Late again! :) email from May 18th

Hey! Sorry again that I'm super late for emailing. We had an emergency transfer and we had to help the missionary get to his new area and what not, it was a long process, then we had a few other things we had to do to! haha its been a long one! But its been a great week! Not to much has changed. We have started our exchanges this week we got two done and 8 more to go! haha I was able to do exchanges this week with Elder Dennison one of my homies on the mission, he's a couple transfers behind me. He been with me like my whole mission. Love the guy.  We also have a Zone Conference in June and we started planning for it. I have to speak and give training to the whole mission!! haha I've been thinking a lot about the importance of the preach my gospel, Elder Rindlisbacher and I have strong testimonies of the Preach My Gospel now, changing it to the center of our studies has increased our spiritual learning capacity, and helped us to stay focused. Along with the Book Of Mormon it can increase our faith and testimony like no other study material can I really believe it could change an okay missionary into a great missionary. Just like the gospel changes an okay man, into a great man, a man of god. Maybe that's something ill talk about.

     We have been working with a few families these past few weeks, one in particular is the Cuevas family, they are keeping all their commitments except coming to church, but these past two weeks we have fasted for them to come, and they came both times, we fasted yesterday also but only the mother came to church. We were pretty bummed because that would mean we would have to move their date back. But we know within time it will happen. 
So that Sunday after church we were a little bummed that they didn't come, but we had an appointment with another family that night. It was the family that I talked about last week that we had oymed. The Reforsado Family, Anyways we went to the appointment, and we were happy to see the father outside waiting for us. He invited us in and we had an amazing lesson and the spirit was so strong in that humble home. We shared the message of the restoration, and watched the video, it was awesome to see the parents, and the 4 kids watching and listening closely. They believed the message and commited to praying about it. Also said that they would come to church this coming Sunday. Its hard to explain the feeling that we had but it was a great experience, we knelt down to pray with them and all I could see was the Lechica Family from Las Pinas. Its great when the father is most interested, that influences the whole family. We are excited to see their progress in this gospel and how it changes their family. There truly is no better feeling than teaching a family. All from one simple OYM (Open Your Mouth) to a man smoking a cigarette on the side of the road. Who would of known that man had a great family ready to here the gospel. God loves everybody, we all have worth in his eyes, and although we didn't see it first Our father in Heaven knew it all along:)

 Love, Elder Collins

                                          Best Mission President and Mission Mom in the world!!!