Our Mission is Going Places (His title) - May 23, 2016

WEY! you guys saw CIVIL WAR!?! You can't tell me anything! ;)

Mom, I really like that bit from President Packer. (I teach Sunday School and shared with him part of a talk from 1991 I told him... "One of the things he said is that when countries are at war one of the best tactics is to jam communications.  President Packer said that Satan works to jam our communication with the Lord through loud music, distractions, tv shows, etc.")   That really is true: Satan jams our sensors with everything he can, and we have to actively block out the noise to hear the Spirit whispering through. In my study this week, I noted that repent comes from the Latin re (again) and pen (think); in other words, repentance is just thinking again--fixing things right away when they're wrong, and thinking twice before making a mistake as well. That has really had an impact on me this week. The two are rather related; if we see our communications being jammed, even if we like what might be coming through, we need to get it out right away.

This week we have been SUPER busy--I am just exhausted. Our area is tiny, but I feel more tired at the end of every day. We are exercising now! Our gym owner is lazy (doesn't open until 7:30) so we just go do some ab workouts, push-ups, and we run sprints (Elder Sm**** wants to lose some weight). Our baptismal dates have been falling through this month, but we still have one for sure. We are working with two families at once, the familia M*** (who need money to get married--they need to put forth a portion, and we and the ward will cover the rest) and the familia M****-V**** (who need to fix a daughter's birth certificate to get married). Apart from the aforementioned issues, all goes well with them. We have been working hard recently on contacting more, and talking with everyone (not just rushing from appointment to appointment). There are really a lot more people open to listening out there than one might think. We met a guy on a bus today who lived in NY 25 years (starting from age 6) and was pretty interested in the Plan of Salvation. He is super busy and lives alone, but accepted a pamphlet and the invitation to study on his own time and to call missionaries over when he's free. Thanks to my companion pushing me to overcome my fear and talk to someone, even our bus ride to Megacentro had an evangelical purpose.

Not much time left, and not much else to report yet. Elder Sm**** and I are great friends, and we've been having a splendid time together. I've been learning a TON from him. We sing together; we play recorder together; he's going to get a guitar so we can guitar and piano together; etc.

Our mission had the goal in April to have every companionship baptize, and over 95% of the 91 companionships did so. Unfortunately, it was because of disobedience in a few that we couldn't do it, but now we have the goal of 2 people per companionship in June and 3 in July, and so long as we continue with Exact Obedience, Extraordinary Faith, and True Unity, we will see the miracles flow even more than we've been seeing them up until now.

Love you guys! More updates on the mission as a whole as well as the area next week.

Élder Rowe