Hey Guys,
We had a pretty abnormal week due to our counsel and capacitation in Cuernavaca. But before we left, we were able to meet with the stake president of Chilpancingo and talk to him about the real growth of the church here. We set goals and made plans to improve so that this stake can be split as soon as possible. My companion got a little sick to his stomach at the beginning of the week as well so we didnt get a chance to work before leaving to Cuernavaca. On Thursday, we had a ten hour counsel with President and the rest of the zone leaders. We talked about a ton of stuff like working effectively with the members, working with the leaders of the church, having faith in our work, mission rules, and the pattern of conversion. President Kusch has recieved so much revelation for the mission and he is helping us out a ton. We all feel like the mission can baptize so much more and that we can help the church grow quicker in this part of the world. The following day, we had our capacitation of leaders where all the district leaders and trainers joined us. That was another eight hour meeting where we talked about a lot of similar things and also did a lot of hands on practice with role plays. We enjoyed ourselves quick a bit and I was able to see a bunch of my best friends in the mission. Elder Oswald just became zone leader of the Civac zone (where we served together) so he was there as well. I actually got to stay over night at his house so we caught up on how we were doing and our missionary experiences. He is such a great and humble guy, I know we will be great friends after the mission. We didnt get back to Chilpo till Saturday afternoon so we were left with a few short hours to work in our area for the week. But we did enjoy those hours because we went to the church to meet some friends of a young man in our ward named Rafa. He is constructing a house with his dad and some family friends right now so he as had the chance to share the Gospel with them. He only got baptized like 5 months ago but he has such a strong testimony and is looking forward to serving a mission. But I did enjoy getting to know a couple of his family friends and we ended up taking them into the church to gave them a tour and show them around. One of the guys lives with his wife and 7 kids! We are going to go teach him and his family on Tuesday. Sunday brought with it a few tender mercies of the Lord. None of our investigators came to church due to our absence during the week. But my heart was touched when a recently activated member got up to share his testimony. I dont remember if I have talked about him before but he is a taxi driver that we ran into a few weeks ago. He was alone and completely separated from the church. We found out his bday was the following day from when we met him and told him we would take him out to eat. He is now a great friend of mine and hasnt missed a sunday at church in about a month now. But he got up and expressed his love for the Savior and His Atonement and for the chance he has to repent and come back to Christ through the Church. We taught the Gospel Principles class again and afterwards a bunch of primary kids ran down the hall towards us. They all gave us little drawings they had done of us, the missionaries. Their teacher told us that she asked them to draw their greatest heroes and they all decided that the missionaries are the greatest heroes. It was so sweet of them and I was so grateful for those kids an their love towards all the missioanries in the world. In elders quorum we had the chance to teach again because the President wasnt able to make it. We decided to talk about home teaching and train these brethern how to do it. So we learned with them how a home teaching visit should be done and then we conducted a role play right there in Church to get them practicing what they need to be doing every week. It went really well and I think the brethren are more confident now in going to do visits to the members and less actives. We have some special changes going on in the zone. We had a good elder leave yesterday and another come in to take his place and a set of the sister missionaries are getting changed out and their ward will be without missionaries for right now. We are going to go live in their apartment though because they had a contract on it so we will be living in a different area but will continue to work in our area. Today we are heading to the zoo here in Chilpo with our zone to help with unity and to have fun and then my comp and I are going to have a zone capacitation to teach everyone what we learned from President Kusch and apply it to the specific needs of our zone. I am grateful for the work and service we do on a daily basis in this church because the Lord is always preparing us for the future. I love a quote which is the title of my email ¨Forever is composed of nows.¨ We cannot procrastinate the improvments that we need to make today. When we make those improvements today, the Lord prepares our future so that we will be able to return to His presence with our families and eternal joy. THis is our goal and I hope to help others achieve it too. Love you all!!!
Elder Stutz
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