Noah's Mission

I GUESS MY TIME WASNT UP?!? So Monday rolls around and my mission president is hyped because we had 148 baptisms in the month of June. The highest amount in 10 years in South America South. So we went and had a huge lunch as an office. I jumped in the front seat of Presidents car and we drove off. After talking for a bit he tells me, "Hey Elder Ressel. You gotta go back to Concepcion to train an Elder." So... took that 7 hour bus ride again. Who knew that I was going to go back, and I am finishing the mission here. I am training a Paraguayo. It is pretty sick. Dude is tall like 6'5. And we are basically new to this area, so we just walk around talking to members and finding people to teach. What a dream come true. In the program back in the office we had 15 baptisms in June. Highest amount in any month ever in the mission. What a success that has been for the mission. Played basketball with my president in the morning and he killed me. See you guys really soon... From you...

MY FAREWELL TOUR!?! This week was something I wasn't expecting at all. However, I know that God did this on purpose for me. We had Zone conference this week and my mission president pulled me aside. Unfortunately, we had an Elder go home last week who was serving in Concepcion. The zone I served in a year ago. My mission President asked me if I could go out there for the week and work with this Elders companion. I was more than excited. So I took that 7 hour bus ride one last time and went through my old area. All I could do was just look and think about those 6 months serving in that little city in the middle of nowhere. More importantly, I gave a referral to these Elders there about a month ago through the program I started. The family got baptized and I was able to meet them and teach them. To see their joy and how grateful they were to have the Gospel, is something that I can't explain. And to top it off, I was able to go to Pedro Juan once more to see my old area als...

LAST ONE BOYS?!? Welp we had transfers this week and I will tell you that it was super weird to see how those Elders go. Those guys were getting trained when I was getting trained. Now this is my last transfer and my group has the most time in the mission than any other group.  Saturday we had a baptism and it was super cool. The baptismal service was kinda of crazy, but it was super awesome and the family was super excited and happy. They were confirmed on Sunday and are ready to keep learning. I finally got a companion to take over the program once I leave. His name is Elder Braatz and he is from northern California. He has got a good amount of time in the mission and I will be training him so he can run the program. We had leadership council and I had to present all the data from the program and it was pretty sick to do that. Love you all From your favorite, Elder Ressel

THE START OF THE END!?! This was our last week before transfers. We started preparing things for transfer week and getting ready for our leadership training conference that we have this week. I will have to give an update on all the things we have done and accomplished for the month of May. Which from what I have heard and seen. We have accomplished a ton.  To be honest the program was supposed to end last week. My mission president is going to tell me if we will continue going forward with it or not. However, I got a text from the Provo MTC that they want me to explain how I have been running the program over here and use this excel sheet that I made to track and contact the referrals. As my wise Mission President said, ´´We have won.´´ We have a senior mission couple here and they really like to treat us well. One of the office Elders will leave this week, so the senior couple took us all out to eat. We went to this super fancy Korean restaurant and I ate this...

WHY IS MY AB SEIZING?!? Only the boys will understand this one. You guys know when you are trying to carry a bunch of chairs to impress a girl in elementary school or in church, that was what I was exactly doing... but trying to impress my companions. We were preparing our zone conference and had to set up the chair. Being the beast I am, I was trying to carry 6 chairs of this huge stage. While I was lifting them off the stage, my top right ab legit just popped and I almost dropped all 6 chairs on top of me. I laid on the floor for around 30 minutes until our nurse from the mission randomly walked past and proceeded to ask me while she was checking me out, ´´Why is your ab seizing up?´´ Because I was trying to impress my companions, that's why. I love my program so much. I love getting random messages or random calls throughout the day on how many cool people the missionaries have found throughout the week. I got a call from some elders that on accident...

"YOU HAVE THE CALIFORNIA LEAD BACKNESS TO YOU?!?” The weeks really are just flying by here. It is one of those surreal feelings that weeks really do go by super fast. However, this week was a good week. Being here in the office, one of the down sides about it is that you see and here are the problems in the mission. Lots of people go home early. We had an Elder go home early and dang, one of the saddest things that I have been a part of. He will come back though and serve in the way the Lord needs him. I had Interviews with my Mission President last week. I have been studying a lot about Christlike attributes and I ask my Mission President, "How can we seek and receive Christlike attributes?" He further explained some really insightful things and then he tells me, "you have that California lead backness to you Elder Ressel." All I could do was laugh and think how everyone tells me that. I also got to talk with his wife for about 30 minutes about the mission and...