Great Conference

April 5, 2010
Dear Family.
All is well in Sogamoso and it has been another great week. Now that I am a little more settled into the area etc. time is absolutely flying again like it always seems to. This week has been a productive one and the conference was great.

We spent more time this week with the Elders from the other area of Sogamoso. The conference was broadcast in our chapel so they stayed at our apartment from Saturday till Monday. We also did splits one day with them so I worked with Elder Soria in his area etc. The other companionship is a funny pair. The DL is Elder Soria from Brazil. He was born in Brazil and then when he was a teenager he moved to Bolivia. His first language is Portuguese so his Spanish is a little weird but sometimes I have him teach me words in Portuguese. He has 15 months in the mission and is a convert of 2 years. While I was Assistant, his family basically rejected him because they are from another church and his mom wrote him and told him that when he got back, his stuff would be in a neighbor’s house and he had no need to go back to his home. So he has had some tough times but it’s his first time as DL and he is trying very hard to do his best. Elder Soria asked me lots of questions for advice etc. and we talked a lot during the splits. Anyway that’s a little bit about our district.

Elder Quispe was in our area earlier in his mission so while he was with my comp they went to see some old investigators and started teaching them again. We have now visited them a few times and have been teaching them more. They are very excited. We actually invited them to prepare for a baptism date on the 24th and they accepted, but problems came up this weekend and they couldn’t go to the conference so we will have to see. But we are very excited to have found them and to have a family that has a desire to progress, hopefully they can gain a testimony and come along. We also have another family that we are teaching who seems very good from Barranquilla and a 21 year old kid who says he would like to go on a mission so we are working hard and hoping they will progress.

Elder R and I have decided to focus on faith (as one of the Christ like attributes from PMG) so this week we did a special fast to have stronger faith and testimonies and it was a very spiritual experience. I set goals to read the whole New Testament and Preach My Gospel during this transfer so I use my study time and also read a little every night. As of now I am way ahead and if I keep going consistently I should finish them easily. It has really helped because I know lots of scriptures from the Bible that I use to teach. It has also improved my testimony of the Book of Mormon and really how much clearer it is.

The Conference was awesome. As a missionary, conference is like the NBA finals of the super bowl of your life so its always exciting when it comes and I learned a lot. I loved President Monson's talks; he talks about simple things but makes you realize they are the important things. But all the talks were good, especially the Sunday Morning session was great.

It’s raining here and today for Pday we took a bus to a place called Lago Tota (Tota Lake). It’s a lake up in the mountains and has white sand like a beach and it has reeealy beautiful scenery. So we rented a boat and went for a nice swim and enjoyed the beach... haha ok just kidding. I had you nervous. We kept a good distance from the water but I got some good pictures and it’s good to get to know the culture and the sites etc.

Well I am about to head out. Things are going great and I am enjoying very much my mission and trying maybe harder than ever to do the best I can. It’s amazing how fast the time goes so I am trying to progress as much as possible and do as much as possible. It's hard to know if you’re progressing because it is so subjective, but I hope so and I am trying to improve.

I love you family, I always pray for you and I hope you are well. I am very happy. Talk to ya next week. Love Will