Dear Family,

Thanks for the letters and updates here. It has been a hectic day today! As I said in the last letter the transfers were delayed a week so we could try and meet our mission goals of September. The end of this month was full of miracles for the whole mission. The goal as a mission was 4 baptisms per companionship for this month. That is an extremely high number but what resulted of this goal is that the mission achieved the most baptisms in a month in more than 25 years. We hit 272 baptisms in the month. Although that number wasn`t 4 per companionship, it is still a super high number. Just think that there are missions in the world that don`t even get 100 baptisms in a year, and we got almost 3 times that in a month! We are blessed to be in a mission where the people are a lot more open to listen and I know that these Colombians are direct descendants from the people of the Book of Mormon. 

We had quite the miracle here in our area to finish out the month. We didn`t have any people really prepared with a goal to get baptized this weekend, but somehow we came through with baptisms. The Mosquera family that we have been teaching have been getting baptized one by one. The last 2 of their family we were able to baptize this weekend! Luz Marina is the mom of the family that we baptized, and Alexandra is the niece of Luz. We baptized both of them this last weekend. I thought it was a miracle because they were being so flaky. They wouldn`t commit to be baptized and we were about to just stop visiting them. On Friday we visited them and they said they were still thinking about getting baptized. They had had all their interviews and everything, but they just weren`t committing. We were praying super hard for them and it turns out on Saturday afternoon, they finally gave us a solid answer that YES they would get baptized! Lets just say it was pretty hectic and we couldn`t get too many members up to the church, but they got baptized Saturday at 6 in the afternoon! I baptized Alexandra the 13 year old girl and Elder Vaca baptized Luz Marina the mom. It was soo cool to pull those baptisms off.  We finished this transfer with 5 baptisms! Before this transfer I only had 6 baptisms my whole mission! What a miracle that we, and the mission as a whole, could achieve such a feat! I know the Lord blessed us and poured his spirit over these people that we could attain the most baptisms we have had in 25 years! Now we just need to make sure all these people stay active.. 

Anyway, for the transfers, my companion Elder Vaca is heading to Buenaventura. . . my old area! I am super excited for him, and I`m going to send some letters to people with him. My new companion is from Honduras and his name is Elder Alguila (something like that) so pray for me that I can work well with him. 

It sounds like the family is doing great in school and everything.  Glad you got to see the relief society conference. I am looking forward to seeing General Conference this weekend and applying what we learn! Got to go, love you all! 

-Elder Armstrong