Paraiso Week 6

Hey family!!

Super fast week and so many memories with everyday being an adventure! Not too many big stories just alot of contacting and visiting members! This week was the week of the family here in our stake and we had a great turn out every night! Each organization in the church took turns teaching a topic and our investigators and less actives really seemed to like it! ( I think it was for the refresments that they had afterwards but oh well). The last day was the talent show! Pretty crazy and weird but hey everyone had a good time!

One couple came to the activity named Jose and Anna. Jose is the son of the Pres. of Relief Soceity Sister Alba and has been inactive for a couple years. We have started teaching him and his girfriend and they are really motivated! Anna even read a good part of the B.O.M. before we met her and she loves it! We all get along really well and Sister Alba is hilarious so I'm excited to keep teaching them and to watch them progress and get married!

We are still in the fight looking for more investigators with the ability to go to church on Sundays. So many of the people here work in factories that just have the worst work hours I have ever seen. But we know all will get better! Other than that we are pretty sure Elder Jennings has changes this week! So sad....the time went by way too fast! Hopfully he stays.... I forgot my camera with my photos! I'm so sorry... so next week double photos! These 2 are from my comp! I love you guys... throw me an email when you can! 

-Elder Sessions

Paraiso Week 5

Hey familia!

Very interesting week with many great experiences! It's been raining off and on this whole week so you know the mosquitoes are coming out. I'm getting eaten alive! It also makes it harder to contact because everyoneeeee has their door closed to keep out the bugs. You can see their lights on and the shadow moving but they will just not open that door haha. There is a huge river that connects our area and because of all the rain it raised all the way to the bridge! The bridge ended up getting shut down and many members weren't able to get across to church! The water actually flooded three houses completely and this week we are all going to go clean them out. It's been so sad, so many people have been taken out of there homes! But now its getting better. 

This area has been so weird to contact in because almost every house we go to the people are members! No joke our area is tiny and 600 people are inactive.....We get comments like "Oh ya I was baptized 10 years ago"," Ya our whole family are members". It's SO sad. And most have them have zero desire to come back because of bad experiences that they had. I really do find great joy teaching them about the Atonement and how we have the blessing to repent and come back to church to receive help from God in our day to day lives. We are hoping to help these people this week that is coming because it's the week of the family! Activities and games and stuff so it should be exciting!

one of our crazy fun FHE's!

There is a sister in our area that is a member who has diabetes that has affected her so much she has lost many of her toes and now she has many problems walking and needs help to get around. And it doesn't help that she has 3 little kids she has to take care of and she has no income. This wonderful sister this week had to go down the mountain to buy her medicine and when she tried to get back up she just didn't have the strength to lift herself up. She was just in some random little passage way on the side of the mountain and at that same moment we had just finished helping a family cut some fire wood and for "some reason" we went down this little road and found the poor sister crying and praying for help. We were able to get her home safe and it was just a beautiful experience seeing the power of prayer. 

Well this is it for this week love you tons!

-Elder Sessions

Elder Jennings and I ready for a day's work!

Paraiso Week 4

Coconuts are great after a hard days work!

Familia! 

We had so much fun last week playing football! After visiting the waterfall we decided to get everyone together and play again this week but in a normal big field. It was so fun! All the Latinos actually wanted to learn and we had a blast and got sunburned like crazy.

This week was a week of service projects. We are so blessed to be in an area where the majority of the members love the missionaries! They treat us like their own children and it's been a great feeling. They give us so much so we are always able to help them out and chop their grass or cut fire wood. This week was extreme because every day we got to help different families and now i feel dead! The craziest one was we had to carry cinder blocks up and down a huge mountain in our area and we just put 3 or 2 on our shoulders and man it took for ever. Seriously we couldn't move after it was intense! But It was great to help because they gifted the blocks for a family that doesn't have a house! I'm pretty sure I sent a pic of me in front of a huge field we had to chop that was really crazy as well. It was just a huge property. But we got blessed with pure clouds all morning and I didn't even feel that it was hot! We also got to clean our landlords pool and that was crazy! We found this snake and it scared us like crazy but it was a fun time! But overall it's great to help the people here and I hope when i come home I can continue to do the same!

We were able to have Interviews with Pres. Dester this week and that's always the best. He is honestly one of the most loving and spiritual people I have ever met! Such an example for all the missionaries. He always knows exactly what to say! 

Well I hope next week I will have more stories for you guys. Just keeping busy here. Thank you for everything!

-Elder Sessions

My new Kicks!

Paraiso Week 3

Hey fammm

What a FANTASTIC week! Today we just got back from a waterfall in our zone called Pulha! I actually went there one of my first Pdays in the mission...idk if you'll remember the pics. But this time it was a blast! We had a cool AZ group and all the gringo Elders played football after in a huge field and it was so fun! The water fall was coming down so hard we just got soakeddd but it was worth it!

Funny story this

week! ( funny to me not to Elder Jennings). So our area has a bunch of little passage ways we have to take and one of them is pretty sketch. It's like 2 feet wide with one side being a mountain and the other side is like a 8 foot drop. During the night there are zero lights and I was like holding the side of the mountain and Elder Jennings was laughing at me and then he accidentally slipped off the side and scraped up his knee! Poor kid. It taught me to not laugh at people who are being cautious haha

I finally had a great opportunity to watch conference in English! All the gringos from the zone went to the Stake center and got to watch it! What a power conference! I was just amazed by all the great talks and the new Apostles. I was applying many towards the missionary life and also as a return missionary and it was great to get motivated to be a better person and focus and the things that are actually important. As we speak I am downloading them to listen to again! 

Priesthood Session of General Conference

Playing Uno between Sessions

Kinda cool story about our investigator Mirna again! We planned for a friend of hers that was a member to pass by her house on the way to church. They both knew and it was all set. It turns out her friend was running kind of behind and takes a moto taxi to get to church. She had completely forgotten about Mirna! At the precise moment as the moto taxi passed by Mirna's house, the taxi shut off! She got out and noticed Mirnas house right in front of her face and had the 'Oh shoot" moment and yelled "Mirna are you ready?!" and Mirna replied that she was ready to go! Just AWESOME how our loving Heavenly Father works right?

Well I hope all goes well this week for you guys! You're always in my prayers!

-Elder Sessions

Sweet wall art. (I posted this picture because of the shirt Jarom is wearing.
"It's a sweet typical shirt that the Indians use here!
A member in my second area pretty much gifted it to me!
She owns a store that sell stuff like that."
He is getting culturized(new word)!!