October 13, 2014

October 13, 2014 

Mom,  

Full week! I got my new companion Elder Villarroel from Antofagosta Chile! He’s got about a year and 3 months in the mission. Katherine has unfortunately been very difficult to get a hold of, so we haven’t been able to teach her or help her this week. But we made a new effort to contact lots of people every day. Our daily goal is to find 5 future investigators (basically get 5 different addresses to visit). For the most part it’s helping.  We’re setting a lot of dates and we are seeing a couple people we found together this last week. Elder Villarroel is awesome.  We are basically complete opposite personality wise. He’s quite, I’m loud.  He likes to pretty up his sentences, I’m straight to the point. He’s SUUUUUPER patient and I lack in that area. But we balance each other well. He is still learning the new sector so I’m junior companion with all the responsibilities of senior companion.  The dude is a handy man. He’s already fixed like 5 different problems we had in the house that we had just chalked up to being like that forever.  

One thing that makes Villarroel awesome is that this last February, his father passed away and that was obviously very hard on him but he decided to stay and finish the work the Lord has called him to do.  He doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence and as you well know I probably have too much. So this cambio our goals are to try to strengthen our weaknesses by helping the other with theirs.  

One cool story we had this week is that we have been visiting a menos activa called Maria Lucia, about 60 years old.  She is a habitual smoker. She’s tried to quit multiple times and she’s been denying herself the sacrament because she doesn’t want people to judge her if she is smoking. We focused with her on the fact that if you’re trying, and I mean REALLY trying to quit the bad habit or addiction, the sacrament can help you.  It can help you have to spirit you need to finally kick the habit. But we also taught her the importance of making a plan as well as taking the sacrament. She responded "but isn’t it  more important that I have the plan in my heart and mind" and I said yes.  It is very important to have the plan right there, but I also know that we as humans are not the most concrete in our decisions, and that if you make a plan, something written down that you can see, when it comes to the point of temptation, you’re less likely to give into that temptation. She said "huh... when you put it like that, it sounds exactly what I need to do."  Now you have to understand that this woman is STUBBORN!  I can relate because I am that way as well at times. But it was awesome to see the Spirit work in her and us to help her understand the importance of what we were inviting her to do.  

We continue to work, walk, and  talk with everybody. Like literally everybody. I don’t want to possibly miss someone who might be being prepared by the Lord to receive us.  So we take every opportunity to contact people. 

I love you all and thank you so much for everything you do for me. You’re emails are very uplifting and I really appreciate all you’ve done for me.  

Elder Watts