March 2nd

Hi mom!!

I am so sorry but we didn`t get time to write today. I now have to head to the house, but just wanted to tell you thanks so much for all the pictures and stuff from the funeral. I was thinking about everyone a lot today and it looks like everyone had a great spiritual experience today. I have been struggling a little with the companions because one of them makes us late for everything; that is why I didn`t write earlier. We had a lot of success this last week and Pres Prince congratulated us for having the highest attendanc to the church in the mission with 16 investigators. I will keep working hard and hopefully be able to write more maybe tomorrow. If not, I will talk to everyone next monday. 

Love you all and thanks for everything!

-Elder Armstrong

Mom,

Well we are dropping in a second to write a little bit more since my companion didn`t get to write. We are only here for a second, but I will try and give a little more details than what I wrote yesterday. Last week went super well for us, stats wise. Since we are 3 missionaries here, we were doing divisions every day with either Andres (the guy who dedicates his life to the mission) or Bryan (one of my super good friends in the branch that is preparing to go on a mission right now). I mostly worked in our part of the area and we had quite a few up and downs, but the week turned out good. We are helping a couple get married and then baptized named Ramon and Gloria. They have sure had some challenges in accepting the gospel, but they are progressing good still. This week that we taught them about tithing Ramon sure didn`t like that. I was in divisions with one of our zone leaders, Elder Camacho, and we taught a powerful lesson on tithing and Ramon and Gloria both accepted it. We went to the house of one of the neighbors the next day, (who is a less active) and turns out that Ramon had been complaining to her that he would never accept a church that made him pay 10 percent of what he received when they barely had enough money to buy their food. We were surprised that he didn`t say anything to us, but turns out that he was pretty mad and didn`t want to accept tithing even though he was too embarrassed to say anything during the lesson because we were both testifying to him. We went to their house and they said that they were going to stop listening to us because Ramon didn`t like that tithing was a requirement to be baptized. We explained to him that nobody is going to force him to pay tithing, but it is a commandment and he is going to be blessed for it. He told us that for right now they can`t pay more money because of their debts, but that maybe in the future when the debts are paid off. We left it at that, but it still is a barrier that we have to break before they can be baptized. They went to church on Sunday and liked it a lot. 

On sunday we had a huge attendance. The total was 104 people at church and we couldn`t even fit all the people in the sacrament room of the house. We had the most packed class of investigators/less actives that I have seen too so that was a huge blessing! 

We've got to go get teaching right now, but there is a little update of what happened last week. We had a little problem last night and our 3rd companion got shipped out to another area. I am now with my original companion again and we are going to have to figure out how to run 2 areas with just 2 missionaries right now. Wouldn`t talk to anyone and locked himself in his bedroom. We had to have the zone leaders get involved and they shipped him to another area of Palmira. It is just a little mission drama of course, but we are hoping this doesn`t cause gossip in the ward. Elder Cabrera (my old companion and one of my best friends in the mission) actually just got done with his mission and finished in another part of Palmira. It worked out alright because the other elder went to replace Elder Cabrera. 

Anyways that is my letter for this week, the Church is true and we saw miracles this week! Now we just need to put some baptismal dates.. Pray for us!! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong