Elder Trumbo

We said good bye to Elder Trumbo during this transfer cycle. We will miss him, but we will always remember his bright smile. We love Elder Trumbo.

The Beauty of Missionaries at Work

What a heartwarming and beautiful sight it is to see missionaries doing all they can to serve the Lord. Our missionaries are remarkable young people. They have a deep, burning desire to serve the Lord with all their heart, might, mind, and strength. They work tirelessly and selflessly as they seek for ways to use their talents and abilities to bring people unto Christ through faith in Jesus Christ, Baptism, Receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End.

Elders Johnston and Owen are shown in the picture above, kneeling on a hill that overlooks the city of Santiago. I know that this is more than just a photo...these Elders yearn to understand all that our Heavenly Father wants them to do here in Chile. Elder Ostergar is an artist with incredible talents. He is shown in the top picture using his artistic abilities to spread the good news of the Gospel. As people stop to watch him draw, his companion is able to teach them about Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His true Church. We feel so blessed to be among these faithful servants. We love every one of them very much.

Zone Leader Council-Eight Areas of Focus to Help Missionaries Become More Powerful Gospel Teachers

During the month of July, we felt great gratitude to our Heavenly Father as we received some additional and inspired curriculum from the Missionary Department that will focus us in eight areas of Preach My Gospel and will help us to become more powerful Gospel Teachers. On July 28, we introduced this new curriculum to our Zone Leaders and will begin teaching it during this transfer cycle. It is our understanding that all missions in the entire world will be working on these eight areas of focus. We feel certain that this curriculum comes to us as a direct answer to our prayers. For the past year, we have been praying to know how to help our missionaries to become more powerful gospel teachers, and we have been working toward that result. Preach My Gospel has so much inspired material, and at times it is challenging to know on what principles to focus in order to help missionaries to reach their fullest potential as powerful teachers. We have felt the need to focus better, and with this new and inspired curriculum we know we will be able to do that. We will still be focusing on helping missionaries to learn the concepts in Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel, but we will have this additional and inspired curriculum to use. What a marvelous blessing that we have a living Prophet who directs the Lord's work!

Missionaries Train Each Other

Elder Orozco and his companion Elder Wassom will be a powerful team. Elder Wassom will train Elder Orozco, but Elder Wassom will also have the great blessing to learn from Elder Orozco. After just a few short days in the mission, Elder Wassom reported to us that his brand new companion had taught him an important lesson about believing that we should extend a baptismal invitation to all we meet. The missionary program is an inspired and beautiful opportunity for young people to lift and love and serve one another. Being a good companion is a great and powerful act of service. We are grateful for faithful missionaries who are trustworthy and ready to become trainers.

Transfer Cycle #10 Began with the Arrival of Three Fantastic New Missionaries.

We were happy to receive three fantastic new Missionaries on Tuesday, July 27 2010. We could feel their enthusiasm and see their obedience, and we immediately felt great love for them. We are very excited to work with them. Elder Orozco is from El Paso, Texas. Sister Nava is from Mexico, and Elder Solano is from Costa Rica. We had a wonderful time orienting these three missionaries. One week after their arrival, we met with them again and learned more about and from them. Sister Nava has 7 sisters, all but two are in the mission field right now. The other two will enter the mission field in October...nine young women from the same family serving missions! What a miracle! Elder Orozco was supposed to be in the MTC in Provo much longer than he stayed. After he had been there just three weeks, the MTC directors decided he was ready, so he came early. Elder Solano told us that his father told him that when he finishes his mission he should be able to say that he has given all he has to the Lord. You can clearly see why these three missionaries bring great love to the Chile Santiago East Mission.