Well this is it! Sorry that I havent wrote in the past few weeks, Ive been gathering my thoughts about all that has been going on. Its been unreal. I have learned every second that I have been here. I now will be able to apply all that I learned in my own life. Its a roller coaster of feelings, but at the end, roller coasters are a blast. :) I feel very content, although sad at times to leave the Lords work and people that I love. But I know that there are good things to come. I want to thank all those who have supported me in this journey in any way! Its hard to put into words all that I feel. I am just very greatful for the oppurtunity that I have had to be here in mission and to grow closer to My Father in Heaven. I now have a conviction of the Gospel and The Atoning Sacrifice of My Savior. I have become a true discipul of Christ. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that Joesph Smith was a Prophet that restored the truth. I know these things, I understand them, I believe these things, and I live them. 

See you all in a week! 

Elder Strang

Kolby is coming home from Ecuador July 14th. He will be reporting on his Mission July 19th @ 11 am. 932 West Green Oaks Dr. Murray Utah 84123. You are invited to attend a reception for him after the 11 am meeting. It will be at 1082 W Walden Park Dr Murray Ut 84123 . Please join us in celebrating his Mission.

The past week was incredible, Elder Noll and I are killing it! We are doing what hasn't been done in this sector, baptising a lot! We are working with some incredible families. This last week we met a family, part member and the wife is so ready to be baptized, it truly goes to show that Heavenly Father is always preparing his children. We were told that we have the best numbers in the stake in our ward. Attendance at church is way up.. its jsut been a great week! 

The best part though was Sunday. Elder Arroyo my old comp called and got permission for him and me to go to Las Oriquedeas where I started the mission. That was one of the most rewarding things I have seen. As a missonary there is nothing more rewarding then seeing those you taught and help come unto Christ staying true to those covenants that they made. When we walked in the church it was soo good to see everyone that we baptized there, staying faithful. A sealed family, those who will be endowded and many others all there. Brought tears to my eyes. I never thought just being who I am would be such a big example. I mean I could'nt speak spanish there, but thats not really what matters. The examples that we are and if we are true disciples of Christ have a much stronger and longer lasting impact. 

I hope that we all can become better examples and show that true love Christ unto everyone. Have a great week! Love you all! 

Elder Strang  

Receiving Blessings

This past week has been a struggle, we couldnt move out of our house, the papers with Church legal didnt get through so we hope that we will be out of there today. We were sitting at our desk the other night and Elder Noll says dude look at! And I look and there was a rat the size of a small cat just chillin outside of our window! It was huge! Its been an interesting week with animals too, we have seen all sorts of bugs and spiders and too top top all off, we saw a huge black, yellow and red snake. It had to have been a good 3 feet long.... The mosquitos are super aggressive and are black with white stripes and have eating us up! Pure luck that we havent gotten dengue yet... It will be good to get outt the house.

We have been teaching a couple of good families, but we are still lacking investiagtors, and are running out of ideas of how to find more. We are going to start some english classes and teach the gospel in english to those who come. We also have the idea to do sport nights at the church and play some kind of sport, so pray for us that we can find new people!

We had a lesson this last week with an investigador and we talked about how she could recieve more blessing in her life and how Christ had dies for her, specfically for her. How she and all people can recieve the blessings that God has for us, it was sad to see how her character held her back and she responded how she is content with the blessing that God has for her. It was soo sad to see. Made me think of how many people live below their privedges and blessings. We dont have to be content ever, we can complete with the comandments and then deserve the blessings that come. Some days it can seem daunting or hard but all thats good comes from Our Heavenly Father. I am so thankful for the parents I had that aught me the Gospel from a young age. I encourage you all to never be content and always strive for more in your lives! 

love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Strang

For those of you who dont know, I have a new comp. Elder Guzman was transfered and will be missed, although my new comp is way chill. His name is Elder Noll form Springville Utah. Hes a complete stud! I think he is my long lost twin, we honestly have too much in common and get along really well. Its funny to tell stories about home and see how many things are like the same. He has about 9 months in the mission and has told me alot about home and how things changed and what things had become popular. Sounds like a lot has changed. 

This past week was spent looking relentlessly for a new house. We searched and searched. One night at 7pm (keep in mind that the sun goes down at 6) we called to see a house that was up for rent. After 10 minutes the guy shows up and then takes us in. The house turned out to be a government ran nursery that was shut down a couple months before. So we enter in the house and the power was off, we ended up walking through the house with our cell phone screen lighting the path. The house was huge! It was like living Paranormal activity. After being taking down the 2nd hall all the way down, Elder Noll started freaking out saying that the house was haunted and that the dude was gonna jump us or kill us. We keep hitting lit switchs and finally in the kitchen the light came to revel bats living in the roof and the floor strewn with all sorts of beat us childrens toys. After that we got out and said we´d call him. After looking and praying that week we finally found a smaller but brand new, super nice house. So we called the asistants and we will be moving in there late today! :) 

Its weird to see things coming to an end. I have seen many missionaries that I have known and loved are now going home and starting their lives. It doesnt seem that it will come to an end. This has been my life, is my life and now.. I dont know how to explain it.... Its all just been amazing. Part of me is excited to see home again but part of me will always be a missionary. 

Love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Strang

April 20 2015  Outer Darkness

What a week. I dont ever know where to begin. So what happened is that we were without power for 4 days last week. The reason being is that the house owner didnt get out light bill to us on time so the company came a cut the power to our house. Here in South America they sure are great to charge you and cut the power but not so great to hook it back up. So they came Thursday night to hook the lights back up. We had power that night and the next day at 7:15 in the morning the power turned off again and so we called about 5 more times and they sent NO ONE. Very unrealible here, so that night the house owner called some friend of his that work for the electric company and they came and fixed it. So everything was fine, we went to a lesson and came back an hour later and turned the lights on. After four days it was almost unreal, but something was different, they were extremely bright but we decided to plan for the next day. After about 5 two light bulbs exploded! And so we turned the rest off. We tested the fans and they turned on like a jet engine starting and blew themselves over! So after a pleading call to the electric company they sent a car out to finally fix it. Turns out that someone along the way had down some jack jibbly messed up job and the power was at 240V... Everything in the house was fried. We know have no fridge or microwave. But at least my hot water is back :) 

This week was diferent. I think I said how we didnt have any investigators so we did a clothing drive with a memeber and decided to give that cloting away to the needy and then just asked them if we could visit them to share a message. We got two famiies out of it! Wahoo! Thinking outside of the box on that one! So we are now teaching two great families. Elder Guzman will be transfered tomorrow, it hasnt been that long of a time that we have had together but it has been a great time together. My next companion will very likily be my last. It been quite the ride these past two years and will finishly strong in these next short months. 

I want to thank you all for the love and support that you all give to me and the wonderfull example that you all are. I love this Gospel, I know its true and I live. Have a great week!

Elder Strang

This past week has been incredible hot. Walking through the streets feeling that your bones are getting a tan, its that hot. I dont know why there cant be a middle ground. Its either pouring rain or walking through hell. Im way dark on my arms, face and neck and I think its a tan that will never go away. You may be asking why we walked around in the sun so much? Last week President Riggins and his wife visited our house to check the cleanliness, it was not super clean, the reason being is that everytime that it rains, water comes in the house and gets everything wet. The wall looks like someone threw a bucket of water all over and theres water that comes out of the floor. So they told us that we could live there anymore and that we needed to fined a house ASAP. We have been walkng around looking for house all week and have found only worse than we have now, but we will find one this week. :)

We are sharing the Because of Him video with the whole world here. I think we had 25 lesson last week just teaching with the video and then sharing scriptures about the Atonement. It has been going great but we dont have investigartores! We are working hard but we cant seem to get any.. Hoping this week we will find some! Its crazy to see all the people that I know coming home from the mission. It doesnt seem quite real yet, these have been two great years that honestly in the beggining I never thought would end but it will sonn be over. 

Love Elder Strang 

What a great Conference weekend! If you didnt get anything out of that you should check yourself! In the mission we dont have the oppurtunity to watch conference in our houses so we spent 10 hours sitting the chapel and it was a well spent 10 hours! I loved the priesthood session and Elder Ballards talk and the focus that was put on youth thoughout the conference. 

Its been a difficult week, we are still looking for families to teach, its a hard game here. Contacting didnt go super hot this week, and to add to it, the rain has been incredible! The streets have been completly flooded, I kid you not that the water is up to my knees! There is now way to walk, and its just a wall of water. Lighting strikes are wicked and strike way close to us, fighting the elements! 

Easter here is a little different than home. Its called La Semana Santa and its mostly a Caholic holiday where they do all sorts of stuff the whole week. There wasn't really anything special the whole week, Easter dinner was great though check out the photo :)

Not much else for the week, I hope you all have a great week and can relisten and apply the conference in your lives! Love you all!

Elder Strang 

Well that was another fast week. Great week last week. Temple, 2 baptims, zone conference.. among lots of other things. 

On Thursday morning we woke up at 5 and left for the Temple which is a good 45 minutes from where we are. We left in the pouring rain. We had a great session and then headed to the chapel where we had a zone conference. Its always like getting the batteries recharged in the conferences. President always knows exactly what to say when we need it. He has started to change some of the rules that he has seen in his 9 months here. 9 months that have gone by some quickly.. but after the conference we headed out to leave in the pouring rain, lighting here by the way is wicked. We says strikes all around us, we were going to take a bus but then we saw a ray stike a good 250 yards away, so I replied get in the taxi! It was cool leaving from the storm because it literally was a wall of water that moved into the city and we were running from it. We could see nothing because there was so much rain. The next day rain non stop and so we had a day walking around the two of us, under one small umbrella. 

This week we have teaching and watching the Preach My Gospel videos with memebers about how they can lose the fear to share the Gospel. We have a couple of appointments this week to see how that goes! We had a baptism on Friday and one on Sunday. The one on Friday was great but the one on Sunday was crazy! We have an Investigator that was supposed to get baptized over two weeks ago but didnt. So yesterday in the Sacrament meeting be told him that we wanted to talk that night. He came and we had filled up the baptismal font and we had the lesson in that room. We proceded to have one of the most spirtual lesson I have had in my life. He imediately said that he wanted to bapized on the spot! So we called President to ask permission, I did the interview, Elder Guzman ran home to get clothes, and he was baptized :) and then confirmed on spot. Its was incredible :) It was a good week :) 

March 23

Baptism! mWe had our first here in Panaorama! We are working with the family one by one! It started with the son now the daughter and this Friday, the mom! :) Then the rest of the familiy! This past week was quite the weather interesting week! Its balzing hot here in Duran and has rained the mother of all rains this past week. There were two days straight that it rained all day without stop. I was wet from waist down, the jacket works but it doesnt cover all the way to my feet, so it was a super wet week! And then after? The blazing sun comes to evaporate it all! Its like walking thourgh a stream room! 

We had splits this last week with the zone leaders and everyone in the zone is very old as far as mission time goes. The majority of us have more than 18 months, so we are killing it with success because we are all very expirenced. 

The food in my secotr just gets better and better and the memebers are way good to us. I walk for house to house and they all have AC. Its great, President has sent me to a peaceful place to finish. :) 

We are now working a lot with memebers. We are teaching them how and training how they can present theris friends to us. The knocking doors approaches doesnt work here so we are wokring hard with memebers to get the help from them. Elder Guzman and me had a nice long talk this week about the free agency of people. He was very frustrated that people werent doing the things that they should or how we wanted but we learned that we have to respect the choices of others. Its the first gift that God gave to us and it will never be taken away. The mission is great :)

I love you all and hope you have a great week, help the Elders, they need you! 

Love 

Elder Strang

Hello to all! Well first off Im all good now, no more sickness! Feels good to not have that crap in my body! Well I got transfered last week but like I said I didnt go because I was sick in bed. So on Tuesday morning packed up and got into a bus headed for Duran. So I am in the same location jsut in a different sector. My secotr is Panaorama and well wow. This isnt like any other sector Ive seen in the mission. They have tole me that it is in the top 3 richest sectors in the mission. I kid you not that I feel that I am In The United States. Clean paved streets, AC in every house, every one drives cars, no more motorcyles. First day we went out with a ward missionary, takes out his Iphone 5S, first time Ive ever seen one of those! Its a good sector :) In the mission we say that we you go home that you ¨die¨in the mission so this sector will be a good sector to die in! :) Oh the food is way good, and now I know what it is like to be in a US mission because we cant contact! Everyone has those little call boxes with cameras so knocking doors doesnt do a thing! We are working a ton with memebers and,referreals that they give us! Different world here. 

My companion is named Elder Guzman from Honduras but he lived in the US for 7 years, and yes lived in Utah so he speaks Englished perfectly! Pretty cool, they are citizens and all there. His dad owns a tons of famous barber shops in Honduras. Cool guy, we work very weel together. We are having to baptisms this Saturday wahoo! And there were two baps in Milagro that I couldnt go to because the freaking monkey bus system that they have here! But they were baptized. Everything is going very well here! 

Today we went to paintball and that was a blast! First time in my life that I have ever done that! It was super humid and hard to see through that mask cause it had jsut rained but It was a blast still. I shot 5 people and got them out and didnt get shot at all! Only one to not get shot :) Military cpuñd be a good thing I guess? 

Have a good week all! And love you all, give referrals to the Misisonaries there, its not fun not to have anything to do! 

Elder Strang

Things never seem to get boring! I got transfered today but didnt go because I am sick, also had a wedding today, and they are married! 

So monday started with a farewell in my old sector. A kid that was on the mission, got super sick and now is going back to the mission in LA, cool to see that he stuck with it and has continued working and growing his testimony. 

On tuesday we had splits with Elder Geogre and Elder Coleman and we sold empanadas in Simon Bolivar to help with a couple that is trying to get married in that sector. Fun day selling stuff to people, not somehting I have really done up till now! 

On thursday we had a multi zone conference and cooked breakfast, the whole 9 yards. Eggs, pancake, sausage and juice. Kinda of like home but not quite, Ihop is calling my name! Great conference with instuction from President Riggins.

Saturday was a fun day, we had a BBQ, which was probably some of the best food that I have had in my misison. The member bought so much food it was unreal.. chicken, beef, pork.... wow. We ate with a good 6 Elders and 2 Sisters there. My Cali boy Elder Tretbar was there, goona miss him in this transfer! 

Normal Sunday.. until the night when I got real sick. I had been feeling sick most of the week and then on Sunday night it got a lot worse! My whole body was sore, couldnt move, had a fever and headache. WOrse pains I have ever had. I called the nurses and they told me that I have dengue which is a mosquito transmitted sickness which is comparable to the West Nile virus at home. After sitting in the shower for 20 minutes and a blessing I kicked the fever and now am doing a alot better :)

Transfers! I didnt go cause I was super sick so tomrrow I will be going to Duran again, a nice sector that Elder Tretbar has been in., It will be the final chapter in the mission... Crazy to think it will all be over in a few short months. Today we had a nother long awaited marriage, finally! Wahoo, nothing like helping families for  the Eternities :) 

Love you all and hope you all have a great week :) 

Well I lots to say this week but not much time. Thats a problem. But we had an amzing week, the most stressful week that I have in my mission but very rewarding.

We had a couple late nights looking for missionaries that hadnt reported in, some sister that lost their phone and decide not to call thier leaders so that was a 11:30 at night seach finding them asleep in their house, also fighting satan off trying to get the people to baptism, then confirmation, well we won the fight :) We had a Noche Blanca where 10 ish people were baptized :) Good day :) We also are just having a blast as the dyamic white duo. 

We went to Tony Romas today, ya the one that died in the States some how made it down here? But it was way to good. 

Sorry that Im outta time but I wish you all a wonderful week!

Love Elder Strang 

Well that was great New Years! The New Years for those dont know what goes down here on New years, well its an insane fire light up city! They light these paper machet huge toy looking things on fire that are filled with M80 and so it basically becomes a war zone.. its pretty nuts! But its a fun thing to see from the 3rd floor of your house! :) After the craziness in the night everyone goes on vacation which means we as missionaries are left with not much to do which means that we dont do much! We had so much food, and no sleep. But on New Years day we went and played soccer at a stadium which was incredible! It was the first time I have seen grass in 18 months! Dont take grass for granted.. All of the gringos got fried that day, and we were so beat but it was a fun day. We went back to the house after and watched the return missionary hoping that that wouldnt happen to us. 

We are working hard with the families that we have and the are finally progressing, no one ever said that it would be easy, but it possible and we are proving that now! I will write more next week seeing that I dont have time now! Have a great week! 

Elder Strang