Episode 82: Great Opportunity to Improve Teaching Skills!

Hey everybody,

Things have been going well this past week. We have been working like crazy to help the people to attend church. And well, even though the majority of the people we had visited didn't attend church, it was still awesome because Jhon Jairo, the kid I talked about last week, attended church with his mom. We were super excited to see them there and they have just been really excited with the church as well. 

Something really crazy happened yesterday. We had talked with the Ward Mission Leader about having the Mission Cordination Meeting in the morning before sacrament meeting, and so we got to the church about 45 minutes early to be able to talk with him. But just as we walked in to the chapel, a sister came up to me asking me to play the piano for a special musical number. But the problem was that I didn't know the song and it wasn't a hymn so I had to learn the song really fast. It went okay so I has happy with that.

Well, things have been a little difficult with my companion. He is really great and all, but he is very quiet and I have to do everything before he starts to do it. But I have been able to learn a lot of patience so that's good and it has been a great opportunity to improve my teaching skills.

Well, the week after general conference our mission president gave us the goal to read all of the book of mormon in 6 months, and because I don't have 6 months, I decided to do it before I go home from the mission. This time I decided to focus my attention in all of the ways that the prophets or other people recognized the spirit and how they were able to recognize it, because I feel that it would be something very important to be able to help the people we teach to recognize the many ways to feel the spirit. I am currently reading in 2 Nephi and it has been very interesting to see the many witnesses that Laman and Lemuel received and that they continued being wicked, when Nephi from the beginning had been willing to obey.

As to the call for Mother's day it will be on Saturday.

I hope you guys have a great week!

Elder Parker

Episode 81: Lots of Fish and Sweets!

Hey everybody,

Well, things have been going okay this past week. The work has definitely been a bit slower because of all of the vacations that people are taking for Easter break. And here unfortunately the parties began Thursday and didn't end until yesterday so the few people that were in their homes weren't very interested in listening to us.

Here the big tradition for Easter is that they eat lots of fish and different types of sweets. We only ate fish like 2 times in all the week, but it was still really good.

About the baptism, the girl's name is Geinis Yepez. We are still working with Keila but she has been out of town all week so she probably won't be ready to be baptized t

he end of this month but we are still trying to see how soon she will be ready.

Also this week we have been finding some great new people. We were able to visit a young man that the missionaries had visited one time before and we had a great talk with him and he accepted a baptismal date and was very excited to attend church. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to go so we will have to keep working there.

I hope you all have a great week and I'll talk to you soon.

Elder Parker

Geinis' baptism

Episode 80:New Companion and a Baptism!

Hey everybody,

Things are going great here in Colombia. Today we had transfers and my companion left the area. I am still here but now with a new companion. His name is Elder Dávila and he is from Peru. He seems to be a great missionary so we'll see how everything goes.

Well, on Saturday we had a baptism. It was a young woman from the area of the other elders who left and so we ended up being responsible for everything. It was really great and even though we didn't do all of the teaching it was still a great experience. We have another investigator that we received from them named Keila who is preparing for baptism at the end of April. And the members who live in that sector are also very supportive and are frequently giving references so we have a lot of work to do.

Aside from that, everything has been very normal this past week. And word is that Elder Christofferson will be coming next week to talk to us so I am really excited for that. 

I'll keep you guys informed with everything that is going on with our investigators and everything else.

Have a great week and I'll try to send pictures this next week.

 

Elder Parker

Episode 79: Investigators Struggling!

Hey everybody,

Things are going well here in Colombia. The conference was so great and I loved all of the messages that were shared. But I have to say that I was not at all expecting the news that you gave me. It's really sad to know that Grandma passed away but it makes it so much better to know that we can see her again.

As to what is going on here, things aren't going too great with our investigators. We were talking with Ruggelis and he told us that he really has no interest in knowing if the Book of Mormon is true or not. We tried to explain its importance but he wouldn't listen. In the end we had to let him go because he didn't want to progress. Even though it was really hard for us, I can only imagine how much harder it was for his mom to hear him say that but she was very supportive even in sharing her own testimony of the Book of Mormon. I hope that in the future he will be able to change his mind.

Antonio is doing fine, but our struggle is that he works Sunday mornings. I really never imagined how much of a struggle it would be for some people to keep the Sabbath day holy but here it is one of the hardest commandments because it is such a large leap of faith stop working one day of the week when your family literally only eats if you work every day. It's something that we will have to keep working on with him.

Before seeing dad's letter, I had no idea that there were any problems here in Colombia but we just received a letter about a special fast Sunday this next Sunday for the victims of these struggles. Please let me know anything else that you are discovering.

Can I ask a favor? My companion would like a little information about studying in BYU. He is from Brazil and is interested in knowing about the options that exist to help students attend from other countries. If you could send me any information about that we would be very grateful.

Thank you so much for all that you do. I hope that all are well at home. Please send my love to Granddaddy and tell him that he is so special to me and that he will be in my prayers.

Have a great week,

Elder Parker

Episode 78: Questions Answered by the Book of Mormon!

Hey everybody,

Everything is going great here in Colombia. This week we have been looking for investigators like crazy and have been able to find a few people with a lot of potential to progress. One of them is a man named Antonio and he is just so great. We contacted him in front of his house and talked with him a little bit. He told us that his wife had passed away about 4 months ago. We were able to talk to him about the Plan of Salvation and the questions that are answered in the Book of Mormon about what happens after death and it was awesome. At the end he said "I'm not sure if you were sent here by God or not, but this has been so great to hear." 

We also have an investigator named Ruggelis that we have been working with and on Saturday we were talking with him and just trying to answer a ton of questions that he has and at the end of the lesson he accepted a baptismal date and even attended sacrament meeting for the first time. We are going to talk to him tonight to see how he felt with everything.

With Duvan's family we still haven't been able to make any progress but we are trying to talk a little better with his dad. We were working with his brother but he still hasn't made any efforts to change so we haven't been working with him as much. 

I'm not sure about the progress on the temple but the last time I saw it they had finished the basic structure and were starting to work on the roof. I'm not sure as to where they are now but I believe that the estimated date of completion is in 2018.

Have a great week,

Elder Parker

Episode 77: Señorita Colombia Lock Down!

Hey everybody,

Well, I am writing today because all of the internets in our area were closed yesterday because it was a holiday. But unfortunately I don't have much time because we have to start to work soon.

I'm glad to hear that everything is going well back home. This past week we had a bit of a surprise because Cartagena was the host of the Señorita Colombia beauty pageant this past weekend, and because of that we were closed in our house every night after 4pm. It was not a very productive week but one of the good things is that Nataly was able to be baptized. But because of the close-in we were not able to attend the baptismal service but everybody told us that all went well, but now we don't have a picture of the service. But with that baptism we now don't have anyone who is actively preparing for baptism. This week will be more-or-less pure contacting until we have more people to work with.

This week I read 2 Nephi 27 during my personal study and some things that really stood out to me are all of the prophesies about the restoration and Joseph Smith. It really is amazing to think of the extent of depth that was put into the prophesies, such as details about the education of Joseph Smith and the losing of the manuscript. And even more interesting is that many of the prophesies come directly from the book of Isaiah. It  really shows that the Bible and the Book of Mormon testify that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.

Thank you so much for all of your support. I have been able to learn so much this week about the love that God has for me and it's more more than I can explain over an email but I really know that God is my Heavenly Father and he loves me more than anything. Even to the extent that he has entrusted me with his most precious harvest. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and that the church that he restored is the true church.

Have a great  week,

Elder Parker

Episode 76: After Baptism Everything Changed!

Hey everybody,

Everything is going great here in Colombia. We just had a little bit of rain yesterday so things were a little bit cooler.

Also Nataly was interviewed and is all ready to be baptized on Saturday. We are really excited for her and the ward is too which is great because we are hoping that we have a good attendance at the baptism.

Also today I found out that Jhony's mom got baptized. I don't know if you guys remember, but Jhony is one of my converts from when I was in Las Moras. It's great because when I was there she didn't want anything to do with the church but when her son got baptized everything changed.

And well, here in Castellana there isn't very much going on right now. We don't have very many investigators so we have been trying to find new people to teach. More than anything we have been knocking doors but with very little success. We are trying to find some new strategies to find investigators this week. One of our ideas is to visit a family of members every day to try to excite them for mission work and to receive references. We are also using the area book to look for old investigators.

I hope you guys have a great week.

Elder Parker