Monday, April 28, 2014

2014-04-28 He's really short.

me with Jose--he goes with us when we teach Christian's
 family, because he's Christian's buddy
Hey Everyone,

This was a fun week.  We are halfway through this cambio which is pretty crazy.

My current companion is Elder Severiano from Iquitos, Peru.  He's a good missionary and we get along great. We work really well together too. I'd be happy to stay a 3rd transfer with him.  He's really short.

Yep it's still getting colder.  This week has actually been really cold.  I'd guess that in the house it's 45ish degrees but I really don't know.

On Friday we left for Sucre at 8am and didn't get back until 10pm.  We had a conference there from 2 to 6. We got there at 11 so that gave us a little bit of time.  My companion started his mission in Sucre so we went to visit his old pensionista and we ate lunch there.  Sucre is a pretty place.  The whole city isn't white but the church where we had our conference was in the white part of the city so we got to see that.

We also had a stake priesthood meeting which was really good. One guy had a really good talk about home teaching and used Elder Bednar's talk that I think is called Powers of Heaven. Home teaching is a disaster in all of Bolivia.  In the wards where I've been I've never seen a month where even 5% of the members were visited.

It would make sense that seeing as how we have the only true gospel, and the power and authority of God that we would be very diligent in fulfilling or religious responsibilities.  I think that in general the reason that people aren't more diligent is that they don't have a strong testimony of the gospel.  Those who understand how important the gospel is and believe it to be true devote much more of their time to doing what God asks of us.

Esveld, who's planning on leaving for his mission in August, went with me on divisions.
I hope everyone has a great week.  Be faithful in your callings, even if you don't have a calling you are still responsible for helping others receive salvation.  There is plenty to do as a member of this church and that's the way it should be.  Pray and search until you have a testimony and then don't be lazy.

Love,
Elder Howlett