Pereira Life in the Rain Week 40

This week was an awesome one. After lots of weeks without people to teach and no one coming to church we have eight people with baptismal dates and three who came to church with us! I love all the people we are working with. 

I went on exchanges with Elder Rice this week. He was born in the same city as me on the same day! Kinda cray. We came to the mission together and now he´s my zone leader. We worked really hard and he taught me a bunch of cool ways to contact. My day with him was probably one of my favorite days of the last 10 months. 

Yesterday we had the opportunity to travel to Medellin to have a conference with Elder Clayton the president of the Seventy! The majority of the missionaries in our mission were there and it was sups fun to catch up with all the people. When Elder Clayton bore his testimony at the end of his talk it was honestly the most powerful thing I´ve ever heard. 

I also met an Elder Wilson from Gilbert who is the first Gringo I´ve met on the mission who has less time than me... There haven´t been gringos coming to the mission lately. The missionaries who finish their missions this coming week gave their final testimonies. It feels weird because I actually knew all of them. At the beginning of the mission I didn't know everyone so people left and I didn't notice. But now its different and it feels weird to say bye to all the homies. 

I got to catch up with my old companion Elder Piñate which was fun. He´s pretty much the same goob. I love him now tho. He still talks in an accent and gives everyone dirty looks.

Something about Colombia real quick. Something they say here is ¨Si Dios quiere.¨ In just about every situation the people here will use that phrase. To talk about going somewhere or doing something. It literally translates to ¨If God wants.¨ But what people always use it as is ¨No and I´ll blame God for not making everything perfect when I dont put any effort in.¨ We hear it a lot as missionaries. I love the words of James about this topic. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. 

Let us always submit ourselves to God so that he can draw closer to us. Doing his will and the will of his servants the Prophets will never be something that takes us away from God. God always wants us to follow the commandments. Do the things that you need to do. 

Love you homies lots