Nov 17th, New Investigators!

This week we had a total of 4 new investigatores! It is pretty difficult to find people to teach because almost every person says they are catholic and they arent interested. But this week we visited with a lot of members asking for refrences for people we could teach. This one member said she had 4 families that she wanted to go and visit. When we went to church yesterday she said that one of the families wanted us to come at 3 that afternoon. We went over and visited the family with Hermana Itureli. They have taking lessons in the past and know a little bit about the church which is good. While we were there Hermana Itureli gave a really strong testimony which really got them excited to learn more. We should be going to visit the family again this Thursday.

This week we also had a show of talents. We invited all of our investigatores to come and they all said that they would, but none showed up. A lot of members showed up and other Elders investigatores showed up too. It was a really good night and everybody had a lot of fun. Elder Keck can play the violin really well, I think he is going to join a symphony when he gets back.

Our other investigatores arent really progressing that much. It was really hard to meet with them this week. We would always set up appointments to go visit them and then that morning they would cancel or they just wouldnt be at there house. We did stop by Hermano Ivans house and he was chewing coca still. We have commited him to living the word of wisdom about 5 times now but he still struggles with it. I think we are going to try and work on getting his faith stronger so he will act and live the word of wisdom.

We couldnt meet with any of our other investigators this week. With Jose, we had about 5 times we were suppose to meet with him but he canceled every single time. Then with Christian and Leonardo we have to have a member come with us to the visit because they are under 18. We have had a lot of members scheduled to come with us but they have canceled everytime.

Hopefully this next week we can meet a lot with our investigatores. Im really excited to meet with our new investigatores too, they seem really interested.

Love Elder Britt

My camera isnt working with this computer so Ill have to send pictures home next week of the show of talents

Nov 10th, La Guardia

This week has gone by really quickly. Im learning the area still and all the members but this ward is a lot better than the ward in Montero. In Montero only 40 people attended every week but yesterday 220 people attended. The bishop helps out a lot and so do the members. Its really easy to find members to go on visits with, we can usually get 2 or 3 lessons a day with a member. 

We have a lot of really good investigators in this area. Ivan and Paula are really interested but Paula is the only one that goes to church. Ivan told us that he hates talking to other people especially at church so its going to be hard to get them to go. We have also been working with him on the Word of Wisdom. Everybody is addicted to coca leaves and its really hard to get them to quit. He said he would start quiting little by little though, so thats good. He always loves our visits though. I think when we fix these 2 things he will get baptized. Then there is Christan and Leo Solice. They are 15 and 9. They are a part member family. They have taken all the lessons but are still waiting for an answer. I think we might have to end up dropping them soon. They never read or go to church like they say they will. I think if they dont attend church next week we will end up dropping them. Those are all of our investigators that we have taught a lot. We are still looking a lot for other people to teach.

So Monday night we we were walking down the street at night and there was this guy who yelled at us, ELDERS, and whenever people do that they are usually just drunk, but we ended up just going and talking to him. He told us that he was a member and wanted us to visit with him right then. He lives in an unfinished house on the second floor. When we got in there there was a ton of writings on the wall, it was really weird. I felt really uncomfortable there. He told us that he was working on the house and that is was his coworker that wrote that, so that made me feel a little better. He said he was only living there because he lives really far away and was only working on the house. I think we are going to go back and teach him sometime this week. 

This Friday will be a talent show for the Elders. My comp is going to play the Violin. I have no clue what Im going to do for it though. Ill just have to figure something out. Itll be a good time and Im looking forward to it. Thats about all thats happened this week. Time is going by so quickly! Ive been out about 4 months and It feels like I left yesterday. Things out here have been going really good though, Ive learned a ton and Im loving it.

Elder Britt

These are some scripture cases that a guy made me in the area. They are made for tiger, anoconda, and alligator. 

The picture is of the family Gusman. She had her baby about 3 days ago. We went over to visit her to see how she was doing and everything going fine for her. The baby and her are both healthy so thats good. 

Nov 3rd. Emergency Transfer

Tuesdayt night we had to go to Santa Cruz because of my companions knee. We did a lot of walking that day and because his knee is bad it was hurting him really badly. We tried going to a clinic in Montero but nobody would help us so we had to go to Santa Cruz. We went at about 8 at night so we had to spend the night at the assistants house. While we were there I was told that I was getting transfered to La Guardia, it´s the outskirts of Santa Cruz. I couldn´t go back to the house so my zone leaders went to the house to pack all of my stuff for me and they brought it to Santa Cruz for me. They did forget some of my stuff but I should be getting that stuff this week. This area has a lot more jungle and dirt roads than my last area. My area is really big too. We have about 4 neighbor hoods in our area and we have to take buses pretty much everywhere. My new comp is still from North America, Elder Keck, he is from Northern Utah. I´m kinda looking forward to when I get a Latino Companion because then it will be spanish all the time. I am living in a house with 7 other Elders, its really crazy. Its nice though because every morning we get to play soccer for our exercise because there are some many Elders livnig here. This area is really good though. We have a lot of investigators and a lot of support from the ward members. I dont know a lot of the people here but Im still learning. There are a few people from my group in the MTC here so it was really nice being able to talk to them and catch up. One of the investigators we have though is named Ivan. We are trying to get him to come to church but he doesn´t want to. He has a fear of talking to new people. But his wife is coming to church and she loves it. We are also working with him to try and stop chewing coca leaves. It´s a really big problem down here and its hard to get people to stop. 

Not much has happened since that. Next week I´ll be able to tell you more about this area and whats going on. I really like it here and my new comp is really good. We are going to be really busy teaching this week.

Love Elder Britt

Oct 27th. No Subject

This week we had some really good experiences. On Friday night we went to go visit with some less actives to try and get them coming back to church but they werent there, so we went to the house right next to them to just contact. They said that they had been taught by the missionaries before and the guy wanted to get baptized but his wife didn´t want to. But he didnt get baptized because he didnt want to get baptized alone. But when we went back he said that he was ready to be baptized and so was the wife. We should be meeting with them more this week and we will find out more about them this week. 

This week the president came and visited our house, it was pretty weird. We were doing our personal study then he called us and asked if he could come and visit us during out companionship study. He knew that we were struggling in our area because of some stuff that was going on and he helped us out a lot.  He taught us a lot about how to teach better and it was really nice. 

Every Sunday night we have a ward family home evening. After the meeting we went with some ward members to go visit Lidea Ferrel. She has been super sick these past few weeks. When we visited her this past week she said that her body was hurting so much. She had her foot amputated a while back and it got infected really badly and they were going to have to amputate more. When we went last night, we knew she was going to die. She couldnt move or talk anymore. It was really sad. This morning we went back to her house and she passed away. She was the only member in her family so we had a really good opportunity to share Alma 36 with there family and teach them where she is now. I also shared a scripture about the resurection and how she will recieve a perfect body. Their family was super happy, it was a good experience. 

Thats about all that happened this week.

Love,

Elder Britt

Oct 20th. Sick Week Again

This week my comp and I didnt´t work that much, my comp was pretty sick. On Wednesday, we spent the entire day in Santa Cruz because my comp is having problems with his knees. He needs to have a surgery on his knee sometime soon, luckily it is only a super small surgery. But there a 3 things that could happen because of his knee. He gets emergency transfered and I get a new comp, I get transfered with him, or we both get transfered closer to Santa Cruz, or we just finish this cambio and then he will get transfered to Santa Cruz. 

Thursday was an interesting day though. I had an intercambio with Elder Wertz. He´s in my group and we were in the MTC at the same time. It was a fun day. The lessons were a little hard though. He´s still struggling with his spanish and so I did most of the talking. The lessons were pretty tough but we did a good job. 

During the intercambio my comp got really sick and went to the hospital. He just got some pills and that was about it. We couldn´t work Friday and Saturday because he was sick. When you cant work, it´s the most boring time. All I did was sleep and read, thats about all you can do. But on Sunday we were able to work again and it was really nice. 

Thats about all that happened this week since we weren´t able to work a lot. I think this week will be a lot better and we will get a lot of lessons in. 

Love,

Elder Britt

Oct 13th. Sick This Week

Not a lot happened this week. Monday I was feeling really sick so after pday my comp and I just stayed in the house. Tuesday I was feeling a little bit better so we went out and worked that day and we gave a lot of blessings that day and worked hard. Then Wednesday we had service and during that I started feeling really sick again so we had to stay home that day too. I get sick here so much that I have earned a new nickname that all the latino Elders call me, vomit boy. Pretty much I get sick here nonstop. Hopefully my stomach will start adjusting. Im feeling a lot better but my comp is sick today so I dont know if we will be able to work today. Sunday was elections here and the entire town was dead. We couldnt leave our houseSaturday night and all of Sunday It was so boring. Somedays I just think, I dont really want to work today. The days where I dont work are the most boring days and go by so slowly. When we are able to work, time goes by so much faster. I hope that this next week will just be a normal week where we get to work a lot.

Right now we have about 3 really good investigators who are progressing really fast. Here, it is really hard to teach the Sabbath Day because everybody here has to work and its really hard to get people not to work. Also marriage is super hard to get people to do. It cost about 200 pesos to get married and about 7000 to get divorced so nobody here wants to get married. The last thing that is pretty hard to teach is the word of wisdom. Everybody here just drinks all the time, all day and ll night. Also, they are all addicted to these leaves called coca leaves. I think its what they make cocain out of but I´m not sure.

Other than that its been a pretty boring week. I´m looking forward to this week, hopefully we will get to work a lot more.

Love, 

Elder Britt

This is how we did the sacrament when we got stuck in for elections. They canceled all the meetings so we just had to do it at our house. It was slightly weird doing it at our house but thats fine.

Oct. 6th. Crazy People Here

I wrought a little bit about this guy, Daniel Sanchez, but I cant really remember what I wrought about him. But this guy is so crazy. We went to visit him this week and he said to us in english, With all respect Elders dont return. So we just left him alone for a few days and he called us and apologized and we set up a visit with him. When we went to that visit he told us a story that happened to him recently. He went to go visit his fathers tomb to put flowers there or do something. While he was there he saw a picture of this girl on her tomb. Im not sure how but he said a few moments later he went to the spirit prision and met that girl. He said they talked and then they ended up having sex, in spirit prision... Hes a super good guy but he just needs a lot of help. We mainly visit him to try and help the family. 

This past Tuesday, President had a big breakfast for all the Elders that are new and their trainers. It was really fun to see all my friends from the MTC and hear all the stories and hear how their spanish is doing. The food there was AMAZING. We had pancakes with really good syrup. I liked the food here for about one week then I got super sick of it. Its just rice everyday, for every meal. 

So when I went to go get my shot Thursday, they called us and told us that we needed to go back in, after we had already returned to Montero. Turns out they gave me the wrong shot. I dont know what they gave me the first time. 

This week we have to stay in the house sunday. There are elections here that day and it gets pretty crazy here.

Thats about all this week, Im looking forward to this week. 

Love,

Elder Britt

The first picture is Daniel Sanchez.

The second is our last district meeting since transfers are this week. The guy to the right is one of my really good friends here. His mission ends tomorrow, its really sad.