Sounds like everyone is kicking off the summer big! Looks like there were a lot of fun activities last week. I have had a great first week starting out in Pasto here. It was super sad having to leave Palmira and I think I can say that I left my print there, but you always have to move on.
Pasto is actually a pretty big city, bigger than Palmira. I was thinking that it would be like a little village in the mountains, but there are definitely a lot of people and members. It is a stake here, and I can definitely tell why Palmira is still a district and here in Pasto is a stake. The leadership is so much deeper and it seems like people are a little more organized here. I got here and for the first time in my mission went to a executive comittee (a meeting that is supposed to be held every week but most people don´t do it). The church here is being remodeled so we had to go to the stake center (about a 15 minute drive away) which is actually a huge church and I got to play the piano and everything on Sunday. This Sunday the normal church is going to be back in function so we will be a lot closer now. They told us that in the normal church they had an average of about 170 people attending, but since they have been in the stake center it has dropped down to 120 people. Kind of sad that so many people stop going to church just for the distance, but I guess it is hard because there are a lot of poor people too. I always think of pioneers though and imagine that they would be willing to walk 2 hours just to go to church. We've got some work to do now to get the attendance back up to 180. We have already planned a international food activity on June 20th so we are excited to do that and hopefully get the ward members excited to attend church again.
In our district we have me and my companion, Elder Amasifuen, and the sisters. The sisters are named Sister Ponsiano from Mexico, and Sister García from Peru. They are great but everyone is super new (my companion has 4 months in the mission and the sisters have 3) and I am the one that has the time in the mission. It is weird to see my time start winding down and think how little time I have left, but I want to be able to make these last 4 months the best 4 months of the mission. My companion is from Peru and is a really funny guy. It is nice to have the energy of someone who is just starting the mission and we have been working hard. I got here on wednesday night after the 10 hour bus ride. There wasn't a whole lot to do because my companion barely knows anything about the area still. We were a little lost in the week, but we managed to secure 4 baptismal dates and now we have at least 3 baptisms that are scheduled for the 21st of June! It is kinda relaxing to be a district leader of just 4 people, but it is actually harder in some ways and I know that I have to help these missionaries out a lot that are super new.
The sisters are great as of now. The Mexican sister has been making us a lot of food and she always makes it super spicy! The other day she gave us a mexican dish and my mouth about caught on fire!! She cooks super good though and made us tacos the first day. The bad thing is that we are all out of money now because we all were pitching in to buy food. The mexican dishes definitely add up a little bit and now we probably won´t be eating as good this week..
Well that´s about all I have time to write this week, but I am excited here and things are going good. It gets pretty cold here, but someone left a little jacket in the house so I have just been using that. It is weird because some days it is really hot but then others are super cold. Thanks for all the prayers and have a great week!
-Love Elder Armstrong
p.s. The trip to Mexico sounds great and I would be down for that!
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