Mothers day. . . May 11th, 2014

Hey family! 

Well don`t have too much to say today other than thanks for talking to me yesterday! I loved to see your cute smiling faces and I can`t believe that I will be back home in less than 6 months to see everyone in person. The computer froze on me today so that is about all I will be able to write this week, but I am going to try and send some pictures here too. Love everyone and I will talk to you more next week! 

love,

Elder Armstrong

May 5th, 2014

Hi family! 

I am excited to talk to everyone next Sunday! I will be on the computer to skype sometime before 6 (4 your time) so plan on that. I will probably throw in a 5 minute phone call sometime this week to plan it more concrete so be ready for that surprise.. 

This week was alright, we made some progress in our zone so that was good. We were excited because we felt like we found some pretty good interested people this week, but the bad news is is that all the people we found didn´t end up going to church so that was a little disappointing.  I have been a little sad in these weeks because I have started to see some of my converts drift away from the church a little and be a little lazy in the attendance. I don´t know if you remember Miriam, Alex, and Shirley, the family that we helped get married and baptized in February, but they haven´t been to church for close to 2 months now. The problem with them is that both Alex and Miriam have jobs now and they work on Sundays every 2 weeks. Turns out that they think it is more important to go on little vacations on the 2 sundays that they have off instead of go to church. It is so frustrating to me. . . I guess I have to learn a lot of patience. We are pretty sure that the family has started drinking again too, so we are sad about that too. We aren´t able to visit them too much because they work so much now. I think it is one of the saddest things in the mission to see your own converts start drifting away from the church. They commited to go this Sunday finally, so we will see what happens. The other frustrating thing is the less active people we teach keep on commiting to go to church and don´t show up either. We have been helping these families so much and it seems like the least they could do is keep their word and go to church! 

haha well enough of my complaining but not sure why people don´t show up as much as we bug them. One thing that I am pretty different from Elder Laws is that I am so persistent when I try and commit people to do things. Maybe it is because I sold pest control before the mission, but when people try and say no to things or maybe don´t want something I guess I try and push pretty hard. Not sure if that is good or bad! It definitely isn´t what Elder Laws does and he has told me that I need to not be so pushy, but I think you just have to figure out the right balance. After all this is eternal life we are talking about and people don´t know what they are missing! 

Well this week we have the leadership conference on Thursday so that will always be good. We also have a zone conference coming up the next week and we are excited for that too. I will let you know how those events go. I am super excited to talk to everyone, and hope y'all have a great week! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong

April 28th, 2014

Dear Family,

Looks like everyone had a great Easter! I got the Easter package, so thanks so much for that! We had the 3 baptisms on Sunday morning and everything turned out great. President Prince even came to our baptisms because he had already gotten to know these investigators before. Paula, Cesar, and Sebastian were the names of the people that were baptized and they were investigating for about 2 years before. They were waiting on some papers to be able to get married so that is why they took so long. The brother of Paula came clear from London and did the baptism! We actually didn`t have to do a lot for this baptism because our ward mission leader planned the whole schedule and did the musical number and everything. We planned the baptism for sunday at 7 in the morning but the people who were going to get baptized didn`t even get there until7:30 so that forced us to start late. It was a little embarassing because Pres. and Sister Prince were there just waiting for the baptism to start, but the program turned out good. 

Well apart from our baptisms things are going just alright. My new companion Elder Laws is a good guy and is finishing his mission in just 2 months. In Samanes we have 2 more missionaries: Elder Mina and Elder Johnson. One is from Ecuador and the other is from Idaho. They seem to be working great and we already did a division with them this week. 

Well other than that we don`t have to much more to report. I have not really thought about what is going to happen after the mission and I don`t like to think about it to be honest! I guess I will have to start thinking and praying about that. I am kinda leaning towards going back to SUU in the spring semester, but we will see. I am excited to be able to talk to everyone here in a couple of weeks. Everyone have a great week and lets keep on working hard in the strength of the Lord! 

Love,

Elder Armstrong

p.s. I forgot my camera again so I will send pictures of the baptism and everything next week. 

April 21st

Hey Family, 

Sounds like a busy week! Easter for me was just a normal day of preaching the Gospel. I guess sharing the Gospel is probably one of the best ways to spend Easter. I actually didn`t realize it was Easter sunday, but I did know it was the "Semana Santa" (Holy week). In Colombia Semana Santa is super big and everyone has school break for 2 weeks. It is the holiday of Catholics so all the Catholics go nuts during this week. On Friday, the Catholics do a march through the streets and they marched in front of our apartments and had a mass right there in the street. It was kinda cool to watch because I haven`t been to a mass before. My companion was catholic before he joined the church so he was reciting all the prayers and stuff that they did! Elder Rocha joined the church 5 years ago and he is the only member of his family. I am always amazed how these converts seem to know so much and be such good leaders with so little time in the church. Elder Rocha always makes me answer all the questions and take control because he says that I have always been a member of the church so I should know all the doctrine and answers by now! 

Sounds like Tanner`s prom went alright. It is sure a lot of work there. In Kanab we pretty much just did whatever and had a good time! Maybe it is worth the effort to do all that work though. 

So now for the big news of the letter: the transfers!! They let us know the transfers yesterday and it is definitely a little crazy. I thought for sure they we going to ship me out of Palmira because I now have been here about 5 months. The assistants called us yesterday and said that my companion is getting transferred and I am staying in Palmira as a zone leader with another American. So the big news is that I am going to have someone from my own country as a companion! haha not sure what to think of it because this is pretty much unheard of in our mission. Am I going to forget all my spanish now?  Guess we will see. My companion is Elder Laws and he is from Idaho I think? I am sad to have to leave Elder Rocha because he has been one of my best companions and I have learned a ton from him. He is now going to another area as a district leader. 

We have been have some little frustrations because we don`t really have any investigators progressing right now. We do have Paula, Cesar, and Sebastian that are getting baptized this weekend, but other than them, we don`t have much. Marìa lucely and her granddaughter haven`t been able to come to church and we are wondering if they don`t want to get baptized or something. Eyesmit we kinda stopped visiting and she hasn`t gone to church either. The other news of the transfers is that they are going to send 2 more missionaries in our area again. We are glad because our area was huge. We have to organize everything super good though because now we have to give up a lot of investigators to the new missionaries that arrive. This Wednesday, it will be up to me to show everyone the new area and introduce all the investigators to the missionaries. 

That is about all the news of the mission right now. Thanks for the pictures! I will try and send some too. The week is the week of attendance in the mission and President Prince wants us to try and hit more than 1000 investigators attending church! It will be a ton, but pray for us that we can have some people attending and that we can find some great new people this week. Thanks for all your love and support and I will talk to everyone next week! 

April 14th, 2014

Mom and fam,

Glad you guys got home from the vacations and had a great time! That is so crazy to hear about Luke.. He will definitely be in my prayers. So glad he is alright though. This week we were kinda sad that Eyesmit and Alejandro did not get baptized :( It is so sad and frustrating because they are ready and have been investigators a lot of time but they just don`t want to accept a baptismal date yet. Things were going alright with them but we taught them the word of wisdom and now they say that they need time to be able to stop drinking coffee. The worst part about it is that they had their baptismal interviews and said that they know that the church is true and that they want to be baptized! We are not sure why they will not accept a baptismal date right now though. I guess we have to understand that everyone has their agency. We have already done several fasts for her and her son and I know you all have been praying a lot, but we have just kinda gotten to the point where it is her decision now. We know that she will be baptized eventually, but she might be someone that delays the baptism a lot. The only thing that we can think of is that she doesn`t know too many of the members yet. We are going to try this week fellowshipping them with more members so she can have a "social conversion" like our president says, but if this doesn`t work we are not quite sure what to do. My companion already thinks we should stop teaching her, but it is one of the hardest things in the mission for me: having to just drop investigators when you have invested so much time and effort into the people. 

So anyways, 4 baptismal dates that we had fell through this week. Alejandro and Eyesmit, and some investigators named Marìa Luz Ely and her granddaughter Tatiana. The area changed the attendance for baptism to 3 church attendances to be able to get baptized. Maria luz Ely and her granddaughter had to go to church this Sunday to get baptized this coming weekend, but when we got to their house to pick them up for church they were no where to be found. We are really confident about Marìa Luz Ely and Tatiana getting baptized, but it has just been a little hard for them to go to church. The bright spot of our area is that we have 3 baptisms set for the 27th. Their names are Paula, Cesar, and Sebastian. They are a family that have been investigating for over a here now and have always wanted to get baptized, but haven`t been able to because they weren`t married. They finally got the papers to get married and are going to get married on the 26th and get baptized the 27th. It is cool because the brother of Paula (who is already a longtime member) is coming from London to baptized the whole family. We are excited about these three baptisms and we will have to see what happens with the other 4 that were going to get baptized. 

This week we also had our last interviews with President Prince :( he will be leaving at the end of June and in comes our new President, a guy from Uruguay. Can`t believe time is flying by so fast! Hope you guys can finish out school strong and keep up the good work! Dad told me that Hannah got her mission call, but I didn`t know when she was leaving. That is great for her. Love you all.

Chao!

-Elder Armstrong