Week 42

Another 6 weeks is up. This morning we woke up and we waited for the phone call from our district leader, Elder Jackson. I was so nervous to find out whether I would be staying in Retiro or moving on. The call eventually came. I'm going to have another 6 weeks in Retiro. I have been praying for the chance to stay just a little longer. Elder Martinez and I are actually seeing a lot of progress here. With so many things starting to happen it would be completely devastating to take one of us out of Retiro.

The week was a good one. There is always some haste during the last week of the cambio. It’s a good sense of a rush. We focused on a lot this week, it was a lot to handle but we had some good times.

Investigators.

- Juan Santiago, Fabiola, and Lorena

We passed by two times this week at their office, but werent able to get much done with them. They were really busy with work because Fabiola is going to have her baby soon. She is retiring from the office until November. That puts her responsibilities on Juan and Lorena. We'll just have to see what happens with them this week. Hopefully they will keep their commitments and progress a little more.

- Oscar, Geraldina, Danko,  Elyne and the Arios Moya family.

They are some former investigators that Elder Price and I visited a while back. I don’t know if you remember me mentioning them in past letters, but I decided to go back and visit them this week. We hit it off great. They were glad to see us back. The only thing is Oscar and Geraldina, the parents, have tons of doubts. They don't like church and are Evangelical in their own way. That makes things very complicated. But we have hope for Danko and Elyne. They are the two oldest kids. Danko is 17 and Elyne is 15. We get along great with Danko. We asked him if he would like to go to Church and he accepted. This week he actually showed up! He is the first one besides Alejandro and Evelyn to come to church! My first investigator to do that during my entire time here in Retiro! We are excited to see someone actually take a step of faith here in Retiro. Danko said he liked the church. He got along great with all the youth and said he will be coming back!!

We didn't see much progress with the less actives this week. It has been a hard two weeks working with them. We haven't seen the progression that we saw before. This week we will be focusing more on them.

We ran around quite a bit this week doing a lot of contacts. We got our goal of talking with 140 people and that was probably the second greatest point of the week.

There isn’t a lot to report this week. The only main points were Danko going to church and getting our contacts.

I was able to share my testimony various times this week with power. During a few lessons the whisperings of the spirit guided me to do so, and it left from my mouth more powerfully that I could have imagined. It is interesting how the spirit works. It is a great privilege to learn how to work with the direction of Heavenly Father. I love being his servant 24/7. I am finally finding the joy in this calling. It is so hard at times, but we only have to look to the tests and find the joy in everything. We only have to wade through the experiences of life, joyfully and patiently waiting for the hand of the Lord to be revealed in all things. I love the mission. I love the Lord. I am excited to start another 6 weeks here in Retiro.  I love all of you so much, and I miss you tons. You are such an inspiration for me. I hope you all have a great week. I love hearing from you guys. Until next week!!

Elder Ethan Haws