1 Step Forward➡️ 8 Steps Back⬅️

 Crazy to think the month of July is already coming to end...definitely be lying if I said these last 2 months haven't been a little bit frustrating

Well well well, this week starting off fantastic. Me had a great day on Tuesday, we found a ton of people, and me and my comp were hype. It just seemed like everyone starting opening up to us, everyone was listening it was awesome!(This was the one step forward) Then after Tuesday everything just kind of went downhill

So Juan Cruz, our dear friend who should totally be getting baptized in our ward, has been passed on to the hermanas, I think its stupid because bro wants to get baptized with us but the bishops just dont care at all so thats annoying, #justiceforJuanCruz

Our friend Natalia, super elect lady from last week, shes all good guys dont worry, she will be in the water on the 10th. That being said there was some opposition this week. Lets just say she got a biiittttttt upset at me this week because I was trying to explain to her how she could've gotten baptized yesterday and not have had to wait 2 more weeks. I mean like Alma 34:33 people, I was like why wait for blessings when you can get them sooner, lets just say she didn’t like that idea. So for a few days she didnt want to see me haha, but I know women too well, you just gotta give them some space and they come crawling back to you, and that is exactly what happened, so dont worry we back to being homies again dont even sweat

But as I think back over these last two months on my mission I just keep asking myself "what went wrong?" I feel like i'm trying to be as obedient as I can, trying to be as diligent as I can and things just aren't working. Also haven't been having the easiest of times with my new comp, even though I love the kid to death, has not been easy. But God needs me here at this time, with this companion, in this area, helping these people so we just gotta keep chugging along. Theres obviously something I need to be learning at this time, i just have to figure out what is

Also something cool I found out the other day, 3 of the people that me and Elder Barria (my old comp) put on date for baptism in June, have all been baptized in July!!! Shoutout Maximo, Emma, and Sabrina!!! So its nice to know all those efforts in June finally saw some fruits

Hit my year mark in 3 days, thats pretty cool

Love yall

Poco a Poco

 There was just a lot that happened this week i'm not gonna lie, but hey things are slowly but surely getting better here in el cruce

We had zone conference this week with the new mission president and I got to say this guy is one of the funniest people I know. Bro's just a character and a half it's so funny. He's what this mission needs, but bro spit some barz on us not gonna cap. He talked about how 1 missionary can change the lives of generations. Gave me a new way to look at missionary work i'm not gonna lie. Like 1 baptism may not seem like that much, but that 1 baptism can lead to generations of baptisms which is really cool to think about. Just a little thought i had

What else happened hmmmm, oh shoot we found this ELECT, but like elect elect. This women was found straight from heaven i'm not even gonna lie. Me and my comp were in this apartment complex looking for someone we contacted the other day, and we knocked on a door and it turned out to be Natalia's(super elect) door. She was super skeptic to start, thought we were the police, but we talked with her and then ended up giving her a book of mormon, and we booked an appointment to come back. That night she texted us and thanked us for the BOM and then asked us if she could come to church with us, words i havent heard in a while, so we put her on date the next day, basically got to church by herself, and now we are trying to get her ready to be baptized this sunday, only problem is, well she loves coffee, so pray that we can help her drop coffee

Welp, then on Sunday was just one of the most interesting days of my mission. I had to do a baptismal interview with this guy, and idk why but bro literally HATED me. I sat him down to do the interview and the first thing he says is "I dont respect or like you, and i want someone else to do my interview" I was like what is this dude's problem. Apparently he was upset that I didn't say hi to him last week at church even tho i didn't even see the guy, how are you gonna get mad at someone for not saying hi to you, like bro bro you didnt say hi to me either, then bro was like just grilling me the whole time, i asked him if he thought Joseph Smith was a prophet and he told me he had never met the guy so how could he know if he was a prophet, so after trying to explain the restoration for the next hour, he then proceeded to call me a prophet. So then I told him "well were gonna give you a little more time to get a testimony before your baptism" then he got REALLY mad and was like "ohhhhhh so big guy has all the power, it's a sign this isn't the true church", I was like this dude's crazy, but then our ZL's talked with him and turns out bro just didn't wanna give me answers because he had a grudge against me. So that was fun

Other things that happened, we got a couch.... ya a couch. We were chillin Friday night and neighbor asked us if we wanted her couch, so we said yes. Now we have a couch in the house

Fun week what can I say

Setback After Setback

 This week won the award as officially the fastest week of my mission

But rewind to last monday, gave my first district council, not gonna lie it was pretty fire. And to make things even better, right before I started, the AP's decided to pull up...so that was fun. Haha first district counsil with the AP's, no biggie

But wow has the work been a struggle of lately. Welp to start the week, we went to pass by our friend Augustin, for a little fill in, he came to church 2x before i got here and was progressing insanely fast, he dropped smoking and in one of the lessons he said "the only thing i want in my life is to be baptized and this is the true church" he was a stud. But he didn't come to church last week and we couldn't find him for a bit. He was actually supposed to get baptized yesterday. Welp we pull up on Wednesday, and first off we see him smoking, his face looked possessed by a demon im not even lyin it was scary. He looked at us, hit a nice big blunt right in my face, and said "don't come by anymore, i found the real true church" and we were like bruhhhh whatttt, and he just kept saying "god understands, god understands", so that was fun

But during the week we saw a crazy miracle. We visited these converts, and there was just a kid in their house, his name was Juan Cruz. And he like is best friends with this member family and does everything with them. He also told us he wanted to be baptized he told us where he lived and it was 2 blocks out of our area, and turns out he had already been to church 3x with the fam and loved it. He also like knew all the leaders in the ward and everything. So me and my comp logically thought, welp it makes sense for him to get baptized in our ward, because the member family picks him up every sunday to go to church, and every lesson we had with him was in the member families house. So we put him on date, pulled up to church with the fam, and then the ward was like "no he is not getting baptized in our ward, he lives outside the limit", like it literally makes  sense for this kid to go to another ward. He would have 0 friends, have 0 way to get to church, and chances are he would just go inactive. I dont care what anyone says, i think our arguement makes way more sense and im too prideful to change my opinion, so lets just say elder clouse wasn't the happiest campier yesterday

So, i would describe my character as frustrated, seems like everything we do is not working at the moment. But hey, at least the church is true am i right, so theres hope, boutta bring 30 people to church next week.

Unfortunate Start

 Welp my first full week in el cruceeeeeee, mad dubz this ward is lit, also this week was maddddd quickkkkk, also forgot it was 4th of July the other day, thats kinda sad but merica

But leaving an area is always so difficult, i LOVED my time in la florida, the ward was actually the most amazing, we got fed everyday, it was actually the life. And my last day there we saw a CRAZY miracle. So basically I dont remember if I told you guys but at the start of June we baptized a mom and her kid, there names are Eva y Owen. They were literally amazing and it was the easiest process ever for their baptism. But basically a week after their baptism, they blocked us, and told us they weren't coming to church anymore. Now me and my comp when this happened were so confused, so basically for an entire month we had no idea what happened to them

Then my last day in La Florida we got a text from Eva, and she goes "we heard Elder Clouse is leaving, that makes us so sad, can you come visit us" and me and my comp were like bruhhhh whatttt. So we passed by and I just remember Owen, the little kid, comes running out and just gives me a big hug, it actually turns out they went through some really difficult times, almost lost their house it was really sad. But they told us they were committed to come back to church and be faithful. It was the biggest miracle of my life, it made me so happy, and then Owen offered the closing prayer and just goes "God, thank you for putting Clouse in our lives", brought me to tears, i'm gonna miss La Florida so muchhh, haha i dont know how many hugs I recieved from little kids my last day prolly like 100, lowkey illegal but off to greater thingssssss

Now lets just say, things aren't looking too hot out here in el cruce. First off, we don't get fed a single day of the month, second off we have literally not a single person progressing, third off my comp was sick all week so we couldn't even work  It's definitely been a struggle but we keep grinding. The hardest thing about it is I literally grinded all June to get La Florida up and going again, and then the minute we start seeing success, i just get thrown in another dead area its like bruhhhhh

But ya last story before I head out. So basically saturday morning my comp woke up and couldn't even get out of bed, I was like bruhhhhhh we gotttaaaa workkkkk, so my comp was in bed all day, so at 9:30 in the morning I just started making calls, felt like a receptionist. I was doing that until 12 and just kept getting "hey were the missionaries for the chur..." *call ended* I was like dude this sucks. I remember just thinking like what am I doing here, felt really depressed. But I just kept calling people, and then this old lady answered, and just sounded so happy to talk to me. She told me she lost contact with the missionaries a while back and wanted to find peace, so I taught her a quick Lesson 3, challenged her to be baptized over the phone, and she accepted. It was a nutty miracle and just reminded me that God is always watching over me

But ya thats all i got for yall this week, hopin my comp recovers so we can start working again, also being a DL is super fun, 10/10 do recommend for all of you wondering

How Great Will Be Your Joy

 I don't know how to explain what happened this week, but just know there was a lot of changes....

But I think the biggest change that I expierienced this week was how much fun I had this week. Like i'm not gonna lie, i don't even know what I did differently this week, but me and Elder Barrìa just had a ton of fun together

Don't know what happened here in villa La Florida but the people woke up this week and chose salvation. Like I kid you not this week a TON of people were willing to talk to us and were actually showing interest. Like it lowkey shocked us haha, we would ask someone if they "were willing to come to church on Sunday" and usually when we say that we get a big fat no, but this week everybody said bet, i'll be there haha it was amazing The Lord works in mysterious ways people, don't know why it took a whole month to start seeing success in the area but hey, God's timing am i right

This week also, I had a comp exchange with my ZL, and it might've been the funniest experience of my life. Me and him were just dying laughing all day idk why, it was just one of those days ya know. We just got those kind of personalities. Then when we were ending the day we were heading back to the house in Uber and boy oh boy we recieved the most ELECT uber i've seen in my life. Welp, kinda of, his name was Alejandro and well he's a Pastor for his church. Now when he told us he was a Pastor I actually became so excited. Because usually when we contact Pastor's in the street, we just waste a ton of time, but this time It was in an uber, so i had all the time in the world, so we started to get to know him and well his story is quite interesting

Basically at 19 years old, a supposed Prophet from Texas, came to him and told him he was going to be a Pastor and write his own books of scripture (basically Joseph Smith) so when he told us about this, I just got so intrigued. So we started asking him some questions and he said he wasn't in agreement with some teachings of our church. And I looked at my ZL and whispered "bro prolly doesn't believe in the book of smith" as a joke. And then he goes "i dont believe in the book of.. the book of smith" When I heard this I actually losted it. I actually almost peed my pants im not even kidding. I was laughing so hard. Then i asked him what his thoughts were about tithing and he said "of course we believe in tithing, its 23 percent these days" and me and my ZL were like holy crap what the inflation, "but doesn't it say 10 percent in the bible" and he proceeded to tell us "times have changed", never laughed harder in my life, gotta love the work of the Lord

But wow this week was actually a ton of fun, lots of laughing, sometimes things just click and you have good weeks. Don't know how to put it any other way, but i will say a good week starts with a good attitude, and i think thats what helped me this week the most. So as cliche as it sounds, if you wanna change ur week, change ur attitude/change ur mentality

-Other news we got this week the new prezzy got here and bro's a stud, 

-I was asked to give on talk on sunday at church and proceeded to turn into Elder Holland

-We also recieved news and i'm leaving my beloved area La Florida to go to my new area El Cruce B as a district leader, so we will see how this next week turns out

Love yall hit me up