Being Successful

Hey everyone!

Wow! It's been a while! BUT! How are you doing?? Did you have a good two weeks of NOT hearing from this Bolivian Missionary?? Well, sorry to tell you, but I'm hear to raid your electronic devices once again! ;) Well, these past two weeks have been hard, I'm not going to lie. I have learned that finding people to teach while in the center of a large city is VERY hard. However, more on that later :)

This week, I would like to talk about one investigator that we find especially fun to teach: Rosa Mery. Rosa Mery is the very wealthy owner of an appartment complex that also runs a clothing store on her bottom floor. She is honestly an amazing woman that has worked VERY hard to earn the success that she has had. There is a family of members that live in her building and they were the ones that passed us the reference. She is a very devout catholic and often does not accept the things that we teach her, but she always completes with her reading assignments and always invites us back to talk a little bit more. She loves the idea of a prophet in these days, and we have been working a lot with that. She wants to attend church with us one of these days so that she can get to know it. We're looking forward to our continued visits with Rosa Mery :)

Well, I'm running out of time, so I'll do my best to keep this thought brief :) As I mentioned, the work is very difficult here. I must honestly say that after a few weeks with limited visual success, it was starting to get to me. However, we had our leadership counsel this past week and President Montoya shared something that changed my perspective on that which we call "success". In Preach My Gospel (a Church-written book on missionary service), there is a section called "A Successful Missionary". Here, success is defined by our dedication to complete with the will of God in all that we do. I testify that this doesn't only apply as a missionary, but also as members of the Church of Jesus Christ. Many times, we feel unsuccessful because we don't have as much stuff as others or because we feel that others have more faith or knowledge than we do. This does not in any way, shape, or form have anything to do with our success. If we feel that we are 100% dedicated to doing all that God wants us to do, I promise you that you are a success in His eyes. Don't compare yourself with others. Success cannot be based on what the eye sees and what the ear hears. Success is based on our personal dedication to live the gospel. Keep up your best work. God loves you and you are a success in His eyes as we do all that we can do.

Well, I love you all so, so much! Thank you for all of your love and support! Have an amazing week!

Elder Wynn

Goals and Plans

Hey everyone!

How are you doing?? Did you have a good week?? I hope so! As for us here in Cochabamba, things are going great! This past week, we have been working really hard to try and find some new investigators. With some divine help, we were able to find a few! We are so grateful and I would love to mention a couple of these people, starting with Gina, and then Luciana and Jordana. 

Gina is a lovely woman that we met while knocking doors and is truly amazing. We were able to teach about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon this past week and she was taken aback by our message. She was very excited to begin reading the Book of Mormon to be able to come to the knowledge that it is true. She also accompanied us to church yesterday and really enjoyed it. The members here warmly accepted her and she looks forward to learning even more in this coming week :) 

Luciana and Jordana are sisters that are also amazing. Luciana is finishing high school this year and Jordana is in her second year of college. In the past, they have attended a few different churches but have stopped attending due to confusion. We contacted Luciana in the street and taught them both yesterday a little bit about the Plan of Salvation. It was a very interesting lesson because they asked for biblical evidence about everything that we said. We couldn't finish the lesson, but we could see the desire that these two young women had to learn the truth. We are very excited for the upcoming appointment that we have on Wednesday :)

Well, now that I have mentioned a couple of the people that we are visiting, I would love to share a small thought :) These past couple weeks, as the missionaries in the Universidad Stake we have focussed on finding new investigators because that has been a HUGE struggle here in the past. As a zone, we set goals and made plans on what we were going to do to improve in this aspect. Our goals were very specific and also allowed for very effective followup. To our great joy this past week, we saw that as a zone we improved a lot with our finding of new people to teach. Now, how does this apply to you all? Well, I learned this past week that if we want to improve in anything, specific goals and plans are necessary, including numbers if it is possible. For example, if I want to become a better soccer player, it is very easy to say,"I'm going to practice more." However, this is not very specific and will probably not have very good results. If we say,"I want to become a better soccer player, so I will spend one hour, Monday through Saturday practicing on my own at the Rec Center", we are setting a specific goal that is much, much more likely to become a reality. Now, my question for you all: What is it that you want to accomplish? Maybe you want to improve in your work, become a better student, or just want to study the scriptures more. I promise that if you make the effort to set specific plans that work towards thought out goals, you will find that you have more success in your efforts to improve.

I love you all so, so much! I hope that you have an amazing week!

Elder Wynn

Preach the Gospel To Every Creature

Hey everyone!

How was your:  Week? New Years? Beginning of 2019?? I hope that everything is going well for all! As for me here in Bolivia, things are different but great (: As I mentioned last week, I was transferred from Sucre to Cochabamba and I must admit that it has been a HUGE change! The weather, city, people, etc. are all so much different! However, I'm already loving it and I will get used to it eventually (;

Well, as always, I would love to mention a couple of the amazing people that we are visiting (: First off: Israel is an amazing man that was presented to us by a great family of members this past week. He is a carpenter and a very, very nice man. We were able to teach him about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon this past week and everything took him by surprise. In his words,"I had always heard about the 'Mormons' but didn't think that they believed anything like this!" He is amazing and we look forward to our upcoming appointments (: Second off: Alejandra is an amazing woman and is the wife of a less-active member. We are working with them both so that José, her husband, can become active Alejandra can become a converted member of the Church. They both have a lot of faith and are amazing, so we really look forward to working with them (:

Well, I would now love to share a quick thought before saying goodbye for the week. Here in the city with my new companion, Elder Benancio, we have been tracting a lot. We have very few investigators and are trying to find more, so we find ourselves often walking through the streets, trying to talk with everyone that crosses our path. We have actually had good success and we look forward to seeing what comes of this work. But I want to talk about you all right now (: How many people cross your path every day? How many of those people do you think would be blessed by a knowledge of the Restored Gospel? The answer is every single one. Everyone needs this Gospel, even if they don't realize hat they do. I know that it would be unreasonable to ask you to throw everything you have to do aside and preach, but I feel like we can all do a little bit better with loving our neighbor by sharing the amazing knowledge that we have with them. I promise that if you take the time to share this Gospel with family, friends, coworkers, etc. that your mouth will be filled with the necessary words, that your testimony will grow, and that you will feel the blessings of the Gospel, and really of Jesus Christ, in more abundance in your lives.

I love you all! I hope that you have an amazing week!

Love,

Elder Wynn