Elder John-Gregory Sierra

THE YOUTH ARE WHERE IT'S AT!
More pics 
Letter from Oct. 20, 2014

Hey Mom,

Things are beginning to roll here in El Dorado. Elder Osorio and I are determined to get things moving here with Spanish work. We are still working with our prominent investigator named Margartia Mendoza and we have been talking with the members around the stake and several ward mission leaders about some ideas we are starting to implement here in the mission. We have also been getting a very positive response from members all around the stake. We have received several referrals last week. A couple of them, surprisingly, were from the youth here. Pretty awesome, right! I gotta say, referrals from the members are wonderful, but I have found that when youth reach out to their friends and invite them to learn about what we share, it is usually a much better turn out. They, for some reason, seem more intrigued, they aren't set in their ways and are more open-minded. Best of all, they are usually more curious. It's wonderful to see the youth try to help us in our work. I love the stake here. Work here is hard, and after about two weeks, we have deduced that tracting just straight up doesn't work here (most ineffective way to find people). EVERYONE is spread out and the Spanish people themselves are hidden all over. I was a little worried because I wanted to keep my teaching in Spanish up, but I have been translating sacrament a whole lot lately. I'm actually pretty good, when people aren't talking at lightning speed!! My Spanish has seriously come along. I understand 90% of everything. There are words here and there that I don't know, but vocabulary comes with time. Also, my grammar is coming along nicely, as well. It was TERRIBLE in the beginning of my mission, but now it's much better. Many people have asked me if I had learned my Spanish from my parents and I'm like, "No. Aprendi todo que yo se aqui en la mision." And they are like, "MANDE!!!!!" They thought I just grew up speaking it, which makes me feel happy. I have been working hard on my Spanish. It's an honor to be able to have finally gotten the language down. I can proudly say that I am proficient in the language and that if you stuck me in a random city with nothing but Spanish speakers, I would get around just fine. So anyway, everything in El Dorado is great. Its a very rural place, but I love it....What's also awesome is that we have dinner EVERY NIGHT! It's real cool. They all love it when we come by.

Us in the diner with some members of our district and the Roberts Family (the family we live with)

Golden Sunsets of El Dorado