July 20th, Vacations

So this week, a lot of people were on vacations. It was pretty hard to find people to teach but we still had a decent amout of lessons and helped a lot of people.

So last night we had a really sad lesson but also a really good lesson. We had a lesson with our new investigator from Angostura. About 2 weeks ago her husband left to go to work and never came home. This week he send her a lot of bad messages and pictures and pretty much just said dont talk to me and dont look for me. He left her and her 2 daughters that are 12 and 3. She has been extremely said but told us that everything that she learned in the church and from us has really been helping her. She told us that when she gets really sad and feels like crying that she starts to pray and feels a lot better. Last night we taught her about adversities. She is progressing really well. She also told us that she is looking for work now that her husband left her and she found a job but they told her that she had to work sunday morning. She told them that she couldnt work at there because she wants to go to church. She has only gone 2 times and already loves going to church. She also asked us last night what she needs to do to be baptized. She has really likes the gospel.

This week we also taught some old investigatores, the Galarsa family. They like us teaching them and love to hear the "word of God" but they arent really that excited to come to church. We visit them about 3 times a week. We are really going to try and help them to start coming to church this next week. 

Other than that it was a pretty normal week. This week we should be visiting more people now that everybody is coming back from vacations. 

Thats about all that happened this week!

Love,

Elder Britt

July 13th, The Pope!

So this week we had a lot of things happen that made it so we couldnt work. First off, the Pope came and everybody almost died here. Almost everybody asked us if we were going to see him. He came on Thursday but we werent able to work wednesday and thursday. Then last night we were walking to a visit that we had on the other side of our area and all the lights went out. The lights were out from 7 until 9. Our zone leaders just told us to go home because it was dangerous and even if we did find somebody to teach we just would have been talking to them in darkness. But with all of the things that happened this week, we had a really good week and a lot of lessons. We found a lot of old investigatores this week and started teaching them again. Yesterday 4 of our investigatores came to church which is a ton for this area. We also had a lot of help from one member this week. His name is Hermano Domingo. In english it would be Brother Sunday. Hes a really good member here. Hes about the only person in our branch that will come with us to visit our investigatores. He is always willing to come with us, pretty much every day, 6 untill 9. He really helped us this week and we had a lot of good lessons with him.

So this week we had a few hard lessons. We had some more lessons with the Polanco family. He asked us a lot of questions this week again but I was able to answer a lot of them. Then we had another lesson with la hermana Gaisa. Shes our new investigator that lives in Angostura. Her husband recently left her. Or thats what she thinks. He was suppose to come home from work about a week ago and he didnt come home and she said that he blocked her number in his cellphone. So from all of that she thinks that he left her. It was a really hard lesson. I was just thinking the entire time what I could share with her to help her. I shared 1 nephi 18. I just thought about a confrence talk that talked about being grateful and that being grateful will help us with all of our problems that we have. I shared with her verses 15 and 16 how nephi was about to die while he was on the boat traveling here but he still praised God. I think we were able to help her a lot. She came to church the next day and looked pretty happy. 

This week went really well. This week we already have a lot of visits planned so I think this week will be good!

Elder Britt

Also I tried to start cooking this week a bit. I bought some meat and cooked it. It tasted pretty good actually. I thought you would be pretty proud. Also I started cooking pancakes for breakfast and they were really bad at first but I can cook them pretty well!.

July 6th, COLD

So this week has been extremely cold. This letter is pretty hard to type because my hands are so cold. We have had a little bit of problem with the cold. We usually go to somebodies door and then they answer and ask us, why are you guys out in the cold?? Go to your house its freezing outside! You guys can come back when its not so cold! So we have had a few people reject us because its been so cold and rainy. This week should be the same weather so hopefully it will can find a few people to teach this week.

My comp is really good. He has about 6 months in the mission but is really quite. He doesnt talk that much in the lesson or in the streets. I pretty much do all the talking in the lessons now which is alright but it was a little weird in the beginning. But the lessons we have with him are really good.

This week we had a lot of interesting lessons. We started teaching a new family this week called the Polanco family. I feel like hes really testing what I know as a missionary. He always asks me the weirdest questions and ive been able to answer almost all of them. He asks me question like, lets say im in a place where there isnt your church, should I just go to a Jehovas Witness or should I just stay at home? He always just pulls out the weirdest questions but Ive been able to answer all of them! Pretty much our lessons are we teach one simple doctrine and then he asks us about 5 random questions that kind of relate to that doctrine. We teach another doctrine and then more questions. He told us that he agrees with everything that we have taughten him but he has so many more questions for us. He told us that we would come to church this next sunday. He told us that the only thing he doesnt like about out church is that we dont have a pastor that just teaches from the bible and that the member give the messages. He thinks its a little different but can get use to it. I think he might be able to progress pretty well even though he has so many doubts. 

This week we have also been visiting a recent convert a lot. They have a lot of problems with the family and money problems. They told us that the father owes money to about 4 different banks and they are a really poor family. They also have a lot of problems in their family and they dont really get a long. It was really weird teaching them. Pretty much I just shared a lot of stories with them that Ive read from the confrences about families that have applied the gospel in their family and it has helped them a ton. The first night that they visited them, everybody was really mad with each other and pretty much everybody was fighting, especially the husband and wife. The next day we went back to visit and everybody was a lot happier and we had a really good visit. The wife in the end asked for forgiveness for everythings and they were all really happy. They told us that they would all start reading and praying together. It was a really good lesson.

Overall this week we didnt have to many lessons but I felt like we helped a lot of people this week. It was a pretty good week. 

Elder Britt

June 29th, No Subject

So this week was my birthday and a lot of members did a lot of nice things for me this week. The area that Im in is very humble but some families made some small sacrificies and did some small stuff for me. First of it was a lot of peoples birthdays in the zone so when we went to district meeting they bought a cake for all of us. After the district meeting we stopped by a big store and bought 2 giant pizzas. They were soooooo good. After that a members did a few things for me. Our pension made us tacos to celebrate too. They were also really good! It was a good birthday in general.

This week the work was a little bit slow. We had some hard time finding people to teach. This week we went back to another really small town called angostura and found some more families. Its about 40 minutes from El Torno so we are trying to go about every saturday because its so far. We have found four families in that city and they are all progressing pretty well. The hardest thing for us out there is that we are really far from El Torno so on sunday people dont really want to go to church. They would rather walk 2 minutes and go to a catholic church than pay for a bus ride, travel 40 minutes to el torno and then travel back to angostura after the meetings. We are hoping that they will come.

We have decided to drop a lot of our investigatores in El Torno though. They have been listening to missionaries for a long time but dont ever progress. We are going to try and just find some new people to teach in El Torno. 

Thats about all that heppened this week. It was a pretty good week. 

Elder Britt

June 22nd, No Subject

So this week was really good. I didnt get transfered this week but I did get a new comp. Hes elder Perez. I lived with him before when I was in carmen so I already know him. Its going be a really good transfer with him. He has 6 months in his mission and is from cochabamba. Ive been in the area for 4 months now and in the zone for almost 9. Pretty much all of my mission has been in la guardia.

This week we found a lot of new investigators. We went to a small village place about 40 minutes from our area called Angostura. The peole who live there are very poor. We went with a member and she want us to visit with about 8 of her friends. All of them are pretty good but the best one that we found are Luis and Mercedez. We visited them 2 times this week and are pretty intrested. Luis is pretty much paralyzed and is at the point of dying. We taught them the plan of salvation and they really enjoyed it. They even invited their nephew to start coming and visit with us. We are going to start going to angostura every saturday now to try and find people and visit with the people there.

We had to drop a few of our old investigators this week. Alexander was really really close to being baptized but he started talking with his catholic friend and now he doesnt even want to talk to us anymore. We asked him when we could visit him and he told us in 3 weeks. We decided to drop him for a while and see how things go in a few weeks.

Im really happy that I didnt get transfered from El Torno. This area is really good. Elder Perez is a really good missionary and we are going to do a lot of work in the transfer. RIght now we are mainly just working to get the assistence up so we can get a chapel here.

Thats about all that happened this week.

Love

Elder Britt

June 15th, No Subject

So this morning I had a small operation on my eye. Ive had a stye in my eye for about 3 months now. I went to the hospital and they were just like, yeah, nothing is happening with the cream we gave you. Lets just cut it out. So they numbed my eye up and cut it out. I have a huge eye patch on my eye and its really hard to read all the emails I got. Ill be able to take my eye patch off at 3 in the afternoon. This week had a really good multi zone conference. President pretty much changed the entire meeting. He was going to talk about the sabbath day but at the last minute he changed the whole meeting to Alma 39. He was pretty much talking to all the disobedient elders trying to help them. He talked about how a good elder doesnt just all of a sudden become disobedient. He doesnt go from white to black over night. He slow changes and them becomes disobedient. The only bad thing about the confrences is that we have to wake up at 4 in the morning to go to them because we live so far away. But it was a really good meeting. This week I wasnt able to work in my area that much. Im pretty much just going with 2 other elders to there area. We have had some really good lessons in their area but I still dont know the people to well. We are having our transfers on Thursday. I think there is a good chance that I might go. Ive already have 4 and a half months in this area and 8 month in the zone. I dont know whats going to happen this transfer. Not too much happened this week. I hope Ill stay in my area and have a good new comp to work with. Love, Elder Britt This week a lot of members gave us a ton of food too. It was really good. And the elders that im with had a baptism so that was really fun too.

June 8th, No Subject

So this week was a pretty normal week.

On Friday my comp and I had interviews with president and right after that he got emergency transferred. So right now im in a trio with the 2 elders I live with. Im waiting right now to recieve my new comp. We have our next transfers June 18th so I think im going to have to wait till then. Its hard being in a trio, I feel like I dont get that much time to teach now but Ill just have to get used to it.

So this friday we were suppose to have a baptism of alexander but things with him fell through. He had his interview Thursday night and he told the district leader that he wanted to wait another week. We had a visit with him the next day and he told us that he is going to go work with his uncle in a few weeks and that there isnt a church where he is going. He would pretty much be baptized and then just become a less active. I dont know whats going to happen with him but I dont know if he is going to get baptized.

This week I also got a little sick with a cold and my throat has been killing me. Its been really hard to talk to people but Im getting over it now so this week should be really good!

This week we are going to have a lot of visits because our 2 areas are now one area. We have a ton of families to visit and we are going to be very busy. Hopefully we have a lot of really good visits this week.

Love you guys,

Elder Britt