Another miracle from the Lord!

Monday August 26, 2019

So about 3 weeks ago, we were teaching a woman named Isamar. About a week before her baptism we were talking with her about her baptism and she had some doubts and she said she just felt so much stress in her life and didn't feel peaceful at all. We told her that baptism would help her be able to change this but she just told us that she didn't really want to be baptized yet. We told her that when she was ready to be baptized to call us. About 2 weeks ago she calls us and asks us if she can be baptized but she told us that she wouldn't be able to come to church for about two months because she had to work Sundays. We were trying to make plans so that she could skip work one Sunday for her confirmation and then to have the whole ward help minister to her until she finished working but we visited with her on Saturday, and she told us that she got fired from her job. She is still receiving money from her dad but now we are all helping her find work that isn't on Sunday. Her baptism will be this Saturday. Fabian and Josep are doing good as well. Fabian didn't come to church yesterday and he hasn't returned our calls yet but we think he is sick. We are going to go see what's up with him. So please pray for Fabian. That's about all that happened last week but things are going great down here!

Making cookies on P-day. Hands make a nice mixer. :)

The finished product.

Fabian and Josep

August 19, 2019

Elder Muniz and I were able to see more miracles this week thanks to the Lord! So last week after stake conference a young man gets off the bus and tells us Elders, "I want to be baptized," as I said last week. We had a lesson with him last p-day and he accepted a date for the 14th of September. His name is Fabian Lope. His grandma is a member but his parents are not. He's 18 years old and he's studying a lot right now. He's pretty tall for a Peruvian, and he's pretty cool. He loves basketball so we have some stuff to talk about. He told us how he wants to be baptized to be able to see his family come closer together and he wants to be the example for everyone. So please pray for him. 

The next miracle happened as we were contacting. I was contacting this guy and I noticed how a dad and his kid were just watching me. I was like yeah, it's normal because literally everyone just stares at me wherever I am because I have red hair, haha. But they just stayed there, and after I was done contacting they came up to us and the dad told us that he wanted his son to start on a good path in his life and he wanted us to visit him. We talked with the son and he was kind of interested, so we took out a lesson anyway. In the lesson we asked him what he expected from our visit and he told us that he wanted to be a member of the Church to change his life. His name is Josep Vilchez and he's 15 years old but he acts like he's 17. He lives with his parents but his dad is totally fine with him getting baptized. How great is the Lord for blessing us with these two miracles! 

This past Saturday we also went to the temple as a ward, and we were able to go with Leo, Angy, and Brayan and they all were able to bring their temple names. It's also super special to be able to see the people you teach progress rapidly in the church. Elder Muniz and I are super happy and we are working hard down here and Grinding! I am just  loving the mission right now. Tengan una buena semana! Cuídense!

Another great week!

August 12, 2019

This week was another fantastic week! We had the baptisms of Brayan and Angy. Like I have said before, Angy is very chosen. She is 12 years old but she acts like she is 16 and she understands everything that we teach her, and she has such a strong testimony. 

Angy's baptism day.

Angy and the young women from the ward.

After her baptism she shared her testimony and she said how she saw something shining in the sky when she came up out of the water and she said how she felt so peaceful and how she just wanted to stay under the water when she got baptized because of how good she felt. Both her and her brother, Leo, are young but they keep telling us how they're going to serve missions and it just makes us so happy to hear that. 

Leo and Angy

This week we had stake conference to open up the new stake, Santa Clara and Elder Held was there, and he spoke along with President and Sister Amato. After stake conference, we were getting off the bus that we had taken as a ward to go there and a young man gets off and comes up to us and asks us elders, "What do I need to do to get baptized?" The dream of every missionary, haha. His name is Fabian and we have a lesson with him today so we're excited to start teaching him. 

William (a recent convert) and his massive genealogy chart. 

Something that has really caught my attention these past couple weeks is how we can become new creatures thru Christ. In Mosiah 27 it talks about Alma's experience and what he went through after he had been unconscience for 2 days and nights. 

24 For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been ^aredeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.

25 And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be ^aborn again; yea, ^bborn of God, ^cchanged from their carnal and ^dfallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his ^esons and daughters;

26 And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in ^anowise inherit the kingdom of God.

I testify that all of us can change from a carnal and fallen state and be born again and become new creatures through Christ. The mission has helped me so much in changing as a person, and I can't thank Christ enough for what he has done to help me. 

A cute lady in Jackson's ward owns a restaurant and she likes to feed the missionaries.

I hope everyone has a great week.

An Elder in Jackson's apartment made him a "Shocley" pancake.

Leo got baptized!

August 5, 2019

This past week the main highlight was Leo's baptism. 

Leo had his baptism on Saturday and it went very well. During his baptism I just felt so grateful to God for blessing us with the opportunity to be able to find and teach Leo. Leo has such strong desires to change and to serve the Lord. His testimony is just so strong. Last Sunday he and one of the recent converts of the ward went "preaching," haha. They came to us asking for contact cards and they went out for a couple of hours and went contacting and came back and gave us some references. Leo always wants to go out and work with us and he is always saying how he is going to be a missionary one day. I am so grateful to be here in Peru to be able to see these blessings. 

Leo's Family

Last week we celebrated Sister Amato's birthday at the leadership council meeting and we had Burger King and this super good chocolate cake. Hna Amato is an awesome mission president's wife. She loves us so much and I am grateful to have her as our mission mom. 

This week we will have the baptism of Angy and Brayan. Yesterday Luis didn't come to church and last week he wasn't there for a couple of the lessons so we're going to have a talk with him today to see how his desires really are, so please pray for him that we can help him progress to his baptism.

Have a good week!

Zona Santa Clara

July 29, 2019

We had transfers yesterday and Elder Muniz and I are opening up a new zone. They took our area and 5 different areas from 2 different zones and made a new zone, Zona Santa Clara. This is the last transfer of Elder Muniz so I'll be ending his mission. He'll be the first mission that I'll have ended. He has been my favorite companion so far. We get along pretty well, and we both have great desires to work hard.  

Last week we had to drop Jean Paul which was a little sad. We were asking how he felt about his baptism and he was telling us how he wanted his parents to come to his baptism but his parents still live out in the flip of the jungle. We talked to him and he just told us that he wanted to change his date to a date a lot farther away. He told us he doesn't really want to get baptized. He also told us how he was working and some Jehovah Witnesses came up and started talking to him and it put some doubts in his head . We talked about things with him but he didn't want to change his mind so we told him that when he is ready to get baptized to come talk to us. So everyone please pray for him that he can be humble enough to be baptized. 

Also pray for Isamar. She says that she doesn't feel ready for her baptism either and there are things that she won't tell us with some of the commandments because she says that she feels to ashamed to tell us but we're going to keep working with her because she really needs help in her life. 

Leo's baptism is this Saturday so that should be good. We are also teaching his sister Angy and Luis and Brayan. All  of them are doing pretty good. Please pray for Blanca, the mom of Leo and Angy, that the Lord can prepare her to be baptized. She is seeing the changes in her kids as they are listening to us, and she is going to come to some of the lessons that we will have with her. Well everyone have a good week!

How Great is the Lord and THE Fastest Baptism ever recorded in Church History ;)

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!

La obra del Señor

Que tal! Well this past week flew by again! The time goes by pretty fast when you are working hard and enjoying the work! 

So a cool story that happened last week was that One of the recent converts in the ward was on Facebook, and she recognized someone that lived right in front of the church and she sent him a friend request and invited him to church. On Sunday he came, but a little late, to 2nd hour and we took out a lesson with him after church and he accepted a baptism date but we needed permission from his mom and he didn't have a phone number to be able to communicate with him. The next lesson we had with him he wasn't there, and we had our doubts but the next day we found him in the streets. We talked with him and he said that he had been looking for us. We had the next lesson with him and after that he wanted to accompany us in lessons and he contacted with us in the streets. He also shared his testimony about the LDM (Book of Mormon) and how he wasn't able to understand it the first time he read it but he prayed to God for help and then he was able to understand it. He's only 14 and last night he attended the future missionary fireside in the stake. His name is Leonardo Garcia and his date is for the 3 of August. 

We had a lesson with Owen yesterday and he's doing a lot better. We were only able to teach him once last week because he had a march that he had to do for his school so it was a little rough teaching him but yesterday he told us how he felt a lot better about his baptismal date. Keep praying for him that his mom or his dad can sign his permission for his baptism. 

This past week we were also able to  find Isamar. She's a single 26-year-old mom with a 6-year-old autistic son. She is slowly losing her sight as well. She accepted a date for the 10 of August and she came to church yesterday. We also have Jean Paul from last week. He's doing pretty good as well. 

Elder Muniz and I have been working hard, and we have been finding people so it's going good here. Elder Madruga is finishing his mission here soon but we got a quick picture together. Hope everyone has a great week!

Elder Madruga