January 2, 2018 – Week 66!

February 05, 2018

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2018 IS HERE!

This week was pretty cool. Started off with Christmas and ended with a new year.

I'm not sure why, but this week I was stressed about teaching in district meeting, but I prepared the lesson like I normally do each week, and just went forward. During the lesson, it seemed like things were going a bit slow, but then at the end of the lesson, I felt better. I felt like it was the right thing to teach, and I felt more happy and relieved! It just shows that even when things can be stressing, as long as we are doing the right thing and move forward, all will work out well. That day we also had divisions with the zone leaders. I lead Elder Mena around our sector for a few hours, and we were able to invite an investigator (Diego) to baptism! He accepted the baptismal date! We'll be working with him to help him come to church so that he can keep progressing up to his baptism in February!

I also had intercambios with Elder Torres this week, and they went well! He only has 2 transfers in the mission, but works really well! He'll be finishing his training in a week, because on the 9th of January are our transfers.

Valdivieso2 (the sister missionaries) had a baptism this past Saturday too! It was a kid who had been going to primary for years, but never got baptized, and so the sister missionaries taught him everything in 2 days and his uncle baptized him! 9 years old, and he's got a great future ahead of him now that he's made that covenant with God! It's so great to see kids who have a great desire to follow Christ in their lives. They'll make great leaders of the church later on!

On Saturday we had lunch with the bishop, and he told us lots of stories from his mission. He's an awesome bishop! His son is learning to play the guitar from YouTube lessons, and he was practicing as we got to their house. I saw him and it gave me the desire to pick up lessons again. The guitar is so cool! Then in the night the bishop texted us saying that we had talks to give on Sunday because they'd be talking about Missionary Work. So I went ahead on Sunday morning and wrote my 10 minute talk. It didn't turn out exactly as I planned, but I hope it was organized enough so that people could understand it! haha. On Sunday we also attended the class of JAS, (YSA), because all the investigators were in Young Womens / Young mens, or in other classes. It was funny because everytime they talked about something that happens after the mission, they'd say "excluding the missionaries" haha.

That night we heard fireworks SO LOUD. We heard that it was one of the craziest New Years with fireworks. We asked some of the young recent converts to grab videos of the fireworks from up top in the hills, and they did! I'll have the videos to show when I can respond to and see their Facebook messages. It's crazy! It sounds like a war is going on, and there is so much smoke afterwards. We had to stay in our rooms as missionaries, but it's alright. It's safer that way! People get hit by fireworks when they're up high.

On Monday almost everything was closed, so as a zone we went to ride bikes in Miraflores, near the Ovalo Miraflores. I spent the time teaching my companion a bit on his bike, and it was a good p day! There were a few people from the USA passing by, or from England, but either way, they were speaking English and it was cool haha. 2 people from New Jersey talked to us and asked us about where we rented the bikes. We then started talking and I explained that we were missionaries. They weren't really religious, and it was funny to hear some not too great words after so much time of not hearing English, but they were kind! They had lots of questions about missionaries. They didn't even know much about Utah. Crazy to hear perspectives of others that live far away from you. It's not like you'd expect!

Well, that's about it for 2017. Our mission finished the year with 996 baptisms (SO CLOSE TO 1000), and in December we reached 129 baptisms. It's been a great year, but this next year will be even better! 2018 baptisms in 2018 is the goal! MINIMUM. Great faith brings grand miracles!

Hope you all have an awesome 2018! Be safe, don't party too hard, and always remember the Savior!

Con much amor,

Elder Bruner