Wednesday, February 26, 2020

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! 

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

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! 

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

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!

Monday, February 3, 2020

The stresses of a Marriage

So last week I was sick so I didn't write an email but nothing much happened except for one neat thing. We all got to go to the chapel in Lima Tambo to hear Elder Holland speak. 




We woke up super early and President and Sister Amato made us breakfast. Before the meeting, the missionaries from Lima Tambo came and I got to see Elder Frame from my old group. He was one of my buddies. 

Elder Frame

We went and listened to Elder Holland and I was able to shake hands with him. He made fun of my red hair, haha. I loved the passion he had when he spoke. He talked about his mission and how important it was to him.  I really could connect with him because I have the same passion about being on my mission. He talked a lot about being strong and staying active in the church and having the desire to want to know that the gospel is true. I really loved listening to him. I was also surprised to see Elder Ludke! Elder Ludke went to school with me so that was great to see him. He is in the Lima North mission. The next day we had our multizone meeting with Elder Gavarret from Uruguay and he had some really spiritual uplifting messages that I really liked.

Elder Ludke
This past week went by pretty fast. Pretty much what happened was we were fighting with Alex and Patricia with their marriage. Not literally fighting but every other day when we would go to their house they would be good and fine and then the next day Patricia wouldn't want to get married and then we would have to fix everything. Sometimes we would have to go 3 days in a row to help them out. They just have been struggling a little bit with the communication in their relationship. Alex is all fine but some days Patricia is good then the next she's not.One day we brought one of the members from the relief society presidency over and Patricia was like, "I can't do it; I don't want to get married."  We had to talk her back into getting married. And then everything was good until yesterday when they didn't come to church. But Jennifer, their daughter, was at church and we asked her where they were and she told us that they had gotten into a fight and we're like, oh great. SO we go to their house and pretty much Alex had gone to play soccer with his buddies for a little bit right before  church, even though that week we had explained to him that on the sabbath day we should refrain from playing, and when he came back they started to argue or something and Alex got so mad he told Patricia he didn't want to get married and he ripped his papers that they needed to get married. BUT we talked it all out and we told them that no one has a perfect family, and that everything will be all good, and the best thing to do is to move forward for their marriage and baptism this Saturday, and now everything is all good! So, if everyone can continue praying for them that they can get through all of the opposition that they might face, that would be great! 


We call this little boy, Puno. Puno isn't his real name but he likes to do knuckles with us every time we see him. Puno is knuckles in Spanish.

The Venezuelan family is doing good. They just didn't come to church yesterday even though they had confirmed everything. We went and talked to them and it sounded like they were making some excuses so we were very direct with them and we discussed about the importance of going to church every Sunday to partake of the sacrament. We have another lesson with them tonight but if everyone can please pray for them as well for Eusebia, Eugenia, Ronald, Maria and Raul. 


Elder Alva 

Jackson's Zone






































We also had a crazy miracle in church yesterday. At the end we went to talk to the people that we didn't know and there was a single mom named Erica Sifuentes that had already been to church 3 times and she was living with her sister in law. She is a single mom with 3 little kids and she is working and trying to support herself and them as well. She is just passing through a really tough time and she accepted to be baptized for the 29 of February! 


Spider in Jackson's apartment!

Well that is what happened this week so I hope everyone enjoys their week!