January 18, 2016

Well well well. Its been a interesting week full of exciting announcements, interviews, and the work.

Lets kick off with some highlights of what will be happening with the branch.

They are going to keep it for now. We are going to be joining partly a english ward that will offer its youth program or primary and youth and also other classes of english for the mixed families of english and spanish. We will have our own Sacrament meeting and adult classes in Spanish. This way we have a better retention rate with the few members we have and still provide all the classes for the kids. As for how long this is going to last that is up for discussion. But now we have a clear goal in mind and that is trying to get the less active members to return, that would be the real big goal the branch has. Kind of like consolidating the few numbers we have and working on fellowshipping of those who have left. So very exciting and we will see how the future will unfold with this new effort.

Now onto other news. We had interviews with our Mission President and that was fun, interesting, and short. Usually me and Pres dont talk very long. He talked about the branch and how he knows the struggles of the area and how difficult it is. He mentioned how I may go back to English as a possibility and I tried to argue my case of being companions with Elder Ryan (fellow oregonian) expecially to finish off my mission. He just laughed and wrote his name down on my paper so who knows. He said I would have another 6 weeks here which I think he is telling the truth but who knows he changes all the time.

As for this week, it was very cold. Monday we nearly froze and then tuesday we froze but with snow. After that the temperatures increased a little but was still a bit chilly. But apparently warmer weather was just a quick thing because then we dropped back down to the 20s and now today we have a lovely 6-8 degrees to keep us on our toes. But that all good.

In terms of the work we have been meeting a little success but are still trying to find new people. Our man Franco who we found not to long ago is being a little hard to find now. Kind of a bummer but it happens. And like I said earlier the branch wants a focus on the less actives more so we will be going on the hunt this week for them.

Things are good here.