Conferencia, Breaking the wall. We are just kids

Hello friends and family!!

It is so good to talk to you all this week, and to talk to you all about conference, and what’s been going on here in Tarija! My heart is so full right now, I am so grateful for all the support I have been receiving from you all, you are amazing! I love hearing whats going on in all of your lives, and with that, I’ll give a quick update on what’s been happening here!

So on Tuesday, we had another visit with Paula, and we went into it ready to tackle the last few things we needed to before her baptism. And one struggle for me at least is that she was really close with Elder Timana´s previous companion, so she hadn’t really been taking me that seriously. This had been kind of a struggle for me, but on Tuesday, we broke the wall. We shared a couple of videos about baptism, and then a video with testimonies of the apostles about Christ, and how He lives. I bore testimony about the Apostles, and about how Christ lives, and because He lives, we are never alone in this life. During my testimony, she began to cry. She talked about how whenever she has felt alone, she has always felt God step into her life. We did it, we broke the wall, and she is ready for baptism. Well, that is, when we find her again, her phone doesn’t work, so we have to find her again because our last appointment with her fell through. So fingers crossed once again for Paula.

We had a cool experience with our investigator Edgar. He has insane faith, and we have been working with him a lot. We had kind of a weird experience where he had a question that we couldn’t find the answer that he wanted, and he was getting kind of frustrated. I got the prompting to take a break. I jumped in, and I explained that we were here to help him, but in reality, we are just kids, and sometimes we don’t know all the answers. He understood, he wasn’t frustrated anymore, and the Spirit returned to the lesson. We were able to place a Book of Mormon for him, and he has been reading it!

Kind of a funny experience! We had a contact, and he could tell I spoke English, (I don’t know how, something about tall and white screams American...) He asked me to offer the prayer in English, because he studied English in school, and wanted to see if he could understand anything. So I went to offer the prayer in English, and that was harder than praying in Spanish!!! I guess it’s a good sign, when you start to forget your first language, it means you are really learning your second!!

General Conference was an absolute blessing. I was kind of struggling with some homesickness this week, and had been praying my guts out to receive some Heavenly help. Little did I know that it would come in the form of conference. Those words were truly inspired. We are bearers of the light of Christ (Uctdorf). There is no such thing as coincidence, only divine design (Rasband). I’m trying to be like Jesus (Holland). But most of all, was the message of Henry B. Eyring, "Faith always defeats fear." These are just a couple of the things that totally lifted my spirits and changed my entire week. I challenge you all to go and study the talks, because there is truly revelation individually tailored for every single one of you.

Love you all so much! I hope you all had a great conference weekend, and I hope you take the messages of conference into your daily lives!!

Love, Elder Christian Duvall Newman

Mom, I’m so glad to hear that Conference weekend was so good back home!! I truly had an amazing experience with this Conference. I received so much Heavenly help through this conference. No muddy buddies?? I probably could have used some, I’m dropping weight here, I don’t know how much, but most my pants are looser than when I left. Love you Mom!!

Dad, Glad to hear you still had two sons at conference (Lucas and Chris)!!  And those are some awesome pictures of your mission! The OG Elder Newman!!  Love you Dad!!

Emma! Hope that Shakespeare Festival was awesome!! Nice job with the aerial!!!! And good job repping the Newmans in Spanish, right now the Newman family is a Spanish family. Love you Em!!

Sarah! Good job with soccer this week!! Things here in Bolivia are great, I had a great conference weekend!! Love you Bear!

Callie! Saturday is a pretty good day! Here in the mission, Saturday is pretty much the same as any other day. Good luck performing in the halftime routine!! Love you Cal!!

Mom’s Questions:

1. What do you cook or prepare to eat for the meals you do for yourselves?

We have eggs, bread, and ramen a lot, because it’s super cheap.

2. How do you do your laundry? Do you have a washing machine or do you wash by hand?

We wash all of our clothes by hand.

3. How is Paula doing? Still progressing? How are your new investigators doing?

Paula is good, just need to find her again, if we can find her, we can baptize her this week. Hoping for another miracle.

4. How big is your area? Do you walk more or take buses?

It’s pretty big, but we walk everywhere. The only time we take bus or taxi is when we go to the stake center for meetings and conferences.

5. Did you watch conference at the church? In Spanish or English? What was your favorite talk?

We watched conference at the stake center, and I watched it in English with Elder Dibb and the other North American Missionaries.