Tender Mercy at Church

Wow, I am so glad you guys got to have dinner with the Palmer's and Colombians! How are the Palmer's? Have they finished their house yet? Let me know, I miss them! And how did you like the food? The food here is good, and everyday we have rice and meat and a "salad" because the salads are vinaigrette with tomato and onion, but I like them. and the Empinadas? How did you like those? I usually eat those for breakfast or sometimes dinner, but its a daily necessity.  Does the family live in the south or north mission?  I would really like to meet them!

That's cool you got to talk to the patriarch! I read my blessing almost every month, and its interesting the new meanings different parts have meant to me as I have different experiences. One experience I had was I read it this week, and was kind of not focusing and read the story of Jacob in the Old testament one day, and later that same day a member called who is preparing to receive her patriarchal blessing and I was able to explain a little better the importance of the Tribes of Israel, and how my blessing has helped me in my life because I read it that same morning.

With our investigators we had a little progression. A the man who didn't want to listen to us at first returned from Cali because he didn't like it there.  So we are able to continue teaching him, the problem now is they aren't married and that's what we are working towards now.  Nobody is married here because it is expensive and the people don't have a lot of money.

We invited a ton of people to church again this week, and went to pick up three different families and none of them came, during the sacrament I was remembering all of the mistakes or things i could've done better and I felt like it was my fault none of our investigators attended.

But a tender mercy for me because in this moment I felt a feeling of comfort, as I remembered my Savior and he too was rejected. Then I turned around, and the family that was hiding from us two weeks ago showed up!!! 

During church as a district we had so many investigators during the gospel principles class we didn't have enough seats.  It was amazing!!

I get to see elder Amick almost every day.  I truly am so blessed to have a friend here like him. We always do something on p day.  Usually go to lunch and play soccer.  He got robbed again this week, some kids with screwdrivers.  I haven't got robbed yet though, thanks for the prayers!

My study patterns in the morning are improving.  I am reading the Book of Mormon and conference talks, and if i have time I'll review lessons in preach my gospel. During companion ship study we just read the missionary handbook and talk about how to help our investigators.  We have 12 weeks, which is for new missionaries. not my favorite part of the day, we watch videos and do practices. By the time it is language study my brain is too fried to study so I usually just play with the rubix cube my comp has, and he explains it to me in Spanish so I am improving.

Colombian delicacy.

Tasty!

We usually get home around nine, and our apartment complex has a security guard and razor wire so I feel pretty safe. The first six weeks our door was broken and wouldn't lock, but we got that fixed and yes we lock the door now.

View outside our complex.

Other than that all is well in the mission.  Let me know how everyone's week goes.  Love you all!

Elder Donaldson