SEEING CHANGE OVER TIME - JANUARY 16, 2017

Arboleda Ward Missionary Squad

This week was super great and I loved being able to work with Elder Escobar again. The title of my email is Seeing Change Over Time because this week really helped me see how much I have changed as a person and a missionary. I loved it :) On Tuesday Elder Escobar and I got to know our new zone and honestly this is one of the best zones i have had in a long time from the looks of it! After the zone meeting we left to work and in our 1st hour of work together we had 3 lessons, 1 baptismal date, and 2 new investigators. There is something about the companionship in the missionary work that just changes everything honestly. We then had to go to the house of Zazil Ha 1 on Tuesday to help them with their materials in their new house. Then on Wednesday we had a really amazing day. We worked so hard the whole day and have really been focusing on finding new investigators and contacting literally everyone. We had 22 lessons in one day because we did divisions with the members. Honestly something that has been really hard for me this week has been only having less than half of the area that I had the last 4.5 months. We are in the outside part where it is just a small pueblo, which is good because the people are more humble, but it is hard because it is such a small area. We need to start going in the bus to the other pueblos more often to find more people to teach. But anyways we have been implementing a new missionary work plan with the members where each week one organization of the church has their turn to participate in the missionary work. A lot of times whenever we are always bugging all the members to help us out, we don't have much success. So we are trying to dedicate one week to each organization. This week we are going to focus a ton on the young men and we have 9 of them that want to leave and work with us this week :) It is really helping us to hit our goals and have people with us to be able to do divisions and have double the success. 

So working with Elder Escobar has really been something. It is really cool how we started up again like we were last February-May. The coolest thing about it though, i think, is seeing how much he has changed for the better. The 3 months I was with him last year i got to know every single thing about him, and I learned how he reacted to the things in his life. Seeing how much he has matured and changed makes me so happy. He has also commented the same thing to me... that I have changed a ton. It is really cool because we have this amazing chance to work together again and apply all the things we have learned and work even harder and more importantly smarter than we ever have. 

Elder Escobar

We had our leadership meeting on Friday with President and Hermana Ruiz with the assistants, which was great. We really focused on what is Obedience and how obedience brings the blessings. Obedience brings blessings, exact obedience brings miracles. I am excited to be able to share this message with the zone tomorrow. I cant believe it is already my 9th zone conference I am going to give. I was thinking this week about why the Lord keeps calling me as zone leader, and I learned that it isn't because I am the best zone leader, it is because I still have things I need to learn in this assignment :)

On Saturday Elder Escobar and I decided to leave 1 hour early to work. So we left at 10am and weren't going to go back to the house till 9pm. If you think about it, it is kinda crazy how long we are outside each day. But anyways the opposition was really strong that day... we were talking with everyone but no one wanted anything. That was when we went with a less active and found that they have a 9 year old nephew that lives with them that isn't baptized and wants to be baptized. His name is Carlos. He has a baptism date for Feb 4th :) The goal is to get his parents activated again! 

So it has been really cool to have sister missionaries in the Arboleda ward too. It feels like this ward is getting super hyped up. Like I said it has just been weird to not have my part of the area. But I have learned something about myself that I love teaching and helping people. I spent a ton of time teaching the sisters everything about the area and their investigators etc :) Their names are Hermana Muñoz from Mexico and Hermana Cordova from Peru! I put a picture below of the "missionary squad" with our ward mission leader Hermano Quiroz in Arboleda. Today we had to go help the sisters to move in to their new house and pay and sign the contract again and move all their materials like desks and fridge etc. We lost about 3 hours of our P-Day which like a year ago would have made me have a breakdown haha but honestly I just love serving so much. 

Also I heard the Dallas Cowboys lost at the last second and I am happy I didn't see that because I know how I am and I know I would have totally been crying... the mission has changed me but it hasn't changed my love for the Dallas Cowboys... if anything it just makes me love them more :) Next year they will win the super bowl hahahaha. Anyway I love this work and I saw a scripture i really liked. 

13 Yea, and that same God did establish his church among them; yea, and that same God hath called me by a holy calling, to preach the word unto this people, and hath given me much success, in the which my joy is full. 

I hope you guys have a great week i love you!

Elder Plowman