I Will Go and Do : Week 69: Goodbye Elder Sprehn, Hello Elder Lewis, Goodbye Elder Lewis

It has been a week full of changes! On Wednesday, Elder Sprehn completed his two years as a missionary. We had a very great transfer together and I am very grateful for his dedication to the work and example to me. We had the greatest last p-day together in Boston. We were able to drive up with Daniel Mitchell who left on his mission to Argentina the day that Elder Sprehn finished. While in Boston, we were able to see Harvard, eat lunch on the 52nd floor of the Prudential building, walk around Fenway, feed squirrels in the Boston Commons and a ton more. It was a blast, I hope you like all the pictures.

Wednesday after dropping off Elder Sprehn, I was able to meet up with my new companion, Elder Lewis. He an I have been having a good time together and I am grateful that I have been able to train him on a lot of new things since he has only been on his mission for 3 months. As we have been working with our investigators, we have seen huge progress in a lot of their lives, especially Patrick. Patrick is doing so great right now and he is really excited to be baptized this upcoming Saturday! We had a powerful lesson with him about repentance, baptism, and enduring to the end. We have been able to see him become more and more converted each time we meet with him. If all continues to go well, he will be baptized on Saturday!

Sunday night Elder Lewis and I mad some time to go to his old area and check up on his investigators. We were able to meet with a 20 year old guy named Edwin. He has been meeting with the Elders for a pretty long time now and so I was so excited to teach him and try and figure out what has been holding him back from being baptized. As we spoke with him, it was easy to tell that he didn't think anything of himself at all. He truly saw himself as no worth and it was heartbreaking. After talking to him for a while, I invited him to pray and ask God to let him know how He felt about him. Edwin agreed to and said our closing prayer. In a very sincere prayer, Edwin asked God to let him know how He felt about him. Right afterwards, Edwin began crying which turned into weeping. Elder Lewis and I sat there, very humbled, and comforted Edwin. This was by far one of the most tender moments from my mission thus far. I cannot describe how grateful I am to be a missionary. To be able to share very sacred moments with complete strangers and to get a glimpse of how God sees his children.

On Friday, we received transfer texts and I got some great information . . . .my new companion is going to be Elder Warner! I've never served around Elder Warner, but I know that he is a great missionary and we are going to do such great work in Bridgeport together. For the past transfer, I was pretty sure that I was going to get Elder Warner for a companion and so I was pretty excited when I found out. The Sister Training Leaders and I sent out some pretty big goals and so we are excited to see miracles happen in the zone this week and this upcoming transfer. Our zone has a goal to pick up 40 new investigators this week and our transfer goal is for everyone to read the entire Book of Mormon in one transfer. We promised the zone that if each companionship did this they will have a baptism. The Lord has big things in store for our zone!

Thank you everyone for the support and love!
Love,
Elder Gutierrez