New companion and working hard!

November 23, 2015

Holy cow another crazy week! More changes and hard work made up this week so there isn't really a good story to tell for each day, but I'll do the best I can to remember everything that I did this week!

Monday we had Pday and went to Vega Alta to write and then wondered around the Vega Alta mall until like 5 just looking at stuff. Nobody bought anything, we just did a lot of looking hahaha.

Tuesday and Wednesday were basically the same to me. I think I wrote this in my last letter, I was with Elder Morales and Amaro for this week. We had a few good appointments but really just did a lot of contacting and had a lot of ward activities to go to. We contacted in some super far away places too. Like it took us forever to walk all over the place. Tuesday morning after district meeting President Boucher called and told us that I would be getting a new companion Wednesday night. Elder Suero- who I kinda knew from the Caguas Zone when I was in Arroyo. He had a minor surgery at the beginning of the transfer and had been living with the APs until he was healed. They thought it would take longer but obviously the Priesthood blessing that President Boucher gave him really worked! After just 15 days, he was ready to go back to the field. So he was put in Vega Baja with me. He's a big Dominican and has about 10 months in the mission. He just finished training Elder Hunt who's from my group, so he's good at teaching me stuff. So Wednesday night we drove out to Bayamon to pick him up at like 10pm. Man that was a long day. But the APs are super cool about it and are always thanking me for making the drive out there and stuff.

Thursday we went to work man and we worked hard! We just started straight out the gate talking about the investigators we had. I really knew nothing and he obviously knew nothing so we were basically white washing or starting over. We went through all the old records we have and pulled out anyone who looked promising, and then called like all of them. Then we went contacting. We knocked doors (not really because you don't knock doors here you just yell until somebody comes outside) for like 6 hours straight. And we found a lot of cool people that we think will be really good to teach and hopefully baptize. And I'm getting a ton better at teaching the Restoration of the Gospel because that's all we talk about when we contact. My Spanish is getting better too. But yeah we contacted for so long.

Friday was lo mismo (the same). We contacted hard for like 6 hours and found more new people. I won't go into detail because it was literally talking and talking and talking to people all day.

Saturday we had the ward Thanksgiving activity and that was pretty fun. Puerto Ricans cook really well. After the activity we went back to contacting hahaha. In these 3 days of contacting we found 7 new investigators and have a list like a mile long of potential investigators that we need to call and set up appointments to teach. It has been a tiring 3 days but it's super cool to be able to really see the fruits of our labors already.

Sunday was a good day at church, we had about 85 people there. It was the youth day or something like that so all the talks were by youth in the ward and they did a bunch of musical numbers and stuff. It was good. After church we went home and cooked and Hermano Laureano came and took us to the hospital to visit some less actives there. Then we had dinner with a member family and then went and took the sacrament to some old people that can't make it to church. One guy looks like he's maybe 75 but he's 97!! It's ridiculous!

And today is Pday and we cleaned and did laundry and Elder Suero made us a lot of some really good food. I'm kinda scared to live with him because he cooks a lot and eats a lot. And I think I'm gaining weight with all the rice I'm eating. Literally 2 meals a day are straight rice. I'm scared. I need to eat less and work out more.

But yeah that was the week! It was crazy and stressful in a totally different way, this time stressful with the workload. And we still have a ton of contacting to do. Our goal is to give out 4 Book of Mormons every day. Which hopefully means 4 lessons taught and at least 4 new investigators. If we can keep up this pace, we'll be golden here. We really want to get at least 2 baptisms in January and are confident we can do so.

Elder Suero is teaching me so much that I didn't know before. In just 3 days he's taught me a ton of Spanish, how to work with the Holy Ghost, and how to use time effectively and make the most of our efforts. And he's a contacting machine. I could contact anybody now hahaha.

I know that this church and gospel are true and I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to be here learning and serving the people here. The blessings of the gospel are true and have been manifested in my life. We truly have something unique and something that can bless us and our families forever.

Love you all!

Zack

Just some parts of our house, I haven't had time to take other pictures with all the changes and working so hard! I'll get a picture with Elder Suero for next week. Hopefully the other 2 guys too. I've had 4 companions in the last week!!