Camron's letter....March 26, 2012

Hola Familia, This week was also pretty crazy. We had a bunch of cambios in our zone but Elder Hansen and I are still here working as companions so that's good. Elder Pino, that I trained, is now in our zone, so I was way happy for him to come. He had some success stories in Riberalta. His area had baptized the most in the zone too. We have 3 companionships who are opening a new area which means that 2 missionaries left their area, and 2 new missionaries came in. It's pretty crazy. We had 16 new missionaries come to the Santa Cruz mission, and only one was from the states. He came to our zone so my comp, his trainer, and I were cheering in the meeting. It was pretty funny haha. But the new elder is from Lehi. His dad was actually born in La Paz but has lived here in the U.S. since he was 18. He's a lot like me and my comp. He's really excited to work here, but his trainer just got his call and he recieved his Visa to go to Venezuela, so he's leaving tomorrow. We were pretty sad and so was he becasue he just got called to train and be a district leader. But I'm sure he will do a great job in his new mission. We have been working hard this week and we have this sixteen year old girl Diana with a baptismal date and a thirteen year old boy Pablo. They are awesome investigators and learn really fast. I'm pretty sure Pablo will be baptized too . We did a fast this week and asked for help finding some families to be able to baptize. We could see the Lord blessing us for our faith with actions. During our fast, we were walking down the road, and this dad told us that he wanted to talk with us. We told him we would  walk with him to his house and share something with him. He said sure. He told us there is something different about you guys and the church buildings you have. They are always clean with cut grass and bushes. It's something different than all of the other churches out there that you see. We told him first that it was because it's the only true church and because the Lord deserves the best that we can give Him. It's also a sign of what the true and pure beauty that tithing will bring. Especially when the pastors aren't getting all the money from tithing. Once in a lesson I related tithing to a scripture that is in Ephesian 2:21.  It says "and every building that is very organized will grow into a temple of the Lord."  We are the only church on the face of the earth with more than 135 functioning temples with around 15 in construction. This is a sign that through the organization in the church it will keep growing and building holy temples dedicated to the Lord. It is something truly special. We have had some pretty good lessons this week. The family that we found told us they are pretty excited to go to see conference this Saturday and they are truly amazed to hear how there is a conference broadcasted world wide so that everyone can hear the prophet and apostles of the Lord. This week I've thought a lot about the scripture  "by their fruits ye shall know them."  What greater testimony could we recieve than the many fruits that this church has. If you truly think about it, you can find thousands of fruits that the Lord has blessed us with so we can know that His true church is on the earth today. So we are left without any doubts that we have this truth. I have no doubt at all that these things are true and I will never be able to deny it no matter what happens. This is the kingdom of the Lord here on the earth today for the preperation of the second coming.    Love, Elder Christoffersen