Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Don't be a Gooey Chocolate Chip Cookie!


It's been a short week cause I had to go to Cusco so I pretty much told you everything in the recording. Basically, my new companion, Elder Wimmer, is the bomb.com and I'm really happy he's here! This is the most excited I've been on my mission.

I found out yesterday that Elder Rodriguez is probably going home this week. Apparently he did something illegal in his country that he didn't clear up before the mission so it's very possible that he's going to go home. I'm not really sure what's waiting for him there. Really sad though, We'll know for sure next week though if he goes. Bummer.

Love you all! Tell brother Miles, Sis. Steinecke and sis. Nielson thanks for the letters they always send me. Hope all is well! Peace!

Elder Tate

The following is a transcript of his recording. In case you can't tell, he loves his new companion. 

April 13, 2015

     It has been a cool week this week! Last week I told you that I got a call to be a trainer. I didn’t do a lot this week because I had to go to Cusco to pick up my new companion. His name is Elder Wimmer and he is really weird. I don’t really like him very much. He is kind of obnoxious. He is from Pleasant Grove so he thinks he is really cool (sounds of the companion laughing and joking in the background). Haha!  No, he is the BOMB! He is super-duper cool and we are already doing way more things than we were doing before. It is awesome. We are going to get the work going really, really good here in Alborada. I left for Cusco Tuesday morning and got back on Thursday and we just went straight to work. We visited some people and introduced my companion to everyone and we are doing well. 

     A couple of cool stories for the week: On Saturday we went to visit our investigator, Wilmer that I have talked about before, who has a baptismal date. His brother, who we had talked to on Thursday, said, “Hey, I want you to start teaching my sister.” We said, “Great!” So we went over and we taught his sister as well as Wilmer again. We taught Lesson One to her and reviewed it with Wilmer. At the end we asked how she felt about it and she said she felt great.  My companion challenged her to be baptized and she accepted. She said that she was willing to learn more, read the Book of Mormon, and be baptized. At that moment I felt the Spirit really strong so I challenged her to prepare herself to be baptized on May 2nd, which is a week after Wilmer’s date, and she accepted. We talked about pushing Wilmer’s date back a week so that they can be baptized the same day. We are going to work really hard with her and with Wilmer, get them to church every Sunday, make sure they are reading the scriptures, and keeping their commitments. Justo (their brother) has been working with them as well and reviewing all the lessons with them. He is great to have in the lessons with us. He brings in a lot of insights and he knows them really well, so he knows how to teach them and it is great. We are really excited about that. (Justo is a member)

     When I got here my companion told me that there were ward missionaries, but I didn’t know who they were and they didn’t do anything. Apparently, they were supposed to be coming to our Noches Misionales, which I have talked about before, and help us out and bring people and plan it all. Since I have been here we have been doing it all. Sunday, this guy in our ward named Henry Casaca (he was the bishop before our current bishop) came up to me while I was playing prelude before Church and he asked if we had ever thought about working with the ward missionaries. I told him that Elder Wimmer and I had actually talked about it and that we want to get started but I didn’t know who they are.  So he took us around after the sacrament service and we talked to the ward mission leader and he knew who most of the ward missionaries were, so we had a meeting with them right then and there. We told them want we needed them to do and that we wanted help with Noche Misionale and to bring people. They were all super willing and ready to go. This made me super, super excited. We are also going to assign each of them a family to go visit and they are going to be responsible to help them get to church as well as get us references. We are going to have weekly meetings with them to coordinate missionary efforts with them and our ward mission leader. It is going to skyrocket. We are going to boost up this ward. A year ago the ward had about 120 people attending sacrament meeting.  This Sunday there were 70, so Elder Wimmer and I set a goal that by the time we are done here together, at least these two changes, we want 120 people in sacrament meeting and we feel like we are going to achieve that. So that was a really special experience. I went up after Sacrament meeting and talked to Henry (the former bishop) and thanked him for helping us out. We are ready to go. On Sunday we nearly filled up the entire week’s agenda with things we are going to do. We are already getting the work moving along and I am so excited!  

     My new companion is Elder Wimmer from Pleasant Grove, Utah and he is the bomb! He is super excited to be here, he is super happy, he is excited to work, and he just wants to get work done. He wants to learn Spanish and he just wants to help, he wants to do his job. He already speaks Spanish better than I did when I started. He will improve and he is already helping me so much. It is a blessing to have him with me. We are both just incredibly excited to get going here, so lots of really good things to come. 

     That’s about it for the week. It was kind of a short week for us. We did lots of work though as soon as we got here. Since I am the district leader I had to call the missionaries in our district to report their accomplishments, and Elder Wimmer and I had some of the highest numbers and we had only been here since Thursday. It is going to be great!! This is probably the most excited I have been on my mission. We are already super busy, so we are stoked. 

I love you all. Hope all is going well. Happy birthday Riley and Makenna!
Peace.
 

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