Elder Ronald Santacruz: The mission is for me

hey everyone!!

This week was pretty interesting!

First we found out that there was a missionary in our ward and he is on a mission in Mexico, so we wanted to visit the family and see how they were doing. We found out who is was and it was a mom and dad that lived there and they were not members and so we sat down with the mom and the dad didn't want to talk to us so he went in the house. The mom talked with us and she asked us questions about the mission and the rules and then she asked a serious question she said, "why are you serving a mission? elder mata and I looked at eachother like this lady is crazy because she asked us really seriously. We told her that we are serving our heavenly father and she said give me a better answer than that. She said why can't missionaries talk more than 2 times a year? She said thats just wrong to not let their parents talk to their kids and so we told her its for the missionaries to not get distracted and she just told us that we are fools and that she will never go to the church. So we left and we decided we are gonna go back twice a week and ask her if we can help her with anything untill she wants to talk to us!

Also we are planning a huge activity this Saturday for everyone. We are gonna try to invite our investigators and inactives but we are planning more activities so that we can find more people to teach because if the members come and they bring their friends then their friends might want to know more! Thats our strategy but the mission is telling us not to contact anymore and to just use the members to recieve references so we will try that! Our goal is to have 100 people their but one thing that is hard is that the ward doesn't really help us a lot and we dont have a bishop and we just have a bishopric we are waiting for a new one. The members had a problem with the old one. Yeah there are some problems with the ward but we are trying out best here. The problem is that the people here get offended easly and then they just decide they want anything to do with the church.. but we are trying to fix things.

Our investigator Kelvin didnt go to church this Sunday and so elder mata and I were devastated the problem is he visits his family every Sunday in Porta Plata and that he leaves early but we visted the next day and he told us that he still wants to get baptized and that he is gonna try his best from now on and so we are gonna work harder with him but. We have been working with inactives and we are trying to reactivate members because what good is it when the members are falling away? We just focus on our investigators but we are working with them and the members. They are so awesome and loving.

Also transfers are next week and I could stay with elder mata or get a new companion or go to a new area but I wont find out till next week on Tuesday but whatever happens its for the best! These 3 months with him were great and I am excited to maybe have a latin companion to learn more spanish and to get better.

I love you guys and that was my week! I hope you all had a wonderful week miss you all and pray for you guys!

Elder Santacruz