Exchanges and Investigators

Hola todos!

This week has been wonderful! We did a lot of work, and found 10 new investigators this week!
It will be a lot of work to continue progressing all of them, but we at least planted some seeds. 

We had the opportunity to go on exchanges with the District leader this week. Basically we changed companions for a day. I worked in the Williamsport walk area during the exchange with Elder Ifopo. He is really fun, and together we taught a less active member and tried to talk to people around downtown Williamsport. 

I learned two things from the experience.

One was that I am very glad to be serving in my area, because Williamsport was a much slower area, meaning that less people were interested in our message. 

Two, that I need to get better at acting on my first thought. When I am out talking with people, I have thoughts of what to say or do to help them, but I often second guess myself and decide not to do it. The first thoughts that I get are good ways to help and serve people, but I am too shy to try them sometimes.  

Holly is going to be baptized this weekend! She is progressing so well, and taking in all that the church has to offer her. It is incredible!

Angie and Cindy are also progressing well, they still don't believe that they need to be baptized again, but we watched the restoration video with them and talked more about the Book of Mormon and prophets. I think they felt the spirit from our message and will continue to progress more now. 

Mark is committing to work on his struggles with the word of wisdom, which is really awesome, but he still needs to learn to keep more of God's commandments like read the Book of Mormon, pray and go to church. 

We are going to learn how to play guitar with Chris today, and teach him the restoration of the gospel at the same time. He is really enjoying our messages so far, and will probably continue to grow closer to God. 

We met a new guy named Angel Gonzalez this week. He is from Puerto Rico, and doesn't know English, but re requested a bible from the churches online website, and we met with him and taught him. He really truly believed that what we taught was the word of God. It was incredible and he felt the spirit of our message. 

It has been really hard to stay in touch and meet with a lot of the people we have found. They have such busy schedules and we have a hard time tracking them down and having lessons. If only the people knew how important our message was.

I feel like my Spanish is not as good as it was 4 weeks ago. I had a really good accent in the Missionary Training center. Now I feel like I can understand people better, but I have trouble making up my own sentences and sounding like a native. 

Hopefully I can keep working on it, because if all goes to plan, I will be leaving for Ecuador in two weeks on the 23rd of April! The visa papers have all been turned in and now we are just waiting for the visa! I have loved this area in Pennsylvania, but I am also really excited to leave the country and teach the people in Ecuador!

Till we meet again!

Elder Cloward