Thank you for praying and fasting for me. It means a lot to me! I love you all so much.
This week was a challenge for me and my companion. However, I am super excited to be working with Elder Rivera. He`s a truly great guy! I love him lots already. I feel bad for him, though, because at times I don`t really know what to say when it`s just the two of us alone. I want to socialize more, but it`s harder for me in Spanish, and y'all know how hard small talk is for me as it is. But I feel like we`re getting along really well and able to share our thoughts and feelings sincerely with each other. We will learn a lot together!
We have been working super hard since he arrived, talking to everyone and trying to find people to teach. There`s an exciting new initiative in the Sudamerica Sur area of the church to focus entirely on the progress of people. Now we only account for 4 key indicators: total attendance at church, baptisms & confirmations, investigators with baptismal dates, and progressing investigators. We also choose, working with the branch president and leaders, five less-active members to work with for the month in our area. We need to have discussions with them and with members, and we need to help them progress and come back to church. If they don`t progress in the month, we choose new people for the next month. We also need to talk to everyone, members and nonmembers, about the gathering of Israel and the hastening of the work. I will need to study the gathering of Israel a bit more, but I think that`s very interesting and exciting!
Despite our grand efforts, we haven`t really found anybody new to teach. There`s a few potentials though, so that`s good. But our hard work paid off -- Marisol came to church!!!!!!! She came from La Cruz with the family of Hna. Cabrera and Alejandro. She liked it, too! We had an amazing, brief lesson with her on Saturday about the Sabbath day, and Hna. Cabrera gave an amazing, sincere, gritty, simple, honest testimony of how coming back to church has helped her and her family. Marisol then decided firmly to stand up against her boss and go to church despite her difficult work schedule. So awesome! She needs your prayers so she can continue to progress. The next step is a baptismal date and she needs to stop smoking.
Well, yeah! My time left, yet again! (ps, Dad, I realized that it really is Spanish syntax!) Love you all so much!
--Elder Max Olivier
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