October, 7th, 2013


Mom and Family,

Glad you guys had a great conference experience! Unfortunately I had to watch the whole conference in Spanish. Last time they had it available in English so I was hoping it would be the same here. We asked our bishop if we could watch it in English in the office, but they had the internet up only for watching it Spanish and English would have overloaded the connection. I could understand most of the things if I really really focused, but it just wasn`t the same and I couldn`t keep concentrating for so much time. I have progressed a lot in my spanish, but I honestly have a LONG ways to go before I feel completely comfortable with this language. It is still a struggle everyday, so pray that I can somehow get the gift of tongues here!  I think my favorite talk was Pres. Monson when he talked about his wife and everything. I thought it was really amazing about how many missionaries and members there are. Fifteen million members is a lot but, I`m sure there are several million inactive members too. I read the first presidency message in the Ensign this month on our responsibility to rescue, and thought that we could all apply the advice in the message.  I know it is especially hard in Utah to do a lot of missionary work, but how many people can we help strengthen so they don`t go inactive? In Colombia, we definitely don`t have time to work with all of the 200 inactive members in our ward, but I wonder what we could accomplish if all the members were helping these lost members find their way back to the church. 

My new companion is sweet, such a relief! I told you wrong the last week; his name is Elder Lopez from Chile. He has the same time that I have in the mission exactly. He is such a cheerful guy and has been so great to work with. He has a lot of great ideas and is a good teacher too. It is especially good because a lot of our investigators/converts were really sad when Elder Vaca left. The Mosquera family (Luz Marina, Alexandra, and Angie our converts) were especially sad, so luckily Elder Lopez has a personality that they can connect with too. He came from a little town in Colombia that was just getting the church started there. It is cool for him to actually have a bishop and members to work with here! He told me in his last area there were about 7 members and they only had a little room to meet in for their church! I am excited to be here with him and think he will be one of my favorite companions. The only bad thing is, is that now we don`t have a lot to work with since Elder Vaca left. We are trying to help our new converts out more than anything so they feel comfortable and don`t go inactive. We only have one investigator that is really progressing right now and I think he will be good to go for baptism this month. His name is Christian: a 19  year old boy that already has a ton of friends in the church. He works a lot so we taught him for the first time last night and he accepted a baptismal date for the 19th. It is nice have investigators like him that listen and understand and already have a lot of friends in the church! 

Elder Darley also got a new companion and his name is Elder Aguilera (the companion that I thought I was going to get).  The other thing that`s cool about the transfers is that Elder Jolley (one of the kids from my group) got transferred to an area close to us in my zone. We watched the conference together and that was cool to catch up with him after not really seeing each other for a year! 

Thanks for the update with the family. Can`t wait to hear where Grandma and Grandpa get called on their mission. Thanks for the recipes that you sent me too mom. We are going to make brownies for an activity tonight, and I`m going to go to the store right after this to buy some stuff to cook some of the recipes too. Unfortunately, we don`t have a crockpot, and it is kinda hard to get access to an oven too, so I don`t think I will be able to cook the crock pot recipes too often. I am excited to try to cook a few of the things though! Believe it or not, I have been making some spinach smoothies. I can`t make it like you do mom, but It still turns out all right. All the other missionaries don`t like it, but I think it`s because we don`t have access to some of the ingredients here, like frozen orange juice. Anyways, thanks and I will talk to everyone next week! I am going to try and send some pictures too! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong