November 30, 2015 - Gospel in the Home

Another week has flown by in the jungle! It seems that every week goes by faster and faster.

They [members] do different things. But almost everything is based on the oil. Most of the members don´t actually work in the companies, but when the oil is doing well, lots of people come from all over the place, which generates other excellent and stable job opportunities in restaurants, teachers, taxis, and other things.

In the lists that I have there are 188 [people in branch]. But we only have about 90 going to church every week. I am in the mission of finding out who all those other people are, because I have heard that many are no longer here. There are about 10 active youth. And there are a lot of primary kids, but they don´t all come every week. Normally there are also about 10-15.

The problem is that people here are not consistent, and it is hard to rely on them. There is not much personal responsibility, so many times you get failed on. It is actually pretty normal. But we are working to change that and to make them feel more responsable. Even the leaders. It sometimes takes a good hard talking to to make them react and to fulfill.

Yesterday in the branch, I gave a training from some video excerpts that the area sent to share with the members about the Sabbath Day. They were segments from a training that the apostles gave for General Conference and it was powerful. Something interesting that was stressed a lot was the importance of preparing in the home. They testified a lot of the importance of teaching the gospel in the home. If we can always live the gospel in our home, we will be much safer from temptations, and we will always be progressing.

I know that we have families for a reason and that they are meant to help us and strengthen us. 

Love, Elder Parker

1. Our little branch activity to put up the tree :) (we did take the lights off after the pic)

2. A delicious fried fish with yuca that a member gave us this week. It was a lot of food. What you don´t see very well there is the altitude of the mountain of rice..