October 29th, 2018 Letter #51

The main reason why I say that it'll take a different approach with this district is because this time around I was dealt a handful of missionaries that are slow to trust new leaders. On top of that, I have never been in the same zone with any of them for a complete transfer before so I know very little about them. Those two conditions don't blend well. That being said, I feel like winning people's confidence is a stronger point for me so we're already starting to see things moving in the right direction. Little by little, but we're moving. The district class went poorly at first, but finished well (and the end is always what people leave with). 

Olga is the name of the girl, but she disappeared this week and Uriel's mom went super catholic mom mode and didn't let him come to church. So we drew a blank in church for the first time in months. I felt like we worked well this week, but obviously we're still lacking some extra umph. 

We lived with the Zone leaders for the last couple weeks, but now we have running water in our house so we've moved back into it. We're still waiting on a fridge, but that's not a huge deal. 

Zone conference is next week I think. My favorite thing about the area is member support. Everybody is willing to help. Also tracting is a lot more effective here than in Xalapa. So in short it's easier to find new investigators. That being said, I feel like it's been harder to have constant contact with them after finding them. 

There's not really anything special to smell around here, but something funny was that a kid of an investigator gave me a homemade perfume this week haha. It's definitely a feminine smell, but it's not half bad. The unusual thing about the area has been that everyone told me it would be super hot in Tuxpan, but it's pretty much just rained the whole time I've been here. Things are still going well with Elder Jimenez, he's helping a lot to gain the trust of the district because he knows the missionaries here way better than I do. 

The best part of the week was when I did splits with Elder Pearl. We had the biggest wave of blessings. We spent the whole day straight up finding new families and ended the day having found 18 new investigators. A fairly normal stat in the mission is 6-7ish in a week. So it was pretty cool. It was in the area of the Zone Leaders so the new people will be theirs, but that doesn't bother me because he and Elder Lobo are trustworthy missionaries that will certainly teach them well. The most challenging was seeing 0 investigators of ours in the church. That had me down for a minute, but I know it's simply a call to work harder. A simple, but pure principle that I found in my studies is in D&C 11:20, "Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea, with all your might, mind and strength." It points out the core of any calling or assignment that we have. Everything points back to keeping the commandments with every bit of effort.

Love you,

Elder Finlinson