Mission Week 26, Bogota City Week 9, "Alma 32"

This week was super fast!

Elder Rodriguez and I worked very hard to find new people to teach this week. We found a young man. He is 19 years old. He just got back from serving his military service time here in Colombia. I learned something new today. I guess everyone who was born in Colombia has to serve time in either the military, or the police force. It's required as a citizen living here. He started his service at the age of 17! We shared the Book of Mormon with him and that caught his attention right away. He told us, "Por Fin!" (Finally!) He's been looking for religion since he got back from his service, and he loves to read in the Book of Mormon. I'm hoping that one day he'll go on a mission.

We also had a very cool experience this Thursday with one of our investigators. His name is Andres Campos. He is 30 years old. He's been investigating that church for about 2 months now. Something super cool is that he goes to institute classes here. He loves to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He read the Book of Mormon and told us that he knows it's true, but that he doesn't want to make the decision to get baptized because he wants to know everything before he makes the decision. My brain immediately thought of Alma 32. We gave him that chapter as some studying to do that night. This week we were able to meet up with Andres. He had read the chapter and told us that verse 21 answered his question. This verse tells us that faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things. After sharing the story in this chapter of continually growing his "seed" (testimony) he made the decision right then and there to get baptized. We have a date set for him the 14th of July. I'm so excited for him!

The Book of Mormon can answer so many of the questions that you have, I know it`s true!

Love you all
Elder Horton

Mission Week 25, Bogota City Week 8, "Answer to a Prayer"

Muy buenas tardes!

I have a pretty cool miracle from this week!

The first one started while we were contacting in the park on Saturday night. We were close to arriving to our house, but it was only 8:45pm. My comp and I decided to go contacting in the park. After we got there, I felt like there was someone there waiting for us. Legit I don't know why, but I had the impression. I stopped my comp and told him that we need to pray. We prayed and asked the Lord to help us to find the people that he has prepared for us that night. We immediately started talking to the first people we came in contact with. The first people we talked to was a couple. They were actually on a date so that was funny haha! We kept looking. We talked with another guy who was standing around in the park. He didn't really want anything to do with us. I was getting a little bummed out at this point since it was getting late and we were going to have to start walking to the house. As we were making our way to the house, someone called out to us,"HEY JOSEPH SMITH!" I was like what the heck. who said that? I turned around and saw a little tiny man running towards us with alcohol in his hands. I probably should've ran but I didn't. This man was straight DRUNK he smelt so dang bad. But I felt like we needed to talk with him. Turns out this dude speaks a little english. As we started talking with him, we found out that he used to be a member of the church. Since he was so drunk I really had no idea what he was saying, but I still felt like we needed to listen to him. After about 5 mins of talking to him, he took me by the arm and brought me over to this group 4 guys smoking marijuana. He introduced us and let us talk with his friends a little bit about us. I got out my Book of Mormon from my bag and taught them a little bit about it. One of the guys there seemed a little interested. His name is Luis. After talking with him, he told us that he's been looking for something more in his life, and that he feels like somethings missing. We promised him that as he would prayerfully read the Book of Mormon that he would find those answers that he's been searching for. We left him with that and made our way back home since it was pretty late. I don't know what's going to happen with him since he didn't have a number that we write down, and he doesn't live in our area. But I know that we found him in the park that night because we prayed, and acted afterwards with faith. This was a Huge testimony builder for me on prayer, and that the Lord is truly preparing people to receive his Gospel.

Never forget to prayer, especially if you feel inspired to do something, you can receive revelation of what you are to do as you pray because prayer invites the spirit!

Love you all!

Elder Horton

Mission Week 24, Bogota City Week 7, "Step Out of Your Comfort Zone."

Remember how I said we we're gonna work like Mulas last week? Well, that's exactly what we did! This week we had to go searching really hard for people to teach. Knocking on doors, finding people in parks, in stores, and the sidewalk, TOO! We set a goal to have 6 new investigators this week, and guess what? WE DID IT. This area is pretty dang hard to get people to listen to you for even 5 mins. You gotta be fast and straight to the point or the people here will just keep walking.

The lord blessed us each day as we went out to go look for people. We may have faced a lot of rejection, but something great happened during each of the days. We were able to find at least one person who gave us time to teach them something. You know you have a new investigator if they allow you to teach them something, they let you start and end with a prayer, and then give you there contact info. to come back and teach them another day. That's exactly the definition of a new investigator. Knocking on doors in this area is down right hard man. You can't get the people ever to come out and talk to you because they have this little machine by there doors that you talk through. I'm trying to figure out a way to get them to come out and talk to us.

Preach my Gospel teaches us in Chapter 9 to just talk to the everyone! So thats what we did. One family who we found who I think were pretty special, and there is no doubt in my mind that they were prepared by the Lord, was Angela, Hector, and Blanca. I found this family out of my agenda. We were calling people setting up appointments for the day, and I found the name Angela Daza in my agenda. I told my comp, vamos a llamar este numero (we're gonna call this number). Angela answered the phone and we were able to set up something with here that day to go visit her. Walking to the house I realized, as we got closer to her house, that this neighborhood had been a place that Elder Arteaga and me had gone contacting about 3 weeks ago. We hadn't had much success, and literally everyone was rejecting us. A señora, Angela had been the only one there that opened her door to let us write down here direction and number to call her to return at another time. She had told us that she was pretty busy for the moment, but that she'd love to listen to our message another time. Arriving to her door she welcomed us in as if we were family! Before teaching the lesson, her husband came out to listen to our message, and Angela had invited a friend over to come listen to us
as-well! We taught the Restoration and they want to continue to hear more! We got 3 new investigators out of the only number we wrote down that day.

I've learned that you can't give up, no matter where you are, no matter if you're getting rejected at every door. You just have to keep working diligently, because I know there is always SOMEONE looking for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives.

For the members of the church I would say don't miss the chance to bring the light of Christ into the eyes of your friends, neighbors, and everyone! Invite them to activity's in the church, sacrament meeting, or invite them over to a family night! There's always something that you can do. But you gotta take that step out of your comfort zone to do it. Who knows, those people that you invite to come unto Christ are probably searching for answers, hope, or happiness! The Lord will bless you for your efforts to INVITE OTHERS TO COME UNTO CHRIST.

Love you all!

Elder Horton 

Meeting People in Bogota

Knocking Doors in Bogota

Mission Week 23, Bogota City Week 6, "New Companion from Peru."

My companion left this Thursday to go stay with the assistents of the president. He leaves tomorrow in a plane! I spent the rest of the week with the zone leaders in an area called Chia (Chi Chi Chi CHIA). I was with Elder Vincent and Elder Rodriguez. Elder Vincent is from Brigham City Utah and Elder Rodriguez is from Cochabamba Bolivia.

​I also got to talk with Hermana Lima (standing next to me in the pic), she's from Sao Paula Brazil. I remember trying to have a conversation with here during my time in the CCM but we both couldn't speak very well since we we were both trying to learn Spanish. It was a cool experience having a conversation with her in Spanish after 6 months!

During my time with the zone leaders we had a lot of success teaching many lessons. I'm a little bummed out since I lost a week in my area... But on the bright side we got a baptismal date set for one of the investigators in Chia. Elder Rodriguez knows how to cook really good food. This Sunday he made us banana hamburgers (it's a plantain but it's pretty much a banana). That whopper was packed with bacon, chicken, and meat from some animal. 

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I'm back in Cedros now with my new companion. His name is Elder Rodriguez. He's 22 years old and he's from Arequipe Peru. This man looks like he wants to punch you in the face when you first see him but don't be mistaken, he's super tranquilo. 

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I'm still the junior companion, but I have to lead since my comp doesn't know our investigators. It feels weird taking charge , but I like it. We're going to work like MULAS!!!

Love you all and hope you have a greate week!

Elder Horton