January 26th, 2014

Mom and family,

Thanks for the updates of this week. We had a great week and the whole Lenis family ended up getting baptized! 5 baptisms in one weekend! It was super special to be able to help this family and see them all get baptized as a family. It is something that I hadn`t done in the mission yet. This is exactly what we want as missionaries to be able to help FAMILIES get baptized and then help them get to the temple after that. We are so so happy for the Lenis family and now we are going to help them out a lot so they can progress towards the temple. I will send pictures of the baptism with them right after this. 

The other thing that happened are the crazy transfers!! We found out about the transfers last night and there has been some pretty big changes in the mission and it definitely affected me. Luckily I am not getting tranferred, but my responsibility just went up a notch. I was enjoying things here in Palmira with the zone leaders in my district and just having to verify with them a little. Well what changed with the transfers? I am now district leader of EIGHT missionaries and the zone leaders are no longer in my district to help me out. What is happening in the mission is that a lot of people are ending their missions so Pres. Prince is organizing the zones and districts different. The zones and districts are now going to be a lot bigger and the responsibilities of the district leaders are now a lot more. In the city I am in there were 2 zones and about 10 districts. Now there is 1 zone and about 5 districts. I am now going to live in the house with just me and my companion and in my district includes missionaries that are about 30 minutes away in another little town. I am going to have to do exchanges with them to train them and every night I have to make the phone calls to the 3 other companionships in our district. Let`s just say I will be doing a lot of talking on the phone. Maybe my companion will help? haha well I am super nervous to be in charge of so many missionaries but I know that the Lord will help me. It is going to be hard in our branch too because now we are only 4 missionaries instead of 6. Our areas are now gigantic and Elder Chavez and I have to try and juggle between our investigators and the other investigators that the missionaries had before. We will see how this week goes! 

Well on the other hand and for some great news is that our other family that we are teaching are going to get baptized this weekend! They are named Alex, Miriam, and Shirley (I always said the Osorio Family, but found out today they are the Coyaso family). Alex and Miriam are going to get married this Friday, and then they will be baptized on Saturdaywith their daughter (granddaughter) Shirley!! They are a super special family for us too, and this is also the first time in the mission that I have helped a family get married. This week we are going to sell Arroz Mixto (it is rice mixed with meat and vegetables) to all the ward and the missionaries to raise the money for them to get married. It costs 130,000 pesos which is about 70 dollars to get married here. We are going to organize a little wedding for them in the house chapel and then we have the baptism this Saturday. We are hoping that Sandra (she is part of the Lenis family, the only one that didn`t get baptized) will get baptized this weekend too. She liked the baptisms a lot and is pretty excited right now. 

Well that is what is going on here in my neck of the woods! Thanks for all the prayers for our investigators. I know that they definitely helped soo much! Now pray for me that I can be able to lead this district and keep on having success in our area with so many investigators now. On the spiritual note I was studying some scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants this week. I found one that I think was in D&C 20? but I really liked it because it said the Lord is not always going to guide us in everything. Just like the brother of Jared in the book of Mormon we have to be able to think of our own ways to serve people and God expects us to do things without having to be told. This helped me through these transfers a little, because I think sometimes I always try to rely on leaders and other people. Now it is my turn to have to lead and try and help people! Talk to everyone next week :)

Love,

Elder Armstrong

January 18th, 2014

Hello Family,

Not sure if I will be able to write a whole lot today because this keyboard I am writing on is terrible! All of the letters are sticking together.. But thanks for the updates from everyone there. Today all the Colombian kids entered back into their schools and I was thinking of the kids there too. Hope everyone is getting back into the flow of things! 

Well this week was full of ups and downs, but it turned out to be one of the most successful weeks of my mission so far! This week we had 13 investigators attend church with us (the highest I´ve had in the mission) and we also set 8 baptismal dates that are looking pretty solid (also the highest mark I´ve hit and one of the highest in the mission right now!). All these baptismal dates are none other than the Osorio family and the Lenis family. I know that all of your prayers definitely helped us out a lot and we are super excited for these two families. The best part about this area is that we are actually teaching and baptizing families, which is exactly what the mission wants. With the Lenis Family, all of them accepted a baptismal date except for the mom of 2 of the kids. In this house lives Sister Lenis (an inactive member now returning) with her two kids and husband, and also her sister Sandra with her two kids. All of them are going to be baptized this Saturday except Sandra. We need to keep meeting with her and figure out what is her doubt to be baptized, but we are just super grateful and happy that all the rest have chosen to be baptized this Saturday. It will be 5 baptisms so we are going to plan a program super special and they will be a great family to add to the branch here. 

The other family the Osorio´s are coming along super great too. They are scheduled to get married on the 31st of this month, and then they will be baptized with their daughter (it is actually their grand daughter, but they are raising her) onFeb. 1st. They are super excited too, and we are going to help them raise the money to get married. Sister Osorio is going to make the food and we are going to sell lunches to all the members and missionaries here. This family is a little bit more prone to go inactive, but we are going to work hard with them and ensure that they become converts in the church and not just baptisms. 

Apart from them we have a couple other people that we are working with that are progressing along, but we are just putting all our efforts to make sure these families keep on progressing without problems. 

Well the other things that happened this week is that I had to do about 5 baptismal interviews. At first I was super scared to have to do an interview, but now I think I am getting the hang of it a little more. I realized that the thing about the interviews is that you just have to try and rely completely on the spirit. There were so many moments where I thought I had no idea what to say in the interviews, but then somehow thoughts came to my head and I was able to resolve a lot of concerns that I thought I couldn´t! One interview in particular that I did was super hard this week. It was this 21 year old investigator that has been an investigator for almost 2 years. He was telling me that he wasn´t sure if he believed in God, and that he has been trying to get answers to his prayers for months and that nothing was working. I had no idea what to say, but when we finally got into talking about the commandments, it became clear that he wasn´t living a lot of commandments in his life. I told him that if he wants to get an answer from God then he needs to be able to live the commandments first! He told me in the end that I had helped him and that he was going to start trying some of the suggestions I gave him to get an answer from God. Obviously not quite ready for baptism, but hopefully he will start living the commandments and get an answer. 

Well now I've got to go, but thanks for all the encouragements and updates and prayers! I know that all the prayers really helped and we are going to be able to meet our goal that we set for this month of 5 baptisms. Keep pushing along there in Utah, and talk to everyone next week! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong

January 12th, 2014

Mom and Family,

Glad everyone is getting back into the schedule down there! That`s weird that the kids started the week with the term ending, I`m sure they did good though! We have started a new era in the mission. It is the last 6 months of President Prince as mission president, so he wants us to have the best six months in the history of this mission! Pres. Prince has really done a great job. In this last year we had something like 1300 baptisms and it was the best year that the mission has had in 25 years. We have had some great missionaries in the mission and now a ton of people are starting to finish their missions so that means things are going to start to change. New zone leaders are going to be called, a ton of people are going to be called as trainers to train all the new missionaries coming in, and the zones and districts are giong to be changed with all the missionaries going in and out. The district leaders are now going to start to be more important because the districts are going to be bigger with most of them having probably about 8 missionaries. The zone`s are also going to be a lot bigger and they are going to combine a lot of zones. Something like 40 missionaries are ending their missions in the months of January, February, and March, so we've got a lot of new people coming. I might end up training someone! We will see.. Not sure how much I would like that. 

The theme of these last six months is called "La copa mundial" (the world cup). It is cool because they did a training for all the zone leaders and now they are teaching us all these soccer terms and comparing it with missionary work! A goal is a baptism, a corner kick is fellowshipping a investigator with the members, and just a lot of stuff like that! The goal of the theme is to have 1 goal per companionship each week! Or the average of that. The mission is going to start with the goal of 120 baptisms this month and we are going to increase by 40 baptisms each month. We have six months of doing that before Pres. Prince leaves and he wants us to finish the last month of his mission with something like 340 baptisms in the month. It would be the most baptisms in a month in the history of the mission! 

I am pretty excited about all of the goals and stuff, but it will be difficult with all the missionaries with experience leaving! All of us have to step up and take the place of the people that are leaving now. With our investigators we are doing super good. Especially with the Lenis family, the have been going to church every sunday for the past month. The dad says he has felt a complete change in his life and that even the people that he works with say that he is a different person; talks different, is a more peaceful person. There are 6 investigators in this family, and we are hoping to baptize them all this month. We are going to set them all the goal for baptism tomorrow for the 25th of this month. Pray that this family can be baptized for that date and that they won`t have any problems. They are our family of Gold!! The Osorio family is also going good, but we haven`t been able to talk to them for a while because they have been super busy. We took out their files to get married, so we are planning an activity this week to raise the money for them. They of course don`t have the money to get married, but we are going to have Sister Osorio prepare some food and sell it to all the missionaries and hopefully raise the money to get them married and baptized this month! This month should be the month with the most baptisms that I have had so let`s hope we can keep on having success here. We had 11 people come to church with us again on Sunday, so we tied again with the most attendance that I have had in the mission! I know the mission is just about numbers, but it is just super satisfying to be able to work hard and then see the hard work pay off. I think part of it is because I am working good with my companion. It is so nice to have Elder Chavez a companion that is willing to go out and work.

Well anyways got to get going here. Got to go and see ya next week family! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong

January 6th, 2014

HI family,

Sorry I am writing a day late here. We had a little activity of capture the flag with our district and with some of the other people of the ward so our zone leaders told us to just go ahead and write today. Hope everyone had a great new year! We didn`t do much around here. We live in the wealthier part of Palmira so nothing really happens in our part of the town. We hung out until midnight and watched a few fireworks go off, but within 30 minutes everyone was in their houses and quiet. We did hear a couple people blowing up their dummies that they had prepares. Remember how I told you that all the kids ask for money in December for the mannequins? Well that is what they save for is New year`s eve to blow up all these dummies. We heard the next day that there were hundreds of people hospitalized the next day for all the explosions they do here! Everyone likes to blow the things up but they all end up with burnt hands! 

The district is going alright here. It is definitely easier to be a district leader here than where I was in Cali, but it still isn`t easy. Just pray that our district can keep moving forward without any problems! The goal of the mission this month is 344 baptisms and that will be the most baptisms in the history of the mission if we can pull it off. Everyone is pretty motivated right now so we should have some good baptisms coming up. 

We are working hard with these 2 families Osorio and Lenis. The Osorio`s are excited to get married so we are going to get going on that this week and help them have the money to do it. We are thinking that Sister Osorio can make a lunch for all the missionaries and if we get all the missionaries from our zone to pay a little for the lunch they should have enough money to get married after that. The Lenis family are going super good,but unfortunately they don`t want to accept a baptismal date. The mom is an inactive member and she doesn`t want her kids getting  baptized without it being their decision and commitment. She kinda discouraged them from accepting a baptismal date with that unfortunately, but we are going to work with the  members this week to get them to feel more comfortable and accept that date! Pray for them! Our goal is to have at least 5 baptisms this month :) 

 

Anyways got to go to work now. Talk to everyone next Monday! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong

December 30th, 2013

Hi family,

It was so good to talk to everyone! I guess I will talk to you all tomorrow too. I am planning on tomorrow at 2 or 2:30 (sometimes we get out of lunch a little later) so everyone be on the computer at 12 or 12:30. Hopefully I will be able to find a internet cafe open.. 

We had a good week of Christmas. The 24th and 25th were a little different, but it was pretty much a normal week after that. Now we have to get through another week of holidays with the new year coming. The new year is pretty crazy in Colombia it seems like. All the Colombian kids march through the streets all of December to beg for money for the new year. They use the money to buy polvora which is like super strong firecrackers, and then on the new years they make these mannequin dummies and blow them to pieces with the polvora! I´m not sure how it will be in our neighborhood, but we will definitely hear all of the fireworks going off! 

I think the highlight of my week was the Sunday. This Sunday we had 11 investigators come to church with us. That is about the most I have had in all my mission so I was excited about that. The investigators mainly came from the Lenny´s family which is the family we are teaching. The mom of them is a inactive member, but she has a whole house full of people that aren´t members so we are hoping to baptize her whole family and get them excited. We also have a family named the Osorio´s. They have a daughter of 8 years, and we are trying to help them get married in the month of January now. 

I hope Grandma Bauman will be alright. It sounds like she is going rough right now.  She will definitely be in my prayers! That´s good that you all could visit some other people in the hospital too. Jesus always visited the sick so I am sure that is a great service that we can do for people :) 

Anyway, I will see everybody tomorrow! We get 30 minutes and then it will be until May again, but by that time I will just about be getting done with the mission! It goes by fast! Thanks for the pictures. I am so happy for Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong. Can´t wait to hear how the mission goes for them! Tell everyone thanks for the gifts that they sent. Everyone was so thoughtful with the things that were sent. I will talk to everyone tomorrow!

love,

Elder Armstrong

December 22nd

Hi mom and Fam,

Well my companion is talking to his family right now, so I've got a second to write a few emails.  We had 7 people attend church with us so that was great. We are visiting a family where the mom is an inactive member and she has her husband and 3 kids that are not members. We are going to work hard to reactivate her and baptize her family! It is the Lenny`s family if you want to pray for them. :)

Well I just wanted to write a little Christmas thought and testimony for everyone. I guess that is the least I can do since I can`t send anything. This Christmas has been good to try and think of ways to serve people. I was especially encouraged when you guys sent me the white stocking to fill with our acts of service. We have been trying to look for a lot more service opportunities. I think the best thing I did for this holiday was make cookies for everyone. I just finished making all of the cookies, wrapping them up in a little gift wrap, and we printed some gift tags that say "merry Christmas from the missionaries." I guess that is a tradition from the U.S. because I always loved getting cookies and treats from the neighbors and friends during the holidays. It is different here I think because the majority of the people don`t have money for gifts but just look forward to maybe a bigger meal on Christmas than usual. 

I know Christ Lives and that he did so much for us! I have been studying the Ensign of this month and I liked a couple of the messages. The message from Pres. Eyring emphasizes that to demonstrate that we are disciples of Christ we need to share his message with our friends and family. We can also do the temple work for our family. The last paragraph and summary of the message is this:

Christmastime turns our hearts to the Savior and to the joy His gospel has brought us. We show our gratitude to Him best as we offer that happiness to others. Gratitude is turned to joy as we offer names to missionaries and as we take the names of our ancestors to the temple. That evidence of our gratitude can make friends and families that endure forever.

I know that what he says is true, and I am so glad to be able to share the message of Christ with all the people here in Colombia. I know that my mission hasn`t been one of a lot of baptisms, but I still feel success as I try to be obedient and just focus all I can on my mission. 

The other message I like of the Ensign was one by Elder Robert Hales. He talked a lot about the life of Christ and says that in order to fully understand the true meaning of Christmas, we need to better understand the life, teachings, and atonement of Christ. I have been trying to do this in my mission, andI know that as everyone better studies Christ through the scriptures and teaching of Prophets we will all become more like him as we apply the teachings. I am so excited to talk to everyone, and I love you all so much! I know that this is Christ`s church and I know that Jesus atoned for our sins and if we follow his gospel and keep our covenants, we are going to be able to live with our families and with Christ again. This is my testimony for everyone, and I hope you all have a very merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong

Christmas 2013

December 16th

Hi family,

This are going great here in my new area! Don`t worry mom, everything is just fine in the new area. Pres. Prince told me that you wrote him, but I am all good here. I just got transferred here because of some problem that there were with the other missionaries so they did an early transfer. The actual week of transfers is this week so now we know what is happening for sure. I am staying here as the district leader again. Elder Rosario (my black dominican companion) is leaving to Pasto, the most Southern area of our mission about 10 hours away. It will be sad to have him go he has been giving us some good laughs this week! I am going to get another Mexican companion named Elder Chavez. Elder Sanchez, the other mexican of our trio, is staying here and Elder Mendez is coming to make us 4 missionaries here. It is kinda cool because this Elder Mendez was with me when I first started my mission and is from my same group! It is funny that we are in the same house again after 1 year in the mission. 

The new ward is good, it is actually a branch. I am in another church-house, in spanish they say casa capilla, but it is just a house that they rented to be the church. This house is actually really nice, and the branch is small but there are some strong members. It is funny because almost all the branch leaders come from the same family. The family is called the family Bonilla and they have 3 return missionaries so just about all the members of this family are presidents of the organizations. 

The work in the mission is a little bit difficult right now. None of the Colombians want to get baptized because they all want to be able to party it up in their Christmas parties. It is tough because we had a goal as a mission for this to be the best month of baptisms for the year, but the mission is really pretty down right now. We have some good families that are investigators, but of course none of the people are married so we have to get them going on the marriage process.  

We had an amazing mission conference here; The best one I have had in my whole mission I think! It started out and we had a nice lesson from Pres. Prince about the atonement of Jesus Christ. He taught us a lot of things about why the atonement is necessary and a read scriptures on how we can appreciate the atonement in our lives. After that we had a talent show with the other zones there.  Right after the show we had a nice christmas dinner. It was chicken cordon bleu with mashed patatoes. They also had a chocolate fondue after and super good cupcakes. It was just like a Christmas eve dinner. After the dinner we watched this church movie that was super good. I am sure everyone has already seen it by now, but it is the new church movie called Ephraim`s Rescue. I liked it a lot and think it is like my favorite church movie now! Maybe it is just because I haven`t seem a movie in so long, but I thought it was so cool to see a little movie there. Oh and the other great part about the conference is that I got all the packages! I got packages from everyone! Grandma and Grandpa Griffin, Armstrong, One from the Davis family. I got the 12 days of Christmas from you guys too, so thank you so much to everybody that sent me stuff! I have been opening those packages one by one and we are always so excited to open a little present every day! We have our apartment decorated up with the decorations that you sent and it looks good. We are trying to fill up that white stocking too with our service. We have only put like 5 things of service in there, but we are all trying to look for more opportunities to serve and fill up that stocking! 

Oh and tell Ally happy Birthday for me. She turned 9 right? Everyone seems so grown up in those pictures and it kinda makes me feel old now.. Now I know why all the aunt`s and uncle`s say that we make them feel old I guess haha! But I am glad to hear about everyone. I hope Grandma Bauman gets better too. She will be in my prayers for sure. 

Got to get going now, but I am going to try to send some pictures and I think I will be planning on talking to everybody on Christmas day if that`s alright. We could do like 30 minutes on Christmas and 30 on 31st if you want to do that again? But anyway let me know and I will talk to everyone later :)

Love,

Elder Armstrong