Elder Paul Wynn- Bolivia, Cochabamba Mission: Overcoming the Everyday Struggles

Hey all!

How have your weeks been? Is the cold starting to set in? Is there snow? I hope you guys are all enjoying your winter season because it is summer here! It's a little different than I expected, though. I was expecting blistering heat, but all that has happened so far is a downpour of rain. I'm not exactly sure if that is normal or not, but that's what is happening, and I'm not complaining! In complete honesty, this week was filled with many emotions, and a lot of those emotions were not so good. This week, we had a lot of empty days where all we had to do was contact, and we also had many full days in which all of our appointments fell through. With all of that, we have been a little frustrated and it has honestly been a good struggle to keep up our spirits and get to work. However! Good things did happen this week and I would like to focus on those for now :) So, as a snapshot on investigators, I will talk about Daniel, Liz, Guildo (the father of the Limón Family), Nayeli, and Maria (our new convert). With Daniel, we were hoping for his baptism this week, but he has become very busy these past couple weeks and we had to push his baptism back a week because of lack of time. We are very happy for him because the reason for his lack of time is the fact that he found a new job and is starting to study in a college, but we are sad that we are not able to meet with him all that often. Hopefully, it will happen this week :) With Liz, things continue as normal. We are working with her and trying to help in any way that we can, but her father continues to be strong on the topic of baptism. We will keep working with her. With Guildo, we have seen an amazing change. We gave him the Word of Wisdom lesson this week, and though he has many problems with this commandment, he seems very eager to follow this commandment. He also came to church for the first time this week, so we are really looking forward to continuing with him. His family was gone this week traveling, so we couldn't teach them, but he is progressing so we are very happy about that. A new addition, Nayeli is a 13 year old girl that we have been working with for a couple weeks and attended church for the first time this week. We love teaching her and have already given her all the main lessons and she also has said many times that she knows the church is true, so we will continue working excitedly with her. Finally, Maria, our new convert. She was gone this whole week with her mom, so we have no idea what is happening with her at the moment, but we hope that all is well. Personally, I am doing really good! As a companionship, things couldn't be better! We are working hard and giving our best, but as I stated, it's been a little bit of a rough week, and I'd like to focus my thought on that today. So, as I said, we had many days with no appointments and many days with appointments that fell through. It is hard to describe the feelings that surface during these times. You always want to work, you always want to have success, but sometimes, despite your best efforts, the success you are looking for just doesn't come right away. We felt that very strongly this week, but I personally have learned a lot from this week. Yes, it was hard. Yes, we were often discouraged. However, we continued working, and we had an amazing experience of having 8 investigators at church this week, which is much more than I have ever had. I have learned this week the power of sincere prayer to gain strength and comfort, as well as the rewards that come from working, even when that work is very hard to continue. My promise to all of you is that the success that you are looking for will come if you continue. I promise that whatever you are going through, no matter how hard it is, if you say a prayer asking comfort and strength and continue working with all you have, the success you are looking for will come. Maybe not right now, maybe not for some time, but it will come. I love you all and I thank you so much for your love and support of me here in Bolivia! Now is an exciting time here because, 1: Christmas is coming! and 2: Transfers are this Sunday! I have no idea what transfers will bring and I cannot wait for Christmas, so all in all, I'm just excited! Please keep our investigators in your prayers and keep being the amazing people that you are! If you have any questions about my doings here, don't be afraid to send me an email. Love you all!

Elder Wynn