Elder Payton Thorpe : Missionaries can't do it without the members!

FAMILIA!!

Gracias por su correo! Si, todas las cosas de Elder Cook fueron bien chivos! Gracias mama por sus palabras de español. :] Haha man its good to hear from yall! Oh, yes I did receive the Mortensen's package! I wrote them a letter and sent it last week, forgot to say something in my email! But thank you Mortensens for the American treats! Haha all of the Elders in the house say thank you too! I also got the envelope with the pictures AND your package mom! Everyone was so excited when it came and we all love the beef jerky! Gracias!! I'll send a picture!

Yeah Elder Nuñez is chuckin a duece this week! We have changes on Wednesday and he flies home Thursday morning. Crazy! We are all nervous/excited for changes this week. There are a lot of ZLs that are going home so there will be some big changes! I know that I will be staying here in good ol Rio Zarco haha. I guess I just can't get enough of this place!

Its actually been kind of tough lately. It feels like nobody wants to listen to us! And all of our investigators are struggling a bit. We talked to R this past saturday, just him. His family wasn't home. We had a good talk with him and he started to open up more and tell us more stuff about his life. He wants to change and has changed a lot since we've been teaching him, but he just needs a little help realizing the things that he needs to do and the steps he needs to take in his life to receive that full forgiveness. We tried to put a baptismal date with him for the 16th of this month and he was a little hesitant and is still a little unsure, but he said if that's what God wants, he will do it. We were like, well yeah, that's what God wants! He just needs a little more work, but he will be baptized this month! J is struggling. I am praying hard that more opportunities will come so that we can teach him again.

We also have this young couple, la familia O. He is 18 and she is 19. She is a member but has been inactive for a long time. He was going to another church and they were having their ... meetings I guess? In Spanish they're called cultos. Idk what to call it in English. But they were having them in his house so he was pretty involved with that church. But one day he was talking to us and said that he isn't involved with them at all anymore and he had been reading the BOM! Not much, but he was reading it! She is pregnant, so he knows he is going to have some more responsibility in his life so he has become pretty interested in how to have a happy family. We have had lessons with them in the house of another young family who has a baby girl and it has helped a lot! Missionaries can't do their job without the members!!!

Dad, I love what you said about the atonement. It literally is the answer to everything! We have a lot of less active people in our ward so the atonement has basically been the only thing we have talked about for awhile. I have learned, and am still learning everyday, how incredible that sacrifice is. It's where we find happiness and hope! Pretty amazing.

Love you all and hope y'all have a great week! I'll let you know who my new comp is next week!

Elder P.R.Thorpe