Wednesday, July 27, 2016

July 18 - See ya later Elder Crandall

Hey all!

So first of all the scripture of the week is found in Revlation 3:11 and says,
´´Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, 
that no man take thy crown.´´

Today is the farewell of Elder Crandall. I can´t believe how fast it came! Especially these last few weeks have been just an absolute blur! Wow, he is such a great missionary, I was so happy to be with him his last 12 weeks because I learned so much of how a missionary should finish their mission. He finished sprinting through the finish line!

As I said this week was honestly just a blur, and even more because it was only 6 days! I will get my new companion today in the afternoon, and I am excited to meet him and see who will be...the last! Please be praying for him this week because he is going to need to learn the area super fast! He is only going ot have 4.5 weeks so we will see how it will go!

The big updates on our investigators is that they are all hitting walls of trial right now! We have like 6 really really good investigators right now. Valeria is still progressing well towards her baptismal date, but she is struggling to just but behind her some bad habits, and its really hard to see her use her agency in this way, but I have a lot of hope that she will be ready by her date! Jorge and Jose Alfredo pretty much have the same problem! They are both progressing like super super good, but neither one of them feels quite ready for baptism yet, they both feel like they need to know more. This is one of the hardest things that I have found on my mission. I know that this is an important, even life changing desicion, but I just dont understand how anyone can procrastinate it! I feel like it has so much to do with Boyd K. Packer´s famous quote on how understanding the doctrine can change our behavior, because I feel like if I were to understand baptism truly (and I weren´t a member) I would want to do it the frist chance that I could because it just raises us up to a new level of spiritual progression. We dont have to be perfect, and we dont have to know everything. We just have to be repentant and willing to try our best afterwards. It is all so much easier after, especially on a standpoint of being perfect and knowing a lot. Then, Ema, Cristian and Ruperto are all having the opposite problem, they love the gospel, they want to be baptized so bad but everytime that Sunday rolls around their seats are empty. Every week when we talk to them, they say I will be there next week for sure, and then they aren´t! Another frustrating thing about agency! But, I know they will come around as well.
 
The pictures are: Cristian cut my hair and put so much gel in it that I looked like a hen! But after a shower it came down. Pictures with Ema Cristian and all of their extended family who have all started to listen to us! A picture of like half our zone. And 2 of the 11 free tacos that some random nice stranger bought us in the street! (they were so good!!)

Paz, amor, y tranquilidad desde Valle de Luces,

Elder Stout




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