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
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