Week #78- always learning how to overcome the challenges that we face!

Today we will receive the transfers, so we will find out what will happen, if I leave or if I am going to stay one more transfer. This morning we made pancakes for breakfast and they were so good. This week was awesome we had some good success and we have helped the area progress a lot this transfer. There is still a lot of room to improve, but I feel good with what we have done this transfer. This transfer has been a little crazy with the emergency transfers and everything, but I have learned a lot. Just a few weeks ago we were wondering how we were going to manage the area, and now we have settled into a rhythm and we are doing good. We have amazing investigators that we hope will progress. Yesterday I was invited to a baptism in my last area, and President Boswell gave me permission to go. It was really awesome to see all of the members and everyone from Las Magnolias. Yesterday we weren’t able to proselyte for very long, because of the baptism, but the baptism helped me remember what my purpose is. It has been a while since I have had a baptism. Yesterday gave me more energy to challenge our investigators to be baptized. I really want a baptism, and I feel like I will have one soon, and then of course take them to the temple. I am ready for whatever the transfers say, I know that whatever happens it is for the best. I always learn from my companions and from the people that we teach, always learning how to overcome the challenges that we face. 
Love, Elder Monson

Week #77- really good, a lot of problems, but really good!

This week was really good, a lot of problems, but really good. We were able to find a lot of new investigators this week that are actually married. One of the families that we are teaching are going to get married soon. The mom of the family went to Bolivia to get her legal papers to be able to get married and then get baptized. We are really excited and we really think that we will see the fruit of our labors this next transfer. The branch has been starting to help more and more and we entered every class yesterday and committed them to bringing a reference next week. We plan on doing this a lot so that we can help the branch progress. We believe that if we recieve even 5 references from the whole branch that it will be a success. When members give references, we have a lot more success. We were able to have 9 investigators in sacrament meeting this week, it was crazy, when werent expecting so many to come. We had a few investigators and less active members come to church that we had pretty much given hope on, but they just showed up. It was awesome! Last week they gave us some big news. Next week we are going to be visited by some general authorities and the best part is that Elder Bednar is going to talk to us. There will be about 6 general authorities talk to us next week. I am really excited. The weather has still been pretty cold, but slowly getting warmer
That's all for this week. Love, Elder Monson

Week #76- I had a good (20TH) BIRTHDAY!

This week was pretty good. We were able to put the Baca Family to a baptism date for the 22nd of August. They are awesome and we gave them each a book of Mormon to read so that they can strengthen their testimonies. The father of the family is the only one that is being hard, He told us that he isn’t really interested in what we are teaching, but he has really good questions when we teach him. We feel like he is trying to find something wrong about the church. But he told his wife that if she wants to get baptized that she can. Belen is awesome and believes everything that we teach, and we have had the support from the members with this family. We have visited them with 3 families, so they have a few friends in the church. We hope to help the whole family be prepared for baptism, and we are thinking about what to do if the whole family isn’t ready for the 22nd. If we should postpone it so that they can all get baptized together or do them separated. We had a lot of our appointments fall this week so we were a little bit sad and I feel like we need to work harder. We need new people to teach so that this area can progress, so I want to contact more people. I had a good birthday, we just had a small party with my pensionista and I bought a cake. It was really fun. My pensionista and her family are awesome. I got the package. Thank you so much, I loved it! The ties are awesome!  The shoes are really big but I am trying to make them work by putting cotton and cardboard in them haha {Insert from sister: "Isn't this just the biggest game?! We send him shoes and they are too small, so we send bigger ones, and they are too big! Seriously! And you can't exactly find shoes in his size in Peru!}
Love, Elder Monson

Week #75- I feel that God has really blessed me!

This week was pretty good. The members have started to help us a little bit more. We found an amazing new family that I believe is a chosen family that is ready to progress. The mom (Belen) of the family has been in a few churches, but hasn’t gone for a while and she told herself that if God wants her to go back that He would send someone to her. That someone was us, about a week ago we contacted her and her family as they were waiting for a bus and we talked to her about our message and we had to hurry and write down her address before she got on the bus, we didn’t have time to schedule a date to go to her house. On Wednesday we had an appointment at 11 so we went to this appointment really excited to visit our investigator, but he didn’t have time, so we decided to look for a few of the contacts that we had done. We went to Belen’s house to see if we could schedule another day to visit her, not expecting that her husband would be home, but he was, and she happily let us in and we were able to share a small message with them and schedule another appointment with them. The next time we went we went with a member and they made friends right away and now we are going to have a family home evening with them tonight and the members’ family. They were able to go to church yesterday as well and she says she believes everything that we have taught them, we plan on giving them a baptismal date for the 22nd of August the next time we are able to visit them. They found many friends in the chapel yesterday and the kids had a fun time in Primary. We are really excited for them and I feel that God put them in our way. We really need to talk to everyone, I kind of didn’t want to talk to them the day we contacted them because they weren’t going to have much time and it would have just been a useless contact I thought, but really they are a family that God wants to progress and find the truth. I was able to fast for them yesterday and I feel that God has really blessed me and them. 

Love, Elder Monson

Week #74- emergency transfers, new companion: Elder Piscoya!

This week was crazy; my companion had emergency transfers so I am with Elder Piscoya from Chiclayo, Peru. He was in the same branch with me and his companion also had transfers so now it is just us 2 in this huge area. Me and Elder Campos were having a lot of success this week, we had two days in a row with 40 contacts and 4 lessons. It was awesome and we hope to have a lot of new investigators from these contacts. I felt really good in the Temple this week. I went in to the Temple with a question like you taught us and I feel like I received an answer. My question was what I could do to be a better leader. I felt that I just need to continue as I am and be more direct with other missionaries and be more confident in myself. I wish we could go to the Temple more often. I always feel so amazing in the Temple. It helps me relieve the stress that we have as missionaries. The emergency transfers that we had have been hard. In both of our areas we had appointments so we have had a hard time deciding what to do and where to go. We are still trying to figure out how to do things here. I feel like it will be harder to contact because we will be using more of our time in a bus going to the appointments. The members were pretty affected by the transfers, but our branch President didn’t seem to care too much and is kind of mad because he thinks that they have been helping us and supporting us a lot. He is a great president but he just wants numbers and baptisms, not really converts. We have amazing investigators in our areas but there are a lot that aren’t married. We should have 2 couples that are going to get married this month to be able to get baptized so we are pretty excited for that. I have been changing my contacts pretty regularly. The last time was about 2 weeks ago. They clean the church just like in Utah they assign members to clean it.
Love, Elder Monson

Week #73- new companion: Elder Campos!

This week has been pretty good. I got a new companion and I am training now. My companion is Elder Campos from Costa Rica. I think he is the tallest companion that I have had but he is still pretty short compared to me haha. I have kind of had a hard time guiding the area but I feel like we had a decent week. My companion is getting better at teaching every day, but I feel like I need to let him talk more even if he only gives short parts. We have been doing a lot of practices in the 12 week program and he is getting better. I feel like I have set a good example for him in doing things right, but I need to teach him how to do things better. I am still getting used to training, but I know that little by little I will get a hold of it. I now have a new record in contacts after this week. I have never talked so much in my life, and it’s awesome. My companion is a little shy with new people and I was too when I started but I hope to help him lose his shyness so that he will be able to have more success. It is kind of hard having to do everything and trying to teach my companion at the same time, but it’s fun and I’ve always liked to do things my way haha. I have never worked so hard in my mission and I’m loving it. Training gives me more motivation to do things right and to set a good example. The weather here has been really cold, and my hands are always freezing.
Love, Elder Monson

Week #72- the Book of Mormon is true!

This week was good. We were able to find more investigators that are amazing. This week we had some help from the branch as the branch President came with us to teach a few of our investigators, and to be able to enter houses to be able to teach. The women are always more receptive of the gospel so we have had problems getting into houses to be able to teach. Our branch president tried to remember how it was in his time as a missionary about 35 years ago and he taught me a really cool way to teach. It was awesome to hear his missionary experiences and how different it is now. He told us that back then it was all pretty much memorized lessons, but he showed us that they taught with pictures and visual things so that they could understand better. I loved how he taught and I want to apply it into my teaching, but change it a little to be more focused in the need of the investigator or the person we are teaching. My companion got his P. blessing yesterday so we did divisions so that we could still have our lessons. Also we had our zone meeting this week and they taught us about our studies. I loved it because it helped me improve in my studies to be able to be more prepared for the day. I really hope that I will be able to continue with my scripture study at home. I know that it is an important part of our lives, and that without it we will be lost. I have learned to love my studies in the morning. I have learned so much and have had great spiritual experiences during this time. It has strengthened my testimony a lot. I can now testify strongly that the Book of Mormon is true and that it has all of the answers that we need in our lives.
Love, Elder Monson