Jeff's Mission Experience: I'm loving my mission!

Hey everyone, how are things going in the world? First of all to the questions about my safety, all is well. the mission president and his wife tend to pay very close attention to the circumstances of the sister missionaries and don´t take chances in situations like that, it is not the first time something like that has happened. But I believe they are all safe. They are now in San Pedro, Jujuy, close to where I was last serving.

This last week has gone well. We are trying to keep some investigators on track for their baptismal dates that are coming up. We are teaching several people, one who was a monaguillo (don´t know how to say that in English) for the catholic church, one who is the daughter of a less active family, an old lady who has lost a lot of family members recently and a friend of a member who is studying in the university. Things with them are going well. We had a really good experience this Sunday to fast for them and we hope that they will really have a growing desire to do those things that we invite them to do because we know that it is the best thing for them.
As for the area and all that, we have had little rain so things are drying out, but we have been having problems with the apartment and it looks as if we will be moving to a new place somewhere once we find it. So that is what we are looking for right now is a new place to live. This Wednesday (in 2 days) we will have the zone conference. This time around it will be very interesting because not only are all the missionaries invited, but also the ward, branch stake and district leaders from our respective areas and all the youth who are preparing for missions. It will be a little more pressure to make a good impression on the leaders since there have been major problems recently in these areas with leaders falling off and lots of issues between the leadership and missionaries and members and all that. We are, little by little, trying to resolve all of those issues, but like President Northcutt told me in an email he sent me, “as missionaries for the most part we are just not in a position and not equipped to handle all the problems that are thrown at us and it really is not our calling to solve those problems, mostly it all comes down to patience and hope that all the stuff, the roots of the problems, will work themselves out to allow the work to go forward.”

I’m loving the time that I am spending here. I just realized something a little creepy, the sister missionaries that started their missions with me are finishing up this next transfer. That was super odd. We´re cracking down and trying to get to work on all the stuff we need to do and always are trying to improve. There definitely is no shortage of spiritual experiences in the mission; too many to tell, but just know that the Lord definitely blesses his missionaries and watches out for them. I thank you all for your prayers and Elder Castro asked me to thank you for praying for him as well. He is a great kid and he is learning a lot. Together we are having a lot of good experiences. I can tell that I have definitely been growing in the mission and I deal with things better than I did before. I’m definitely not a pro, but things are coming into place. I love you guys and I pray for you always. Take care.
Elder Rose