Elder Aaron Mayberry: Asi no mas.

Alright, hows everyone doing?

I'm doing fantastic here in Pirque. We had another so so week this week so that's ok, but it doesn't matter, I'm loving it here and loving the work.

So let's see. Well three days this week we had little trainings in the morning with President, regarding the changes to the missionary work in the world. There's like 8 key points we're focusing on in these meetings and they're really really good. I'm learning a ton about how to become a better teacher and better help our investigators progress in the gospel. So far we've talked about, extending baptismal invitations, importance of prayer in conversion, and the role of the holy ghost in our teaching. So it's been cool. This coming week we're gonna have the remaining 5 so it should be good.

Some good things have happened though this week. On tuesday after the first training with

President about baptismal invitations he invited us to all make one with our investigators that very day. So we decided to do it with our investigator named Alexander. Alex we've been teaching for a while, but he's not very good at completing his commitments. But he's really good and interested. So we figured we'd just go for it and invite him to be baptized. We invited him, and as we thought, he was doubtful. So we told him that he could pray to find out if he should be baptized, and I got the impression that we should do it right then and there. So that's what we did. We knelt down and he offered a prayer asking if he should get baptized, and the spirit was SO strong in the moment and he said he felt good about it, so he accepted the date. It was a really really cool experience and a testimony builder. So that was what's going on with Alex. We also found a new person that was listening to the missionaries before but had too much work and had to stop, so we're now working with her again. So we'll see how that goes. More good news with Mauricio and Mariela, Mauricio blessed the sacrament for the first time yesterday! It was so cool. He was looking pretty spiffy cuz he came to church for the first time in a suit and he blessed the sacrament like a champ. So that was really cool to see because it's someone I baptized, seeing his progression. And Mariela was also called as the second counselor of the Young Womens, so that's also really neat. And that's about it. Me and Elder Deaver are figuring out better, more efficient ways to work in this sector so we should be finding more success here soon.

We had an interesting expereience yesterday, we went all the way to like the farthest part of the sector that's up a gigantic hill, all on the bikes. And it all turned out to be a waste of time cuz we didn't teach any of the contacts we made. On the way back, my stupid bike broke again! The back wheel is extremely wobbly when I ride and now it just hits the side and I can't peddle. So. We were stranded haha. So we had to call the family that lives in the house in front of us and they had to come rescue us haha. Not too much fun.

Today for Pday we did a cool thing. We played soccer zone vs zone. So it was our zone against another zone and that was lots of fun. Our zone won :)
And that was essentially our week. Nothing terribly exciting but that's ok. We're kinda in a slump at the moment, but we're working on getting out of it. This week should be a nice one, with our mini conferences, finding new people, and hopefully some good progression in our investigators. And it's the end of the change already! I can't believe it. So next time I write you'll know about my changes. And rumor has it that there's gonna be big changes here in Pirque (4 missionaries??) So we'll just have to wait and see.
I love you all and hope you're all doing great! Enjoy the end of summer!

Elder Mayberry

More pictures, cuz I know you love them

1. Pirque