A La Grande. Milagritos

Hello family and friends! This week once again went by incredibly fast. This is all going by way to fast. Here is a little report!

Tuesday we had Leadership Council again, and this was fun. Hahahahahah our Zone is doing ok, but the mission has not had a great month. President talked a lot about how we are doing well, but there is a need to do more! Our goal at the beginning of the year was 2060 baptisms (Army of Helaman). And if we got this goal, President is gonna take us to San Juan del Sur! It is a super cool tourist place down south in Nicaragua. Last year the mission baptized 1729. Right now we have about 1680, or somewhere around there. It's pretty fijo that we get 2060, so President decided to test us a little more. He put the monthly goals for each Zone in these last three months of the year, instead of the Zone Leaders putting it. The goals are gonna be difficult, but possible! In Jinotepe, we need to baptize 26 this month, with only three weeks to baptize! Should be a lot of fun :) and we put a new goal for the mission! 2300! President promised that if we get 2300 baptisms as a mission, he will give us all sick Mission Shirts down at San Juan del Sur. Creating the vision! It was also fun to see a lot of my really good friends at Leadership Council.

Wednesday and Thursday we worked really hard! And Thursday night we prepared a little for Zone Meeting, that we had on Friday!

Friday we got up early to prepare for Zone Meeting. It was looking all good! And then I got the text. One of the APs texted me and said that President was going to be there. Which means nerves up the wall hahahha. We talked about how the Zone was doing, obedience, and then a little more about how to work with members. I always think about how in this life, we really only ever have two options. Obedience, and disobedience. When we are obedient, we come closer to Christ. When we are disobedient in any way, shape or form, we fall away from Him, and unless we repent, we will never be able to return to His presence. It is that simple. Obedience is that important! So let's be Obedient with exactness, because in that way we can see the blessings of change in our life. And if not, then let's repent! Afterwards, President said it was excellent, one of the best he has ever seen (but doesn't he say that to everybody???) hahaha but it was all good! Then that afternoon, I got to go around and work a little with my dad Elder Collado. Yes he is still AP. That is a lot of time. We went around animating all the possibilities. It was awesome to work with him, and in the off time in the car, talking about some of the best times of my mission, down in Granada with him. We have so many memories! 

Elders Copeland, Naisbitt, Hartley, Hanson and Merrill

Saturday we baptized Alejandra and Eyris! And even better, on Sunday they got confirmed. Even better! And everything went well in the Zone, Gracias a Dios. We finished with 20! Oh yeah and on Saturday we had to go help out some sisters to get a baptism done. What did we have to do? Distract a super drunk guy for about an hour because the sisters were scared of him. C'mon. Hahahah it was funny, but kind of a waste of time.

But the girls got baptized so todo bien!

Recent convert, Angel

I am super excited for my 3rd General Conference of the mission! Pray so that we can get enough investigators, because if we don't have enough then we can't go and watch! Love you all so much!

Elder Merrill

Would you look at that!

It's about time! Hahahah congrats to the football team on the big W :)

Sooooo.... this last week was full of many great and glorious things. Changes! Elder Naisbitt naturally was the one that had changes, that was not a surprise. So one more change here in Jinotepe! One more change here to try and find people that are ready to be baptized :) at the same time, our other two companions had changes as well. So I was going to be left with one new ZL companion, and two others. We got to the Change Meeting, and we thought we knew who my new ZL companion was gonna be (Elder Copeland), but anything could have happened! President announced it and... my new ZL companion is...... ELDER COPELAND! 

Elder Merrill and Elder Copeland

Hahahahaha so here is the deal... Elder Copeland came to my area in April when we were in a foursome together. Then from May to September he was the District Leader and I was his Zone Leader. And now we are companions again. Seven and a half months talking every single day. Two General Conferences together. Hahahahahah we are excited! Now just hopefully we can baptize this change unlike the last one :) Which by the way.... we have two baptisms ready for this week! Please pray for Alejandra and Eyris :)

The work! I am in the greatest work in the entire world. It is the work of the Lord. We have been working really hard these last couple weeks, even harder than normal! And in these last few days, Elder Copeland and I were able to pull out like 3 for sure baptisms for the month of October! As you guys have probably seen, this is not a very successful area. I have had 4 baptisms in basically 5 months. However, in October we can do something special. Please pray for us. 

What else, what else....On Friday I went down to work in Rivas, that was a lot of fun! The new District Leader down there is Elder Scheffler, he is really good friends with Houston! He is a wicked hard worker and a super cool kid, so all is good there :)

Other than that... all is well down here! Oh yeah, my new companion that I will spend the majority of the time working with is Elder Velasquez. He is a decent teacher so hopefully we should be ok :) 

Elders Velasquez and Merrill in front of their house

Now... other than that, all is good! We are continuing to work hard! Love you all, keep up the good work! Go Jazz!

Love,

Elder Merrill

Fresh, homemade chocolate chip cookies...

from a package!

He requires Everything!

So, the third change with Elder Naisbitt has finally finished.... and it was definitely the fastest change of my whole mission. We are here in shock about how fast these 6 weeks went by! This week we have changes, and it is almost certain that one of us will, probably Elder Naisbitt. We are both ready to get out of this area, and it will be fun to have a new companion. To answer my Dad's question, I have been in this Zone since January. That is a long time. And this week also went by really fast, because there were so many weird things going on! Here is a lil update.

Translation: I love you

First off, classic BYU. Hahahahahah I am just glad I am not home and don't have to worry too much about it. And classic Utah State, "could have won". Oh well. Good luck to Bountiful this week against Woods Cross! Time to break the streak hahahaha.

Tuesday was a fun day working with my son Elder Lopez! Also can't believe how fast these three months have gone with my 6th son! He is a good kid, and we have worked hard, even though our area has not been great. We were able to find some new people and get some good work done. It was a good day! Except for the fact that Elder Naisbitt got really sick. He was out til Friday with some sickness!

Wednesday I went down to Rivas to work with Elder Copeland and some sisters! That was a lot of fun, but incredibly and way too hot. Elder Copeland and I ate Burger King for perhaps the last time together in Rivas, so that was sad but fun. We helped animate some people to get baptized as well!

Thursday and Friday were normal days, but Saturday was a fun one hahahaha. In the morning Elder Naisbitt and I went to do a baptism interview, and then on the way back we heard about a little problem that there was between a companionship of Sisters. So we spent basically the whole afternoon trying to clear that up. Lots of fun and we lost a lot of time in the area :) but it's all good, hopefully the situation gets better! Then we ended up finding a really cool family! The lady was really cool, she understood that because Christ gave all for us, we should give all for Him. This is a very good point. Lots of times we think about the sacrifice that Christ gave for us, as it should be the very center of our lives. And then we begin to think that Christ requires a lot. Which is not true. Christ does not require a lot, he requires EVERYTHING! He gave all for us, so why shouldn't we do the same for Him? Makes sense doesn't it??? And let us remember... that the commandments aren't that difficult to keep. 1 John 4:5 or 6 not sure which one it is. So let's give everything!

Today we had a Zone Activity to celebrate everything that we did in August! It was fun, playing some basketball and throwing a baseball around and eating pizza. I played one on one against Elder Copeland, and beat him again ;) forgot to take pictures of this hahahah sorry about that. But all is well. We are still working hard and doing what we can to help others come unto Christ! 

Love you all! Keep up the good work!

Elder Merrill

A lil shaving cream fun with Elder Naisbitt

Back to work!

Well not much that happened so not much to write about. But last week we had interviews with President Russell! It was an incredibly long day hahahaha. I spent the whole day at the church waiting for all the missionaries to go through their interviews. And finally at the end of the day... I got to have my interview with President. The day had been so long that we didn't really have a whole lot of desire to be there, so the interview was short. But it was good! I love President Russell.

So... how is our area doing??? On Friday, I went on divisions with another companionship, and that day we lost about all of our investigators. Elder Naisbitt went around visiting them, and they just all decided that they didn't want anything to do with the church anymore.... so that was a lot of fun. What did we decide to do? We decided to go find some new investigators! On Saturday... we contacted 107 people! Yes... 107. It was incredibly hard... but it was a lot of fun and worth it in the end! And yet sadly.... not a single one of these people went to church. Really frustrating... but we are continuing to work to find new investigators, and we will not stop putting all our faith in the Lord. I'm sorry the time is a little thin because there is a missionary from our Zone going home for a sickness and I haven't had a lot of time, but this is a brief update on the week! We are working, and the Lord will continue to bless us, as we put our confidence in him. Love you all! Go Aggies!

Elder Merrill