Thursday July 25, 2019
These past weeks have been full of incredible miracles. Last week we went on intercambios with the assistants and I went with Elder Topham, my old companion, and it was pretty good to work with him again. He's a pretty funny guy, haha. He has some crazy mission experiences that happen to him. He's finishing his mission in two weeks so it will be kind of weird because Elder Topham is a very influential person. It will feel weird to have him gone.
Anyway, last Sunday, we had 3 miracles happen. The first was the sister of Leo. He had told us that he had a sister but we didn't think much of it until some ward members went and brought her to church. We taught her after church and she is just as chosen as her brother. Her name is Angy and she's 12 years old. She just soaks in everything that we tell her and she has such great desires to want to change as a person. She accepted date for the 17th of August.
The other miracle we had actually went back a week ago when a contact we had in the street came to church, and he told us that the missionaries had taught him before but almost 2 years ago. We were going to take out a lesson with him but he wasn't paying attention in church and for some reason we just kinda forgot to take out an appointment. But we were contacting one day and my companion decided to walk down an alley that didn't have any people in it. I was going to tell him that we should keep contacting on the main road because there was barely anyone but something just told me to follow him so I did. We walk to the end of the street and there was a lady in her little tienda or store. We started talking to her and come to found out she is the mom of the contact that we had contacted and that came to church almost 2 weeks ago. His name is Luis. He came out and we talked to him about if he wanted to be baptized, and he said he did and we told him that we would see him in church the next day. He came to church and after we had a sit down lesson with him and everything went good and he accepted to be baptized the 24 of August.
Finally, the last miracle we had was one of the ward members nephew moved her to Lima from the jungle and he's not a member. He came to church on Sunday. We taught him after church, and he totally wants to get baptized. His name is Brayan and he accepted a date for the 17 of August.
Right now we are teaching Isamar, Jean Paul, Leo and Angy, Brayan, and Luis. Please everyone pray for Isamar. She's a little hesitant with being baptized so everyone pray that she can resolve her doubts.
SO yesterday we had the fastest baptism recorded ever in church history! We had the baptismal interview for Owen yesterday, and after he was telling us how he was going to travel on Saturday for vaciones to Chiclayo for a week. He was going to leave on Friday right after his school ended, and we talked about doing his baptism today (last Thursday) but today is temple P-day and we don't get back until 6:30 pm, and he can't leave his house for some reason after 6:30 so he was like, "Well we can do it right now." It was 5:35 and he had to be home at 6. So we hopped in a mototaxi and drive to the house, get all the clothes, call the bishop to get permission to baptize, and run back to the church. It's about 5:48 and we start the baptism. We have a huge tub in the back of our church as our baptismal font, welcome to Peru, and it was already full of water. We have a hymn, a short message, Owen gets baptized, we get changed, he bares his testimony, and we close with a prayer and he's running to his house at 6, so he got home a little late. So now I can say that I helped someone make their first covenant with God that has the same name as my best friend. So, I pretty much baptized my best friend!
The missionary work is just going so great right now, and the Lord is truly blessing us. I am ever grateful for the Lord and his tender mercies. Hurrah por Israel!
July 8, 2019
Last week was quite a week of miracles. The first was a reference that we got from the Elders from ñaña. His name is Santiago Moralez and he's 13-years-old. He had gone to the church in ñaña and then the elders passed us the reference and we went and visited him. Even though he is 13-years-old, he acts like he's 16. He's an only child in his family and his parents aren't around for him when he's at home. He told us how he just feels super lonely but when he is at the church he feels super peaceful. He accepted to be baptized the 3rd of August.
On Sunday at church there were 2 young men that showed up to church with their friends. Jean Paul and Leonardo. Jean Paul is 16 and lives by himself here in Lima and his family lives in the jungle. He had some family problems and his dad would beat his mom a lot and he works at a mechanic shop every day so his life is pretty tough. He also accepted a date for the 3rd of August. Leonardo is 14 and he lives right in front of the church. One of the members brought him and after we visited him and he also accepted to be baptized for the 3rd. He told us how is has done some bad things in the past that he wished he hadn't done and wants to be clean from his sins.
Today we are also going to visit another family that came to church and a Venezuelan and her kids as well. It was just so amazing to see the Lord bless us with such great miracles. Owen is doing good as well. We just need everyone to pray that the parents of Santiago, Owen and Leonardo give them permission to get baptized! Working with Elder Muniz is awesome! I'm loving it out here in Peru! Hope everyone takes care at home!
July 1, 2019
Well this last week was pretty great . First we had the baptism of Benjamin and that went great. There was also a family that got baptized in the ward that we helped out.
Last transfer my comp and I were contacting and there was a lady with her daughter that we contacted and she was super interested and all but she told us that she didn't know her address or her phone number so I was like, great because usually if someone doesn't know either of those two it's very hard for them to get baptized. But my comp asked for references for where she lived and we figured out that she lived just outside our area but in the other part of the area of the other elders in the ward. He took out a lesson with her and I thought he was kind of crazy because we barely knew where her house was but we passed the reference to the elders and the next day the we called them to see how it went and the lady accepted a baptismal date. she was a single mom with 3 daughters and to make a long story short they all got baptized last Saturday. It was just really cool too see because they had had some doubts, and we went to their house a couple of times to teach lessons with the elders and it was cool to see them, get baptized as well.
This past week we also found a 16-year-old kid named Owen and he accepted a date for the 27 of Julio. I kept telling him that my best friend named Owen was also serving a mission in Peru and he thought that was pretty cool. He lives with his dad and his brothers but his dad is a little questionable about him getting baptized so please pray that the Lord can soften the heart of Owen's dad.
My companion Elder Muniz is awesome, haha. He's super funny. Hes helping me learn a little bit of Portuguese so hopefully I can come back knowing 2 new languages, haha. Hope everyone has a great week!
Well I don't have to much to report on this week. Last week was a bit slower. Sadly, Juan didn't come to church and we haven't been able to find him or get in contact with him so that kinda sucks. He's pretty cool so please pray that we'll be able to find Juan. So tomorrow are transfers. My companion is going to the zone central. My new companion is from Brazil again, haha, but he speaks perfect English. I think that I am going to take advantage of this opportunity to learn Portuguese. His name is Elder Muñiz so I'm pretty pumped to work with him.
I am very grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ in my life. A tip that I heard from Elder Bednar was to take a cover back Book of Mormon and start from the beginning and mark everything that has to do with the Atonement of Christ with a marker until the very end of the book and then you take a blank sheet of paper and write a one page summary of what you learned, fold it up and stick it in the book. Then you get a white piece of tape, put it on the spine of the book and write Atonement 1. Then you do the same thing again with another Book of Mormon. After you write the second summary, you take out the summary from the first book and compare the two summaries. Elder Bednar said that it is amazing what you will have learned from doing this. He said that you can do this with any question you have. I started doing this and it is amazing how many things are referenced or talk about the Atonement of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon. I am so very glad that we all have the opportunity to use the Atonement every day to become even more like Christ and improve as people.
Here are the photos from William's baptism last week.
This week we had the baptism of William. It was pretty cool to see William get baptized finally. He told us how from the first moment that we talked with him that when he heard that he needed to baptized like Jesus Christ he knew that our message was true and that he indeed needed to be baptized like Jesus Christ. He is the most chosen person of the people that I have baptized. He asked me right before his baptism if he could baptize his dad as well that day, haha. I told him that he had to wait to go to the temple but it's just cool to see him excited.
This past week we also received a referral named Juan. Juan is 20 years old and he's pretty chill. He has had a tough life as his mom died when he was younger and his dad left him and his 3 siblings to grow up together. He also got in a gnarly work accident and his hand got all chopped up. He's got some scars on his hand but he went to a primitive church before or something so he's already a pretty spiritual person, and he accepted to be baptized the 6th of July. I won't be able to upload the pictures from William's baptism this week so I'll try and do that next week. Hope everyone has a great week!!
So this last week I had the amazing opportunity to see Elder Bednar. He came to Limatambo and all of the Lima missions were there. We got there pretty early and got some really close up seats. We were all expecting him to come and give a talk but he did it way differently and he asked us questions instead. We had all read 4 talks from him before he came and we talked about those, and he asked us what we learned. He taught us a good way to teach our investigators with the way that we ask them certain questions and it was great.
All of the missions down here in Peru baptize a lot but sometimes we struggle with retaining a lot of the newer converts. He gave us some good revelation through asking us questions and it was just super fun to see him. We got to see a different side of him that you don't see in general conference so that was fun too.
This last week we found a Venezuelan lady, Jenny, and she's here living with her daughters and granddaughters. She accepted to be baptized on the 29th of June. Sadly we lost Alexander the other Venezuelan. We had a lesson with him last night and all he wanted to do was argue with us out of the bible so we told him that when he was ready to be baptized to call us.
My companion, Elder Bittencourt is very smart and it's fun teaching with him. He is a convert from when he was 15 and he just knows how other people think, so he's able to teach in a very sensible way that helps the other people understand why they need to be baptized.
This week we will have the baptism of William so that's going to be awesome! We had to move the baptism of Kati and Saif because they didn't come to church again which was a little frustrating.
I hope you all have a good week!
