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