Lengthen Your Stride...

 272

is just the beginning

In this Leadership Council we discussed the need to

Lengthen Our Stride 

In a message from President Kimball printed in the October 1974 Ensign, he directed the following question, simple but powerful, to the membership of the Church...and President Prince asked it to our leadership council today...

“I wonder if we are doing all we can. 

… Are we prepared to lengthen our stride?” 

(“When the World Will Be Converted,” Ensign, Oct. 1974, p. 5).

 Our Mission Leadership Council

showing their excitement about the number of September Baptisms

 and 

they are excited to "lengthen their stride!"

Our newest zone leaders:

Elder Reyes and Elder Martinez

 Our Sister Trainers

Sisters Villacis, Chacón, Guzman, Sepulveda, Fuentealba, Araneda

We started off our council with some breakfast and work

Happy Are We...always going to "new lengths" in the kitchen!

Counseling with our Council

 

Lunch Preparation

 Lunch 

 Banana Split Time

they went to great lengths on their creations!

Stay tuned to see where these great leaders 

will lead us as they lengthen their stride!

Flying high into a month of interviews...

After such a record month in the mission 

our missionaries are "flying high"!

And we are off to interview and spend time with every missionary.

Here are some pictures of us approaching the Pasto airport on Wed, Oct 2

 

 It is about a 45 minute taxi ride into the city.

We met with the sisters of the Pasto zone for lunch before interviews!

On Thursday, Oct 3 our Elders from Ipiales arrived...about 1 1/2 hours for them.

 And after interviews we had lunch!

 There was not a piece of this pizza left!

 Our "sweater boys" - Ipiales Zone

(You can tell the assistants are headed back to the warmth of Cali!)

front: Elders Heredia, Cordova, Rodas, Cabrera, K. Rodriguez

middle:  Elders Tidei, Andrew, Laws, Arista, J. Rodriguez, P. Prince

back:  Elders Menendez, Anderson, Eliason, Welling

 Headed back to Cali

2 zones done and 13 to go...one day at a time!

The prayers of many bring mighty miracles...

The month of September was a BIG month for the Colombia Cali Mission.

With 5 weekends in the month, our missionaries were hard at work

and we decided to do our part to help them.

The Andalucia Elders invited us to come to Andalucia and meet with their investigators.

We drove to Andalucia on a Thursday night.

 Seeing a Rainbow is always a good sign!

We went to dinner with Julien, Marta, and their 3 children...Carlos, Andres, and Angie

About 2 weeks ago Angie was baptized.

Julien, Andres and Carlos decided to wait until Marta had her answer and was sure.

At dinner Marta was NOT sure.  She said she had prayed and prayed and still didn't know.

She said she wanted to be sure, because she didn't want to fall away once she decided.

She said she loved the members, loved how the church was changing her family because of prayers and scripture study.  She said she would keep going until she had her answer.

I told her that some times we just need to decide, step forward with faith, tell the Lord what day she planned to join HIS church, and to please let her know if it was not the right thing.

We had a nice visit and a fun time getting to know this incredible family.

...and then we drove back to Cali....and we prayed for this family.

On Friday afternoon we received a phone call saying that Marta had her answer

and they wanted President Prince to baptize them on Saturday!
Since there is not a baptismal font in Andalucia,
the baptisms took place at the Principe Chapel in Tuluá.

Another Young Woman from the Andalucia Branch was also baptized,

here with Elders Cervantes and B. Payne.

Sisters Rapalo and Flores had two investigator baptized

by their District Leader, Elder Anderson, the same evening.

They belong to the Principe Branch.

Here they are with their missionaries!

Elders Sanhueza and Lipe.

President Prince baptized the parents

and 

the Elders each baptized one of the sons.

(Angie changed into white because she wanted to be like her family!)

Families can be together Forever through Heavenly Father's plan...
next stop...The Holy Temple!

This is just a sample of the miracles that took place all over the mission in the
month of September.  During this great month 
272
new members of the church entered the waters of baptized and were confirmed.
This is the highest number of baptisms during one mont
in the Colombia Cali Mission in the last 25 years.
The faith of our missionaries, returned missionaries, members, families, and friends
all united to bring about this MIGHTY MIRACLE.  
We do not overlook the fact that there are many on the other side of the veil,
including our Elder Encarnacion,
helping in the work of salvation.
We feel the Lord's hand.  We feel the work moving forward.
We feel grateful!