Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts! Ramon and Gloria ended up getting baptized and everything turned out great. Eyesmit and Alejandro didn`t get baptized :( but maybe they are not quite prepared yet. I will start out the letter and tell you a little bit about Ramon and Gloria.
I don`t know if I already explained about Ramon and Gloria, but we found them by pure accident! It reminded me about those stories of missionaries that you always hear; you know the missionaries knocking a wrong or random door and finding people that were already prepared to hear the gospel! Ramon and Gloria were those type of people. About 2 months ago we were looking for some old investigators, but turns out they weren`t home. We knocked and knocked but no one answered. We saw this old guy listening to music in the house next to us and he started talking to us a little (Ramon). He seemed kind of interested, so we shared a little bit with him. At first glance, we could tell that he didn`t really understand anything of what we taught, but he loved the visit and said we could come back any time. We didn`t think much of it because there are a lot of old Colombian people that just love to talk forever, but don`t understand anything! Maybe about a week later, we returned because all of our appointments fell through. That day we asked Ramon if he had read the restoration pamphlet, but he of course had tossed it aside and couldn`t remember anything that we taught him. That day we met his Wife, Gloria. She tryed to avoid us, but after calling her down as she was trying to run up the stairs she reluctantly came to greet us. It was a miracle that she even talked to us because she said she had listened to all the churches and that there never was going to be a church for her. We shared the restoration with her and testified that there is a true church and she seemed to be a little interested. Well long story short, that was when we started to visit them and it always was hard because Ramon understands very little, but Gloria started to get more and more interested. There were many miracles because almost weekly, Gloria would tell us that she was done listening and didn`t want us to come back. She had so much family opposition that she would tell us all the time to not come back, but there was just something that told her to listed to us one more time every moment that she told us no. It continued like that for about 2 months including Ramon telling us that he wouldn`t get baptized if he had to pay tithing! Finally with a lot of help they got baptized this last weekend! We are so happy for them and it was a battle until the end. Gloria, 2 days before her baptism, said that she was not ready and refused to get baptized this week because Ramon wasn`t acting like he was ready to be baptized. We gave her a lot of encouragement and prayed a lot and she accepted again although she said she felt really rushed into everything. The baptism and wedding turned out great, even though it was a super stressful day! They got married at 3:00 on Friday and got baptized at 6. I baptized both Ramon and Gloria. Ramon is afraid of the water and was freaking out and screaming as I dipped him in the water, but luckily he survived! The ward had a little Couple`s night for Ramon and Gloria after the baptism and that turned out super well too. The only bad thing is that we waited about 2 hours for the activity to start, but luckily it turned out good. I know that the Lord definitely helped us out a lot to have them be baptized! We are soo soo happy for them! Thanks for your prayers!
Well we were also hoping for a miracle with Eyesmit and Alejandro, but not this time. We are having some pretty big changes in the mission and one of them is that the mission is focusing basically more on retention and reactivating people, than baptizing. In almost all the wards of Colombia there are about 20-25 percent of the members that attend church. That means that if there are 500 members about 100 attend church. The area is having us focus more on "rescuing" people and retaining the converts that we already have. They now require us to have the investigators attend church 3 times instead of 2. That is basically why Eyesmit and Alejandro couldn`t get baptized this week, is because they only had attended church 2 times. Keep praying for them though because we are hoping that they will be baptisms for april now.
Well those are pretty much the highlights of the week! Our zone is doing alright, but there are some companionships that are really struggling because they are having to open area where there are no investigators. We are praying for them a lot so that we can be the best zone in the mission!! haha well maybe not the best, but at least have some good success.
Thanks for all the support, family, and I just hope that I can keep on improving every day and change to what the Lord wants me to become. Can`t believe that I`m only 6 months away from coming home! I still feel like I have so much more to learn and grow, but I will just try and make the best of these 6 months that I have left. Thanks for the letters!
Love,
Elder Armstrong
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