Hey Momma! Como esta? Estoy muy bien! I have a lot to tell
you this week! I had a mountain of meetings and learning this week! It started Wednesday when I had my first
multizone conference and the president of the mission and his wife came to talk
with me and around 30 other missionaries it was awesome! It really helped me
learn the kind of teacher and member I need to be. The theme of the conference
was attributes of Christ and how developing them now will help us not only on
our missions but also in our lives. Because Christ was the perfect example in
all things and the goal of the church is to help us become more like Christ I
would suggest one night for family home evening to go through one of the preach
my gospels and read through the section about the attributes of Christ with the
family and then choose one for the month to try and develop. The goal of the
conference was to help us to learn to be assertive like Christ. That means to
be courageous and to speak our thoughts, feelings by our actions. It also means
to be kind and gentle and calm when talking about them. It’s walking the line
of being passive and aggressive and it is very hard. I have been trying to do
it during my lessons this week. I tend to lean towards the aggressive side of
it but I am working on it and with more practice I can be more suave and tactful
when I speak and teach. We got to practice a lot of role-playing with the
president watching and I guess I am apparently way ahead in my Spanish then a
lot of the other new missionaries that came out with me. The president after
the conference said that he was very impressed with how well I speak and how
willing I am to take the lead in lessons and answer questions, which not gonna
lie made me feel really good because I have been struggling a little because only
a few of our investigators are progressing right now. I attended the
conferences in the stake center and got to watch them in English, which was
really nice! I really liked the talk by the 70 from Europe. I can’t remember
what country but he talked about how we need to take responsibility for our
lives. That means responsibility for our health, our sins, our work and our families
because we all chose to come down and live down here. Here the members have a
big problem with blaming people for all the wrongs in their lives.
We are so close to another baptism with this
guy we are teaching named Juan. He wants baptism and wants to be married in the
temple but the problem right now is that he and his girlfriend live together
and have a kid so they have to get married first and then he can be baptized.
He wants to get married but she is struggling with the idea of marriage even
though they have lived together for 4 years. We will be having family home
evening with them tonight and our ward mission leader. I think he will help them a lot because he just got married
in the temple like 4 months ago. The girlfriend is a member but inactive and I
think struggles a lot with her testimony but hopefully the lesson tonight will
help a lot.
I had to send you the email I sent dad today
because I don’t have a lot a time right now! But tell grandma not to worry my
bed is fine its really just the tile and the bathroom that suck! I apparently
live on the most dangerous street in OValle. Which is exciting because apparently
the last Elders house got attacked by fletes in the middle of the night and
they had to by a new door and I am assuming new windows because the Fletes were
throwing rocks at the house. I guess the last Elder before me offended just
about everyone here including the members.
But they love me and I am bigger then everyone
here so I am not to worried.
De tu Hijo
Elder Christopher Ryan Barlow
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| Elder Barlow |
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| Ovalle |
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| Off to Zone Conference |
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