Elder Paul J. Horton....Colombia Bogota North Mission: Mission Week 37, Yopal Week 2, "Put every bit of trust you have and give it to the Lord"

I don't know any other way to start an email without "This week", What a great week" etc...lol

THIS WEEK was yet again another amazing one full of miracles. Elder Pumacondor and I didn't have a whole lot of time to work in our area because half of the mission got called into Bogotá. A member of the seventy, Elder Held came to our mission on Friday. Funny thing about traveling here in Yopal, we're out in the middle of nowhere. We have to take a bus to a place called Sogamoso. It's a 6 hour bus ride. Then, from there, we have to take another bus to Bogotá, which is about 5 hours. Elder Held talked about many important things concerning the missionary work, but we also had the opportunity to listen to Elder Held's wife. She talked about "Pensamientos" or "Thoughts". The human brain has about 6,000 thoughts daily (According to what she said). All of us are always thinking about different things, and images go flying into our heads and back out again. If you guys would like to, read about "thoughts" in the dictionary in the Book of Mormon and you can do a little more studying there. Something interesting that it says in there is that we all have been given the power to think for ourselves. We all have our agency to choose. She related it to staying focused in the mission field, but! She also related it to being happy and staying positive, along with keeping bad images out of our minds. Now go get your Doctrine and Covenants and read chapter 6 verse 36. This verse had a changing effect on me that will stay with me forever. It says to Look unto the Lord un every thought, never doubting and never fearing. I put the words never in there because that's how I understood this scripture. If we have the Savior in our minds in every decision that we make, how could we choose the wrong instead of the right? You're either going to choose the right or recognize the wrong choice you made and you'll know what you need to do to get better and improve on. If the Lord is always in your thoughts, then you will always be able to make the right decisions. The only thing is, we aren't perfect. If we kept our minds on the Lord for every 6,000 one of those thoughts we would be pretty dang close to perfect. I know that if we will all try to keep our thoughts centered on the Lord that we will be happier, that you will smile more, and that your outlook on the burdens of life will become calmer and filled with peace. Put every bit of trust you have and give it to the Lord and I promise each and every one of you as a representative of Jesus Christ that your lives will be blessed. You will be filled with the spirit more abundantly, to help guide you and keep you safe from sin.

We've been running around like crazy here trying to find new people to teach on the daily. It was a little hard to find a whole lot of people because we didn't get back from our area until Sunday at 3 in the morning. I love to talk to people here. We literally found a family of about 10 just sitting outside. We went up and introduced ourselves and asked them if they'd be interested in hearing about a message of Jesus Christ. they were all down to listen.

Other than that we were able to set 2 baptismal dates this week with a mom (Maryeri) and her daughter (Maria). The father of the family (Carlos) has already accepted a date to be baptized on the 29th of September. We taught this family after a sacrament meeting and they are very excited to get baptized! they love the church and the feeling they have each time they come. Maryeri came up to us and told us that she and her husband aren't married and wanted to know if that would affect them getting baptized. We asked them if they would be willing to get married. She told us that getting papers all signed would be a little of a hassle, but that she wants to get married as well! I hope we can get everything all worked out before their baptismal dates!

Love you all! Have a great week!
Elder Horton

Impressions of Yopal:
1. This week I ate this sick food called Chiguiro! It's this fat rat/beaver(with his tail cut off) type of animal. It's actually not too bad. I'd recommend it!
2. Humidity is off the charts (it´s so dang hot)
3. The people from Yopal are called "janeiros"