Mom,

Congratulations on your big marathon! That is so inspiring to me; you and dad! I hope that someday I can have the discipline to do something like that! It is especially amazing that you kept on going through all the pain and everything too. I would have quit for sure.. But really thanks for all the letters and the article you sent me last week. You probably don`t know it but some of the things you send me, I feel the spirit so strong while I am reading them! The things you and dad say are a lot of times just what I need at the time of reading them and inspire me so much, so thanks! Oh and also I got the package already! It got here super fast and luckily my area is right by the mission offices so I could just go snag it quick. The brownies and cookies were soo soo good. I finished off the last of them today. But of course the best thing was all the letters from the family. It was nice to hear how everyone is doing and all the little letters! Tell everyone thank you soo much for the fishing on the deck gift :) Can`t believe I am already going to hit the year mark this week, it passes fast. I guess the mission is kinda like a marathon in some ways. I definitely has its ups and downs. 

This week was interesting, I will have to think what happened here. On Thursday a missionary arrived that we got to have come with us for a little while. His name is Elder Banks and he is a missionary that went home and is now returning to the mission. He is from Salt Lake, I guess probably not related to the Banks family down in Cedar haha. It is nice to see a missionary come back though. I think a lot of times people think that if a missionary comes home they are going to go downhill, but he came back and it is cool to see him finish out something. 

This weekend was Colombia`s equivilant of Valentine`s day, so we did some gift exchanges with a family of our investigators. Sunday night we went over to their house and had the little celebration. It was funny because they gave us all like these huge gifts and us 4 missionaries only gave like the little stuffed animals and things that were like jokes compared to their gifts! We had set a minimum price of stuff and all the missionaries spent about what was the minimum price and this family spent about three times what the minimum price was! They gave me this huge stuffed animal basket with candy inside. Now I have this big stuffed animal with a heart on it to sleep with! This holiday is pretty big in colombia and the streets are just lined with all these people selling these valentine gift baskets! 

The transfers were supposed to be this week, but now they are delayed until the next one. In our mission we are having the september goal to be 4 baptisms each companionship. Don`t think we will finish with 4 baptisms this month, but I guess I have got to have faith. Since Nasly, we don`t really have anyone that is prepared for baptism now. We have been trying to find people, but it is so hard to find people that are going to progress. We are so lucky to have a great bishop here in Terron. This bishop is so willing to work with us and help us in every way possible! 

Well didn`t bring my journal today to figure out what to write, so sorry for my just kind of rambling thoughts. Today we went to the Zoo here in Cali again, so that is always fun :) I have had a lot of challenges with this companion that I am with, so pray for me that I can continue to work well with him. Thanks again for the package you sent me and all the letters from everyone. I will try to organize my thoughts a little better for next week. Love you all!

-Elder Armstrong

Hi family,

Thanks for all the letters and prayers! Things are going good and normal in the mission again so we are grateful for that. I will go ahead to try and summarize the week here, although this letter might be a little shorter:

Tuesday:We had the zone leaders come and teach with us. Everything went well and it is always fun to learn from the leaders. We had Elder Hutchingson from Orem come with us and he is a great guy. Later in the night we had a family night with some members and investigators and I was up to teach the lesson of the night. We had been working on this little game to teach the plan of salvation so I taught that. It was something that my old companion Elder Novoa taught me but I had never taught it so it was a little nerve wracking. We ended up missing some parts of this interactive lesson and messing up, but everyone thought it was funny! 

Wednesday: We taught this lady that Elder Darley (the other Elder in my house from Logan) and I found when we did divisions. It was funny because this lady didn`t want anything to do with us and she kept on saying that she would never listen to us at first. In this lesson she told us that when Elder Darley and I were talking to her she had felt something that made her want to listen to us. I know that the spirit must have been touching her a little and hopefully she will start listening more even though she still says she would never be baptized! We also contacted another lady that said she was Catholic and would never change religions in the night. One thing that takes a while to learn in the mission is that there is no need usually to ask permission to share something with people. A lot of people will not want to listen to missionaries by instinct, but as you start teaching and testifying people often change. We started teaching this Catholic lady and by the time we started testifying of the restoration she was a lot more willing to listen and even wanted to come to church with us! Well she didn`t end up coming to church and we still have to follow up with these ladies, but it was just 2 cool experiences of finding people that don`t happen every day!  

Weekend: On Saturday we had the baptism of Nasly! She wanted to have the baptism at 3 in the afternoon which was kinda a bummer because not many members could come. The baptism was good though, just basically her family and the missionaries. The missionaries from the other ward came too and helped us do a special musical number. They sang "if you could hie to kolob" some verses in english and some in spanish while I played the piano. It turned out alright even though there are some latinos that couldn`t carry a tune if it had a handle on it! Elder Vaca did the baptism and I did the comfirmation on Sunday. 

Sunday:We have a frustrating sunday to start. We only had 3 people come to church with us and several people that said they were coming didn`t show up. I taught the class to the investigators all by myself so that was challenging. It is always hard with investigators because they don`t really comment anything. I felt like I was just talking and talking so I had us break into groups and study some scriptures on obedience. The other frustrating thing is that we went to visit Nasly later in the night and caught her drinking coffee! haha guess we have to go over some things with her again. We chewed her out a little for it and I think she felt kinda bad, but not sure why she was drinking coffee the day after her baptism! The night turned out a lot better and we had some good lessons. 

There is my week! Oh and to answer your questions mom: Yes we have lunch appointments every day. In Colombia Lunch is the biggest meal of the day! The members are really good most of the time. We have had some service opportunities, although that is something we need to work on. We helped this later haul a cart of juice down this huge flight of stairs and ended up contacting her! That is something we need to work on. This week I have been trying to improve my charity for people and really pray that I can have love for people. I know that as I pray to develop charity and look for people to serve I can improve in that like you said mom. Got to go love ya all!

Elder Armstrong

Pic 1. Terron Colorado! (They have it spelled wrong on purpose..)

Pic 2. Us on a little roller coater simulation ride! 

Pic 3. Our district eating some dominos pizza today! 

Hi family,

This week was the best week I think since I`ve been here in Terron Colorado. We taught 15 lessons with members this week so that felt great! Thank you so much for all the prayers, especially for the family of Elder Encarnación. We had a conference with Elder Waddell of the quorum of 70 this week.  He told us something really cool. He said that he had been informed just that same morning (on Friday) that the first presidency with the apostoles and some of the members of the 70, had a special session in the temple where they prayed for the missionaries around the world, and especially that they would be protected. I thought that was really cool and it happened right during the conference that we had too. The conference was mostly about the retencion of converts. Elder Waddell reminded us that we are not in the mission to baptize people, but rather convert them. We think about baptisms a lot but the biggest problem of this mission is people getting baptized and then going inactive. He said we are one of the top baptizing missions in the world, but what we need to work on now is getting people to stay active and work towards going to the temple. He especially stressed that we need to have a ward council every week (so the members can help the people stay active.) and that we need to teach all of the lessons over again after the people have been baptized. That is definitely something that we can improve on because I don`t think I`ve really been teaching the lessons after the baptism throughout my mission. 

During the conference I was able to meet up with Elder Pancheri and Elder Jolley from my group so that was cool to see some friends. I also talked to Elder Payne the other day. He was with Elder Encarnacion when he was shot and he witnessed the whole thing. He said that it was really crazy and they all thought that there was a gunman in the house! Luckily he seemed to be over the trauma of the experience and I think he is all right now. 

We have some great investigators right now, but we have been struggling to find people apart from the really good investigators that we have. We have 1 baptism that will happen this next weeked so we are really excited for that. She is actually a girl named Nasly and she lives in the house below us so we pretty much see her all the time. She has a some good friends in the church so I think she will be ready to get baptized and stay active. 

This Sunday I got to talk at church again. It is only the 2nd time I have had to give a talk in the mission, but it is still really hard. Luckily, this time I could actually talk without having to read everything from a paper so that was nice to be able to express myself a little. I just talked on what we learned from the conference that we had; mostly about becoming converted. I think all the people could understand me alright, but I think my talk was pretty boring because everyone seemed falling asleep and noone said anything to me after the talk! haha guess I need to give more talks so I can get better!

 

That was cool to see and hear about dads bike race! It reminded me of what President Prince shared with us about his marathon racing. He taught us that then when we tell ourselves that yes or yes (si o si) we are going to accomplish something and then we accomplish it, something in the universe changes! That is crazy to me to be on a bike for 10 hours, but I can imagine that would be an amazing life accomplishment to finish a race like that! I can`t imagine running a marathon either, so good luck with that mom. I didn`t wish grandpa happy birthday, but give him a big hug for me and tell him sorry for not sending anything or doing anything! Anyways thanks for the letter, I`m going to try and send some pictures here so I better go. Love you all! 

-Elder Armstrong

August 30, 2013

Hi family,

I am glad that everyone had a good time at the family reunion! Thanks for all the pictures, It made me miss everyone.  I am trying everyday to develop my attributes of Christ and I know that Charity is probably the most important. I have realized more and more over this past week that everyone has different attributes, but that the mission is the time to improve on the attributes that maybe aren`t as good. 

Yeah I think the strikes are still going on but luckily it isn`t affecting me at all in this area. We have a mission conference this week and we all fasted the past weekend that the strikes will end so that all the missionaries will be able to attend the conference. I think they have calmed down, but not sure exactly. I know that there are some missionaries that can`t even go out and teach because of the strikes. 

I like my new area a lot actually! We had another baptism this week and we have been getting at least 7 investigators coming to church with us every week. I like how the food and everything is a lot cheaper here in Cali too. In cali things are all close together so we can just walk everywhere. The only downside so far is just some little problems that we have been having in a district and in companionships. This is the first time I think that I have really had problems in the district and with companions. Luckily, we have been able to get most of our problems settled out, but I just pray that we can keep our district free of problems. I know Satan is trying to destroy this mission in any way he can right now! 

On Saturday we had our 2nd baptism here! She was the mom of one of the other members here. It was a baptism that just kinda fell into our hands. We hadn`t visited her since I had been here so we went to visit her on Tuesday and asked her why she hadn`t been baptized. She said "well I don`t know, but the other missionaries told me that I am going to get baptizedthis Saturday!" I guess the last missionaries had set a baptismal date for her and we didn`t even know about it. She didn`t really have too much of a testimony of the book of Mormon and Prophets but she said she wants to know the things for herself. All of her family are members so luckily she has a lot of family support. She got baptized this Saturday and our district leader Elder Darley, baptized her. I was kinda stressed about the baptism because we showed up to the church and it turns out the other missionaries were getting ready to do an activity! Luckily we arranged things with them that we could do the first half of the program in the chapel and after we finished the program in the baptismal room. Of course it was supposed to start at 6:30 but Carmen, the person getting baptized didn`t even show up until 7. I asked them why they showed up late and she said "when people say 6:30 in Colombia, it means 7" haha! 

Of course the most shocking thing of the week happened on Saturday. We were all getting ready for bed when we get an urgent call from our zone leaders. They had all four of us gather and told us what was going on. At first we couldn`t believe it, we thought it was a joke, but then the truth slowly sunk in. Elder Encarnación, our brother in the mission field had been shot and killed. I know that most of you have already heard this news, and if it wasn`t spreading so quickly I probably wouldn`t tell anyone about this. Elder Encarnación, was one of the first friends I found out here in the mission field. He was in my first zone and Elder Santizo (my trainer) was also his trainer so you could say that we were brothers. He was one of the maybe 5 black missionaries in our mission, and had recently hit the year mark of his mission. He was from the Dominican Republic. He was such a cool and funny kid, a great missionary, and we had talked to him just 2 days before he passed away. Elder Darley, our district leader was his companion, so I think it was super hard for him. From what we know, he wasn`t directly shot but it was a stray bullet that was shot in the area. He was hit by the bullet while he was eating lunch with other missionaries which I think included Elder Payne an Elder from my group. I never imagined that something like this would happen in my mission, but I know that nothing is going to stop the work of the Lord. President Prince has been getting calls from general authorities including Elder Christofferson, and I know that this is hard for all of our mission. I don`t tell you all this to scare you, but I guess he was needed to be a missionary in another place. Please keep his family in your prayers because this has to be hard for his family especially. 

Well I have to go here in a sec, but please don`t panic over this news!! Got to go, love everybody! 

-Elder Armstrong

1-Our baptism is the girl with the red hair! 

2-Me with some big boots that our neighbors have! 

3-Sharing the cookies we made on sunday with everybody! 

4-The American food that I bought from Pricemart. Costco Colombia Style! 

August 26th, 2013

 This week was really good. We had a baptism (my first one in about 4 months..) and 9 investigators come to church with us. Here are the highlights from our week:

Tuesday: We had a zone conference and it was really cool because it was in my old area in Cali. The conference really was focused on love and charity for the investigators. Everything that we do should be based on the love that we have for the people.  After the conference we went and visited a couple people from my old area and that was super neat to see some old members and investigators from there. When I first arrived in that area I replaced an elder named Elder Darley and it turns out that I am with him now in Terron my new area! We had a lot of mutual investigators that we wanted to visit in Las Americas so we went together to visit some people after the conference. Super Cool :) 

Wednesday:We had a 2 hour meeting with the bishop and talked about all the members and problems. Of course there are a lot of problems but the bishop seems super willing to help so I think that is something that a lot of wards in Colombia don`t even have. We have a huge members list with about half of them marked less active or inactive.

Weekend:  We had the baptism of our investigator Angie. She is a 16 year old girl and is part of a big family that we are teaching. She is the second of the family to get baptized and we are working to baptize all of the family one by one. One thing that they teach us is that it is always better to work with part member families and try and get baptisms from that. In our zone conference they shared with us a family of like 10 people that all ended up getting baptized and it started with the baptism of their 15 year old son. 

On Saturday we had the baptism of Angie and 3 other people from other missionaries. The missionaries from the other area ended up being super disorganized with things and we ended up starting ONE HOUR later than the scheduled time at 7 p.m.  I was getting a little sick of playing prelude music on the electric piano there for that whole time! In Colombia things  usually end up starting late, but one hour was just ridiculous. The program was pretty good though. We practiced a little music number that morning and performed it in the baptisms with the 8 missionaries. I guess now that I am not with Elder Novoa (my old companion that was known as the best piano player in the mission) I will have a lot more opportunities to play piano. 

Sunday:We had the confirmation of Angie and I had the opportunity to do it! It was my first confirmation I have ever done and a little hard in Spanish still, but I think I did all right. I was pretty scared at first! After church we had an activity with the family that lives below our house and made chocolate chip cookies! I had the recipe from mom and these people have an oven so we took advantage of that and made some cookies! It was a little hard because they don`t really have like measuring cups and stuff here but we figured it out. They turned out alright, but defintitely not as good as mom or hermana Prince (wife of our mission pres.) makes them! I will have to send some pictures of us making the cookies. 

 My comp. is Elder Vaca from Ecuador. He has 7 months in the mission and is a funny guy and always pretty animated. He has a lot less experience than Elder Novoa my last companion, but we are going to try and work together and hopefully I can share what I have learned from my companions in our area here. 

Love,

Elder Armstrong