February 9th, 2016

Well another 6 weeks has come and gone and that means that once again there have been a few changes here in the zone! One of these changes is my companion and I. My companion has been changed to a zone in Trujillo and I will stay here with a new Latin companion that is from Argentina. His name is Elder Andia and from what I know about him and what I have been able to see is that he is a really great missionary.

These changes actually came to a surprise to me because just about everyone in the zone was transferred and our mission president sent a bunch of brand new missionaries to our zone. If I were to average out the amount of time that our whole zone has it would probably be around 6 or 7 months in the mission and so yes you could say that the zone is super young. I feel like this is a great opportunity for me to be able to help a lot of missionaries understand their purpose here in the mission as well as help them to truly become converted missionaries. I have no doubt that the purpose of my mission president was this because he has said time and time again that he trusts me and has confidence in me. I look forward to being able to train and help all of these new missionaries.

This week for me was pretty good. As a zone we weren't able to reach our goal to have 100 lessons with members like we had set, but we have seen changes here in the zone and they are all for the better. I hope that as this new cycle starts that we can keep the vision of the zone as well as do the things that our Father in Heaven desires that we do.

For P-day today we went up to a lagoon as Elders in the ward. It is the biggest lagoon that is up here and is called Paron. It was a good experience to be with 2 missionaries that have become great friends of mine one last time.

I think I have finally come to full circle in realizing that I have served my mission for 14 cycles and I only have 3 left. I know that this time will go by super fast but I don't want to leave anything undone before I leave this great place, so even though I only have a little time left as a missionary I will continue to serve just as explained in D&C 4. With everything I've got.

I love you all so much!

Love,
Elder Thorpe