La Cuarentena

Even though this past week we have been locked in, we have still been able to see some amazing miracles. We have been working hard core with calling every single number of every contact or old investigator that has been taught, and the Lord has prepared people to be taught during this time. 

The first miracle was a family of 5 that my old companion, Elder Garcia and I had been teaching but they had some excuses that they had made about not wanting to get married. We called them and we talked with them and they said how they felt like it is time for their family  to get baptized now. They were super happy to talk to us and all. They accepted the date for the 2 of May or until things calm down enough so that we can start to baptize people. 

Jackson cut up a pepper for an omelet, and he didn't realize he had bought a very HOT pepper which ended up burning his hand.

Also we called an old investigator se llama Nicanor. He is a 60 year old man and he is blind and he lives with all of his kids. He has one daughter that is a member and she is on a mission. He said that he wanted to get baptized but after she got back. She gets back May 13 so he put his date for the 16 of May. 

It has been going really good with the other people that we are teaching as well. The family Rivas, the family Castro, Victoria, Zabdi, and Gloria are all progressing very well and are reading the Book of Mormon every day because they have nothing else to do. 

To teach our people, we get on a conference call because we have two phones and we just teach the lessons over the phones. Because we have brick Nokia phones, we send links from YouTube videos to help us teach the lessons that the assistants send to us, so we are still finding effective ways to teach people. 

We have been surviving here; it just has been a little crazy and you feel cramped up after awhile. But the only thing that we can do is trust in the Lord. Sometimes we don't understand why the Lord lets really, really, really difficult and challenging things happen in our lives but something I have learned in the mission is to thank God for those difficult moments. Thanking God for hard things that happen to us is tough but it is just the refiner's fire helping us become people more like Christ which is one of the most important things in life.  

 

 8 Behold, great and marvelous are the ^aworks of the Lord. How ^bunsearchable are the depths of the ^cmysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man ^dknoweth of his ^eways save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the ^frevelations of God.

Corona Virus

Well, the Corona Virus has spread pretty fast here, haha, because no one has been taking it seriously. 

So yesterday the president of Peru talked, and we are all quarantined as missionaries. We have permission to leave our houses to go eat lunch with our pensionistas and if we need to go buy something, but besides that we have to stay in our rooms. We are 4 gringos all from Utah that are in the same room, haha. All of the other elders are great. They all did choir before the mission and sang so its a little bit of a change for me but it's good. My musical skills have increased to another level so that's good. 

The baptisms for Victoria and for the Castro kids, Danitza, Denis and Cristofer were going to be on Saturday, and the baptism for the family of Yesenia was going to be next Saturday with their wedding but it looks like we will have to change things up a bit. But the work of the Lord will not be frustrated! This will be an interesting 2 weeks but I know that the Lord will still provide people to find and teach! I love being a missionary and I love serving Jesus Christ! My relationship with him has grown amazingly and there is nothing greater that I would rather be doing with my life. ¡HURRA POR ISRAEL!

The Joy of Getting People to go to Church

¡Si puedes entender esto, eres lo maximo! So this week went zooming by again! Last Wednesday we had interviews with President Amato and it was pretty good to talk with president. He has helped me a lot in my mission and I am very happy that I have been able to serve in this mission with him. 

Also last Thursday we had leadership counsel and we did things a little bit differently. We went on a hike in these cool mountains. We got to the top and we could see the whole mission and president talked about a few things and we sang a song and then he blessed the mission. It was a really neat experience. 

Last week we were visiting Franyer and he was doing good. One lesson we were teaching the plan of salvation and we were verifying that he understood everything and at the end of the lesson he said that he didn't understand anything that we had just taught him and he looked kind of weird like he had a glazed look on his face. He told us that he didn't feel like himself and then goes on to tell us how in Venezuela he had got caught up in some witch stuff that his girlfriend's aunt did on him and that spirits had followed him ever since Venezuela and he could always hear them at night in his room. So we blessed his little room and everything felt better after the lesson. 

Then we took out a lesson for the next days. We came back the next lesson but he wasn't there and the thing is, he doesn't have a cell phone. We passed by on Sunday to see if he was there to take him to church but he still hadn't come back from the last time that we had visited his house. Later on the other elders in our district told us that they found him in their area and that he had gotten a new job but that he was working on Sundays :( So this week we are going to pass by him and talk with him and work with him to get a new job but everyone please pray really hard for Franyer Garcia because he really wants to get baptized a lot! 

So the daughter of Victoria that I mentioned last time, Yesenia and her husband Angelo accepted a date for the 28 of march and have 3 kids and we went and visited them. They have 3 kids, Alessandra 21, Brian 11, and Valery 7. And Brian and Alessandra accepted to be baptized with their parents! Brian is a little beast because right when we gave him a Book of Mormon he started reading the chapters and had almost finished before we left. Alessandra mostly lives with her Grandma Victoria and helps her out but she is living with her right now while she is on vacation. We had all made plans for them to come to church on Sunday but they didn't come. It was a little frustrating but it will just help me work on my Christlike attribute of having patience. So everyone please pray for Yesenia, Angelo, Alessandra and Brian that they can all be baptized the 28 of March! 

Victoria is doing great as well. She is on time to church and reading everything. Her baptism will be next Saturday. Finally the Family Castro came to church but only the mom Delsi with Denis and Danitsa. Cristofer didn't come because they said his clothes were wet and Julio the dad didn't come because at the last moment some family came over and he left with them, but right now we are focused on helping the kids get baptized and then hopefully it will give Julio a little bit more of some motivation. 


We had the baptism of Erika yesterday and it went super great. Elder Garcia was able to come and it was right after church so a lot of members came. It was great. I am so very grateful that the Lord is blessing us with such great people to find. Well hope everyone's week goes great!

Lifting Weights at a Temple

Well this past week went pretty good. Last P-Day we made tacos as a zone; they were pretty good. All of the elders ate 20 tacos each. We made A TON haha. 

Last week we had zone conference and we talked about the consecration. Elder Larson and I gave a training about using our time wisely and consecrated as missionaries. 

A miracle that we saw last week was that we were contacting and we contacted a Venezuelan man, and he told us that he had talked to missionaries like us before but he said he wanted to change his life and hear our message so we took out an appointment with him. He doesn't have a phone, so he showed us where he lives. His name is Franyer Garcia. We had a lesson with him and he's 21 and he lives here by himself. Pretty much he committed a lot of sins in his past as a teenager and he feels really, really guilty and bad for doing that, so he wants to be baptized to be clean of his sins. He accepted to be baptized the 28 of March. He lives in a small, concrete brick room with just a mattress on the floor. He is super humble and willing to do anything to draw closer to God. His rent for his room is 50 soles (US $14.55) and yesterday he needed to pay the rent but he didn't have any money. He chose to come to church with us instead, trusting that the Lord would help him find a job to pay for his rent. We had a lesson with him right before church and he told us that he didn't have any money to buy food last night or he didn't have any money at all so he decided that he would fast. I realized that's a different type of fasting where you literally don't have anything to eat and so you might as well fast compared to where we were all fasting and we knew that there was a nice big meal waiting for us from the members. We helped him out after he came to church. At the bakery, they have rolls that are super cheap so we bought him a ton of rolls and some ham to eat. Everyone, please pray for Franyer that the Lord can help him find a job. 

Victoria is doing really good and progressing as well. She always cooks us food when we go over to teach her, haha. She's like a little old Peruvian grandma. 

Last week we weren't able to have a lesson with Zabdi and her husband because all last week she was studying from super early in the morning to late at night every day for a test that she was going to take. She doesn't live in our area yet but this week her studies won't be as intense, so we'll be able to teach her just fine. 

The family Castro didn't go to church on Sunday, sadly. They said that they were getting ready to go in the morning but then the boss of the dad, Julio, called and told him that he needed to work. Usually he doesn't even work on Sundays; it's just Satan being a pain. So we decided to move the date for the kids, Denis, Danitza and Cristoffer to the 21 of March because the family is a little bit slower and they still need to talk to Santa Cena and everything. 

Erika is doing good. Her baptism is this Saturday and she's pretty excited. So pray for her that everything goes well for her baptism this week. Also, the daughter of Victoria, she had been listening to the lessons with her mom and we had invited her to be baptized but she wasn't married. We finally had a lesson with her and her husband Angelo this last Saturday and they both accepted to be baptized and married the 28 of March so everyone please pray that the Lord can help them get their papers for the marriage and that they can continue being prepared. 

Today for P-Day we woke up earlier and we hiked as a district to a mountain that has a temple of an Evangelist church on the top. It was pretty amazing... the view at least. There was this Peruvian pastor there, and he like wanted to preach to us but we just kept walking around the temple. There was a little exercise area and we went and we pumped some iron on the edge of a Peruvian mountain in a temple. It was a pretty legit P-Day. 

Hope everyone has a great week! 

A New Transfer with more Miracles!

Well this past week transfers came and I received my new companion, Elder Larson. He is a pretty young guy in the mission. He barely has 5 months but he's a good guy. He has a lot of desires to work hard so that's good. He's from Smithfield which is by Logan, so yeah. 

Elder Larson

This past week we had some pretty cool miracles. We got a reference from another ward of a lady named Victoria. Her granddaughter is a member in our ward and she accepted the date for the 21 of March. She is a cute Peruvian grandma who gives us food when we go to her house, but she's super chosen. She used to be super catholic but now she told us that she ready to be baptized in the church of Jesus. She also has her daughter, Yesenia, who is also listening to us and she wants to be baptized but we need to talk to her husband first because they aren't married.  She has a family of 5 and her husband went to church on Sunday with them so please pray that the Lord can prepare the hearts of the family of Yesenia Maravi to receive our message. 

Elder Garcia and Jackson before transfers.

There was also another family that we visited called the Familia Luna and their less active son told us that he wants to be married to his spouse who isn't a member. We talked to her and she wants to be baptized as well. Her name is Zabdi Villogas and she is going to get married on the 28 of March and baptized the next day. We are also teaching the family Castro still and they are doing good. The only thing is that they arrive to church late again on Sunday, haha. You just gotta have a lot of patience with some Peruvians. But continue praying for them and that we can help them get their papers for their wedding. 

We are also teaching Erika. This whole past week we couldn't visit her until Friday because her work was changed to the afternoon so we could only visit her in the morning.  We had a lesson with her and she was struggling a bit with the law of chastity like she wanted to get baptized but she said that after she might want to co-live with someone without getting married. We told her that she couldn't do that and we went back and forth for a little bit and we told her that we couldn't help her get baptized if she wasn't going to keep that commandment but in the end she finally accepted to live the commandment. We had to change her date to the 7 of March just because we didn't have time to teach her but now she's doing good. That was this week! 

CAMBIOS!

Well transfers came again really fast. This past week we had some pretty cool miracles. So there was a couple that we had contacted in the street like 3 weeks ago to come to church but they didn't seem too interested. Then a week later they found us and told us that they had gone to church but no one was there and it was because there were elections on that Sunday where no one was allowed to have any type of religious meeting. We told them that  they should come to church again and we talked to them a bit more but they told us they weren't married and that they didn't really have plans to get married so we just wrote down their number to call them. 

Then last Sunday, the mom came with two of her kids so we wrote down her address and we thought they lived in the area of the other elders in our ward so we passed the reference to them. During the week the elders went and taught them and they accepted a baptismal date and it turns out they actually do live in our area. So last Thursday we finally coordinated a lesson with them and we got to visit them. They are the family Castro and there's the dad Julio, the mom Delsi and their kids Denis 14, Danitsa 13, Cristofer 11 and Tiago 2. This sunday they came to church but arrived a bit late. We talked to them after church and we talked about marriage and they both said that they want to get married and baptized. They said how they know it is time for their family to get baptized and it is time for them to get married. They just are a bit slower because they are from the mountains. They look like straight descendants of the Incas which is pretty awesome. Their shade of skin is a bit darker and they have a heavier facial features. But that was one of the awesome miracles we had. 

For a service project, the missionaries washed the moto taxis for free.

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We also have a family of Venezuelan potentials that we are working with. Magali the grandma, Andreina the mom, and Genesis the daughter. They are all single moms which is a little sad but they have about 3 months here in Peru and they are super humble and want to change. They used to go to an evangelist church so they know a lot about religious stuff. We invited them to be baptized and they said they wanted to see how the church was first because they were already baptized in another church. 

So we invited them to come to church and they said they would come and they did. Our church starts at 2:30 but we tell everyone it starts at 2:00 so that they'll come on time. We told them it started at 2:00 as well, but they came at 2:00 on the dot and they beat us to church and they were the first ones there. They thought that they had missed the meeting because no one was there, ha ha. Usually everyone starts piling in at like 2:40. Even the bishop shows up at 2:3,0 haha. But we feel super good about them because every time we have gone to visit them this past week they have given us stuff to eat so that's a really good sign. We found them because a less active member from Venezuela asked us to come over to her house to give her and the grandma Magali a health blessing. Everyone please pray that the Lord can touch their hearts and prepare them! 

Making pancakes at Alex and Patricia's home.

Erika and Margot are doing... well ok. We had coordinated with both of them to come to church but neither of them came. We passed by after and the mom of Margot told us that her dad had taken her to another part of Peru. And with Erika we don't know what happened because she didn't answer her cell phone or she wasn't at her house either. So please pray for them as well! 

We had transfers and my companion is going and Elder Larson will be my new companion. He has only like 5 months in the mission so he's a younger guy and he was in my old zone in Santa Clara and I had already done splits with him so I already know him a bit. 

Well I hope everyone has a good week! 

A Wild Week

Well this past week was pretty wild. First, on Tuesday, we had to go to migrations for my companion and on the way there he almost threw up and he was pretty sick. We went to the office and all of the missionaries that had to go went in this little bus, and apparently he was throwing up on the way. He came back and we went home to rest and on the way back my stomach started feeling weird again. I started feeling pretty weak and I didn't want to eat anything but we had lessons so we did splits with the elders in our room, and I went with Elder Woolf to the lessons. 

Then on Wednesday in the morning we had leadership meeting and Hermana Amato had cooked this super good food from Brazil that I had asked her to cook called feijoada which has beans with pig and this other really good stuff. Thankfully my stomach felt good enough to eat it but Elder Garcia still was sick. We were trying to think of what made us both sick of what we had eaten because on pday we had eaten Papa Johns and we thought it was that.

Also, on Monday, we visited a lady named Margot Lopez who had come to church on Sunday and she accepted a date for the 29 of February. 

The whole week we were trying to visit Erica who we had found last week, but she only had time in the mornings and we had meetings each day in the morning until Saturday but we visited her and she's doing good. 

Also the whole week we had to do follow up on Alex and Patricia to make sure that they were going to get their papers for their wedding because Alex had ripped all of the papers on Sunday. Thanks to all of the miracles from the Lord, what had taken us almost a month to collect all of the papers we needed for the wedding, we were able to do it again in a week and we had the wedding and baptism on Satuday. There was so much planning stuff that went down for this wedding and I was so lost so we just called the Relief Society and were like, "You guys throw a wedding for them PLEASE because we have no idea what the flip you do in a wedding." So the Relief Society was awesome and they helped put together everything and we had a small wedding at the church. It was just such an awesome thing to see how far Alex, Patricia and their daughter Jennifer had come. We had to fight super hard against the opposition but it was all worth it. 

Alex and Patricia's Wedding

It was just such an incredible feeling that I felt in my chest when I was in the baptismal font with them. Such a strong peace. 

But to kind of end on a sadder note, the family from Venezuela fell. They were all ready to come to church and we had called and confirmed but nothing. They didn't come and we were calling but they wouldn't answer. During the week, the mom Eugenia, had been trying to avoid us or she just wasn't showing up to the lessons because we always asked where she was and everyone told us that she was working so we just focused on teaching the others. We went to their house after church but only Nazarrete and her dad and sister Maria were there. We asked Maria if she wanted to be baptized because she was showing us that she wanted to and she said that no, she didn't want to right now. We pulled Nazarrete aside and we asked her what had happened (Nazarrete is a member) and she told us how about a week ago her mom came home and told the family that they weren't going to the church anymore and that they were going to a different church.  Nazarrete argued with her but she didn't change her mind. It was weird because no one in the family had told us that this had happened because when we would ask how they felt for their baptisms they said that they were excited. We weren't able to talk to all of the family but tonight we are going to talk to the grandma Eusebia because she actually has a lot of desires to  be baptized and we want to save her before its too late. We just didn't realize in time because the mom wasn't talking to us the same way before. SO everyone please pray super hard for Eusebia, Eugenia, Ronal, Maria and Raul that we can go talk to them and that they Lord can touch their hearts. Hope everyone has a good week!