Growth

Thanks for the pics and the BYU news! that is so awesome, im so psyched!

Anyways wow crazy stuff this week. Sorry the gringos are distracting me with NBA news and BYU news and what not. So sorry lol.

But yeah, we were trying so dang hard this week to help a 20 year old girl to get baptized, she has family that are members and she likes church and everything but she just doesnt wanna get baptized it was so frustrating. argh! On Friday we decided to give her one last chance. So we were there with her cousin and aunt who are members the spirit was strong and everything. She hadnt been reading the BOM which is absolutely essential for conversion and so we just had her open it up randomly and read from it. all 3 passages talked about repentence and not hardening your heart when the spirit speaks to you then we asked her, So what is the Spirit telling you to do?

Follow Christs example

So will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized as he was by someone who holds the authority of God?

She took a huge pause and said very bluntly...No

Wow talk about spirit killer.

But its all good everyone has agency and thats basically what I learned. It sucked but sunday we had a bunch of people come to church, 2 of which members brought and another 2 came all by themselves, and we got good news that a couple we have been teaching wants to be married so we will have a ceremony on the 25th. So tight.

This zone is starting to explode, the whole stake is getting involved and we talked to the stake president on tuesday and he said that they are talking with the general authorities to divide the stake. That is a huge ginormous step towards a temple here in Arequipa. That is our goal as a mission that this year there will be an announcement and plans made for a temple here in Arequipa. Oh and if the stake divides that generally means an apostle will come so we might have the opportunity to listen to another apostle which would be awesome!

Keep up the good work as member missionaries and I know that the Lord will bless us even more abundantely

Love

Elder Patrik Connole