Sucker punches and Jinxing the Drought

Good day to all. Hope everything is splendid wherever this letter finds you.

Let's get started.

So after PDay last week, we were walking around doing some lass byes and contacting and we come out of this building to this group of like 6 little kids. One yells "elder!" No clue who these kids are haha. He saw my name tag so that's how he knew my name. So I'm talking to this group of like 8 year olds and this little girl runs up to me, winds up her arm, and throws a mean right hook at me. She was 7 and I'm not freakishly tall, so just imagine where a 7 year olds fist would end up.😳 below the belt is correct. I dropped like a rock. It was pretty funny though.

So I mentioned a drought last week..I meant that in two different ways, both of which were ended this week. Tuesday-Thursday consisted of freezing weather and nonstop rain. I was in heaven😍 it was awesome. The other drought was a little different. We've lost all our investigators and for the past three weeks we've been working super hard to find new people. So in three weeks of nonstop knocking and contacting, we received 1 phone number. 1!! The majority of every day is spent talking and we only got one number... so we switched a lot of things up, thanks to divine inspiration. It worked, we got more phone numbers this past week. Droughts=ended.

Friday morning we had to head to Benavente, an area that was closed. We had to clean the Piso and take all the mission stuff out because they're shutting the area for good. So all morning was spent cleaning and salvaging things that were still good. The owner came by and she is a devil. But we softened her up and left on good terms. This member there helped us out and fed us with her and her family after. They made us Paella😍😍 then we ran to the bus and barely got it. Luckily she had to come up to León the next day for an activity and was able to bring her car full of stuff we got from the piso there so that was a huge help. Also Elder Thomas (from Bingham) happened to be here as well and helped us get it to our piso.

Wednesday I did exchanges with our DL. From 4-10 we did not leave the streets. All lessons failed (weren't that many in the first place) so we contacted all afternoon. Around 8 I decided we would find a bench and offer another prayer. So we did just that, and decided to pass by a potential investigator. She wasn't home, so we knocked every door in her building, from the 10th floor down. We got nothing. I was hoping to have a cool finding story for you guys but I don't, haha sorry. What is cool is that at the exact same time we prayed, our companions (on the other side of town) prayed as well and they actually did find someone right away. The power of prayer! I think our prayer helped them as well. But that person they found failed the lessons we had set up. Such is the life.

Here's a quote from President Monsons talk "Guided Safely Home"

Like the vital rudder of a ship, brethren, we have been provided a way to determine the direction we travel. The lighthouse of the Lord beckons to all as we sail the seas of life. Our purpose is to steer an undeviating course toward our desired goal--even the celestial kingdom of God. A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder, never likely to reach home port. To us comes the signal: chart your course, set your sail, position your rudder, and proceed.

Christ is here to guide us safely home! All we need to do is follow him. It's that simple. Follow him in all things and when we have doubts, focus in the things we KNOW are true, and then doubt those doubts before we doubt everything we know based off of not being sure on kne little thing (I hope that makes sense)

Have a great week!

Dos Cadenas,

Elder Gearig