Elder Gasol....Hesol, Guesol...Queso

Hey everyone!

A pretty great week here in my new area in Lempira. It is a lot of work getting to know a new area but I am enjoying it.

Lempira is a BIG area! It originally was 2 separate areas until about 6 months ago. So there is a lot of work to be done. There are about 120 active members in the ward which is awesome. This week when Elder Reyes and I did our weekly planning we decided that we should start visitng everyone that is in the Area Book. We ended up with a list of about 40 families and individuals. So this week we visited with a lot of inactives, former investigators, and recent converts all while looking for new investigators at the same time. It was a lot of work but it felt good. When I get home at the end of the day and am exhausted I am strangely happy haha. Its a good feeling at the end of the day to know that you worked hard.

Right now we have a handful of progressing investigators. The first is a 17 year old young man named Exon who has a baptismal date for the 17th of June. He goes to seminary, mutual, and family home evening, but hasnt gone to church. This week we are going to talk to him about why not. Then we have a 40ish year old man named Manuel who lives with girlfriend who is a member. He knows he needs to be baptized and attends church every Sunday but is afraid to get married to his girlfriend. Then we have another 12 year old boy named Yefri. He also is ready to be baptized but we dont have the consent from his aunt who wants Yefri to go to the Evangelist church. We have a few more that we found this week but I will explain more about them once we have a few more visits haha.

This Saturday we had a service project. It was so exhausting haha. We were basically helping build a house for an investigator in another area in our district. Mine and Elder Reyes job was to fill in the ground of the house with dirt. So we spent the entire morning breaking dirt, and shoveling it into wheelbarrows and repeat. By lunch time I was soaked in sweat, covered in dirt, and had some gnarly blisters on my hands. But it wasn't too bad. By the time we were done the floor was filled, the cinderblocks were stacked and the roof was ready to get put on. Again it felt good know that I worked hard to help out this investigator.

SInce I was new to the ward this week I had to explain how to pronounce my name to about 120 people haha. I am pretty sure that I have forgotten how to pronounce it too. I tried spelling it how it would be pronounced in Spanish but the closest I could get was Guesool. But most of the time we just say Elder Queso but with a G haha. 

This week during personal study I read John 21:15-25. In this scripture Jesus asks Peter 3 times "Lovest thou me?" and Peter responds 3 times "Lord, thou knowest I love thee." And everytime that Peter responds Jesus tells him "Feed my Sheep" Jesus already knew that Peter loved Him. He just wanted Peter to show Him. Sometimes just telling Jesus that we love Him isn't enough. We have to show our love for our Savior through our actions. By serving others and feeding His sheep. 

Again thanks so much for all the support. I love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Elder Gessell

Another package from home.

Sister Martinez, our cook with her son and husband.

Sister Ramos with her daughters.