Down in Farm Country

Hi!

So a little bit about my new area, La Junta. It is a small town and reminds me of the towns down in Mt. Pleasent, Manti, etc. La Junta is about 1 hour east of Pueblo. The area we cover is huge. We live in La Junta which has 10,000 people and we cover several other towns which are much smaller-Ordway, Fowler, Las Animas, Swink, Rocky Ford, etc. The climate is about the same as Pueblo which means not a lot of snow. There are about 450 people on the ward roster and between 60-70 come to church each week. So there is a lot of potential work for reactivation. The bishop, who is new, is very focused on bringing back those less-actives. This ward is the second highest baptizing ward in the mission. They had 39 baptisms last year.
The first day we got here, we spent all day and several nights, cleaning the house (not apartment) which had been lived in by Elders for several years. It was gross!
We have to travel to Raton, New Mexico for our district meetings which is about 1 1/2 Southwest of us.
We met the ward on Sunday and they were so excited to have Sisters in the ward. I guess that it's been 6 years since they've had some. The ward, especially the Gonzales family (recent converts) are always sharing the gospel with family and friends and inviting them to meet with missionaries. Most of the baptisms last year came from member referrals. It's great that the members are heeding the call of the prophet and doing their duty to be member missionaries. Something exciting though, last year the missionaries baptized a guy from Mongolia! He was here at the Junior College as a foreign exchange student. I was sad to hear that he is at BYU-Hawaii for school.
My new companion is from Fairview Utah but her family moved to Virginia when she was a Junior in High School. She came back to Utah to go to SUU for college. She has five siblings, four girls and one boy (weird...)
We had zone conference yesterday and it was awesome! There are some things that we talked about that can able to everyone. We talked about the armor of God and how the only thing that is not covered is the back. He said that we need to be the protection for our companion and to watch their back, to help them not get into trouble and to be obeident. As families, friends and husbands and wives, we should all watch each others back so that Satan won't be able to overtake them. The mission president also said that we don't have anything on our back is because we don't retreat. This is an ongoing battle with Satan which started in the pre-mortal world. It is an ongoing spiritual battle to protect ourselves from him and to save others from him.
We also talked about how every ordinance in the church is an ordinance of forgiveness. Think about that. Also, when we partake of the sacrament, we are renewing ALL our covenants (baptism, temple and personal). So there is some food for thought and remember not to take the sacrament lightly. If we do our part, the Lord promises us to always have his spirit to be with us. That is the best gift he can give us.

Remember the church is true, so keep the faith and win the war!

Love Sister Sumsion