Dario, Intercambios, Che, I hate the Internet.

 District Picture

 Zone Picture

Filling the Font!

 Dario's Baptism

 A dog that came into the church to escape the rain

 Sister Selfies

Hello Friends and Family!!!

So another 6 weeks has come and gone, but nothing will be changing for us! Elder Maravilla and I will be sticking together for at least another 6 weeks!

In this weeks update, we have some awesome things to talk about!! We had a baptism this week!!! Dario, after almost an entire year, 10 elders, and tons of invitations to get baptized, and an extremely catholic and unsupportive mother, he finally entered the waters of baptism, making a promise with our Heavenly Father!! Talk about a miracle, it’s awesome to see how the Lord's timing always prevails. But something I was thinking about this week made me ponder a little bit.. It’s easy to say, Lord’s timing, and all those kind of things, when it aligns with our own timing.. But how often are we willing to let the Lord’s timing happen when it isn’t the same as our own? I’m trying to apply that more, when some of our investigators don’t seem to be progressing, or when things aren’t working out in the way that we hope for, to be able to submit my own will to the will of the Lord’s. It’s definitely a challenge sometimes, but as I have tried to apply it, I’ve seen the hand of the Lord more abundantly here in Bolivia!!

Intercambios! So with Elder Maravilla as the district leader, we have the opportunity to do intercambios with the zone leaders! It’s super awesome, because in order to be a zone leader, you have to be a cream of the crop missionary. Oh, it was so awesome to have a day with Elder Iparraguirre. I learned a ton from him! He reminds me a ton of Elder Talaverano, my first zone leader, and one of my best friends during my first cambio! One of the things I learned during this intercambio was that there is nothing more powerful that we can share with investigators than our testimony. We share scripture, and doctrine, and all of that is essential, but nothing touches the heart of a person like our own testimony..

Alright, so I have a couple of funny experiences to share for the week!! The first is one of those, you can either laugh or cry, so I choose to laugh kind of experiences. On Thursday, the day after our intercambios, we taught a guy named Marcos, who was super receptive in our first lesson during the intercambios. We walked in, and he sat us down, pulled out his phone, and we listened to 20 minutes of anti mormon literature that was just blatant lies... Oh my goodness I hate the Internet so much....

Che. Ok, first I’m going to explain why I’m talking about this word. We have some investigators that have some problems with addictions, mostly with alcohol.. So we are doing an activity to help us sympathize a little better with what they are going through.  The activity is to get rid of an activity, habit or something like that for an entire day, and then if possible, for a week. Well, Che is one of the most common words here in Tarija, and it means "dude" or "bro". So we tried to cut that word out of our vocabulary for an entire day. Well, as you can imagine, we failed. Hard. But it did give us a better appreciation for what they are going through, and how hard it must be. 

Before I go, I do want to give a tribute to President Monson.. What a man, called as an apostle at 36 years old, and over 50 years of dedicated service to the Lord. Timeless revelation given to us through him, like the importance of service to others, and the importance of daily study of the Book of Mormon. Thank you, President Monson.

Well, that’s all I got for this week!! Thank you all for your continued support!! Love you all tons!!

Con amor, Elder Christian Duvall Newman

Mom, What a busy week with drill, futsal, and basketball!!! As I have learned, busy is good!! Love you Mom!!

Dad, What a busy week full of meetings, mutual, and being a drill dad. And what an awesome picture at Jackson's senior banquet, crazy how fast the time goes!!! Love you Dad!!!

Emma, Good luck with drill!!! Less than a month till state, work hard! I know you guys can do something truly special!!! Brother Fossum!!!! Be sure to ask him what it was like to have me and Isaiah in the same class, we had a great time! Enjoy the last half of your junior year! Love you Emma!

Sarah, Christmas break is an awesome time to get relaxed, and how exciting that you have tons of games this week, and a tournament next week!!! Fun times with the egyptian funeral, I remember that activity!! Love you Bear!!

Callie, Back Bends?? You are definitely more flexible than your brother!! And better on the piano!!!! And good to hear CoCo was good, we can watch disney movies here in the mission, so maybe when its on dvd, we can watch it! Love you Callie!!

Mom’s Questions:

1. What was the reaction by the members in Bolivia to the passing of President Monson? 

Very sad... Many of the people here are converts, so he was their first prophet.. 

2. What did you do for New Years? 

Absolutely nothing. We went to bed at 10:30 haha

3. What experiences did you have this week that strengthened your testimony? 

Had a chance to talk about my experience doing baptisms for the dead during my senior year where I received my answer for the mission with our recent convert, Zulma. Testimonies are strengthened when we share them!

4. Was Dario baptized on Saturday? 

Yes! :)​​​​​​