an awesome missionary, we taught this family that had been inactive for 4 years and helped them set goals to go the Temple and get sealed for all eternity and wow I just learned so much from Elder Herrera!!!

Sunday in the morning he had like a goal setting session with me, and it was so cool to see how much he cared about me, and how much I can do to improve! It was really exciting!!! Then at church I saw Elder Hansen again and we got 10 lessons on Saturday to get 41!!! We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have been consistently teaching the most lessons of any elders in our zone (the hermanas kill it here) but we finally hit the Lord’s and President’s goal for us which was so awesome!!!

Last night we received a call from the assistants that we all had to be in the Ermita Stake Ccenter today at 10 in the morning, and they wouldn’t tell us why so we were all really confused and worried. But then we got there and we watched Meet the Mormons which was an awesome surprise!!! It was a great week, I love and miss you all!!!

Elder Stout