¡Milagros desde Venezuela!

This past week Elder Garcia and I were able to see an incredible miracle. We were contacting in the street like always and we contacted a young girl and she told us that she was a member from the church from Venezuela and that she was looking for the church. We told her where it was and then we asked her if she lived with her family and if they were members. She told us that only her and her mom were members and so we took out a lesson to go visit them. When we arrived at their house, their was the grandma Eusebia, the mom Eugenia, the dad Adoni, the uncle Ramon, and their kids Nazaret 17 who is the member, Ronald 16, Maria 13, Raul 10, Mariangel 7 and Mariangeli 3. All of them accepted to be baptized for the 15 of February. The dad said that he wanted to go to church first and see more about the church but he traveled to Colombia over the weekend so we are going to have to work with him more. Yesterday at church all of the family attended except for Ramon because he was working. 

Jackson's Apartment

Alex, Patricia and Jenifer attended church as well. Last week was a fight with Alex and Patricia. Almost every time that we went they said how they didn't want to do it or how they couldn't go through with the marriage. We did a lot of talking and everything and now they are doing so much better, and they are very excited for their baptism. 

Rodizio's

Also yesterday in church I had a surprise visit from my converts from Santa Clara. Gustavo, Ediliedy, Camila and their parents that recently moved here from Venezuela came to our meeting yesterday and brought a traditional Christmas food from Venezuela called hallacas. It was super good to see them again and I was very happy to meet the parents of Edileidy and Gustavo who are in the process of getting married and baptized as well! Hope everyone has a great week!

Alex and Patricia

We experienced some pretty cool miracles last week. One of them was a day that we decided to talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ in the contacts. One of our lessons had fallen through, and we were contacting in the plan B which was a dirt hill that we had never really contacted in before. 

We started talking to a couple and from the way that the wife was looking at us I could tell she was a chosen. We talked about baptism in the contact and the husband and the wife both said that they would like to be baptized and so we asked them if they had time that we could go to their house and talk with them and they accepted so we went to their house and taught them and their daughter. Alex is the dad, Patricia the mom, Jennifer their daughter and their baby Yolandi. Alex and Patricia are in their 30's and Jennifer is 13 and their baby is 4 months. They are super humble and they accepted to be baptized the 8th of February. It is very and sad to see because they had lost one of their children at 4 months old and their baby girl, Yolandi, was born with some problems with her head and her brain is not developing right. They are scared that they are going to lose her and it brings them to tears every time they talk about the subject. We gave Yolandi a health blessing so that she could heal and that her body could heal correctly. Alex and Patricia need to get married but they are super serious about it and they are working on getting the papers that they need to get married so please pray for them that they can get married and baptized! 

We also found another couple named Liz and Jonathan. Liz is very interested in our message and she wants to get baptized and married. Jonathan is a bit more reserved and doesn't speak much but he said that he wants to as well. The only thing is is that they didn't come to church on Sunday when everything was confirmed. They said that they had to go visit a family member so we have a lesson with them tonight but please pray for them as well. 

The work is starting to pick back up here with my companion and I. Elder Garcia is a great companion and I am glad to be working with him. Hope that this week goes good for everyone! 

Transfers

Well transfers came again. My companion Elder Garcia is staying for his 4th transfer. We both thought that he was going to go but we are both hyped that he is staying. 

Garbage dump on the streets close to where Jackson lives. 

Last week was good with New Years and everything. We watched the fireworks and the next day the streets were dead, and there were some drunk people out, haha. Our neighbors starting partying at midnight on New Years and they were blasting their Peruvian music and they partied until 9 in the morning and they were super drunk. It was kind of funny but I didn't sleep at all that night. 

Streets on New Year's Eve

So these past couple of weeks we have been working with this Venezuelan family y todo and we have been filtering them to see who really are the chosens in their family. There is one that has really shown that he wants the changes in his life. His name is Freddy Rivero, and he is living here away from his family in Venezuela. He is about 45 years old, and he has heart problems and he's super homesick. He misses his family a lot but we are helping him prepare for the 25th of this month. 

We visited John Pierre from last week and he was doing good but he failed us in going to church on Sunday and so we had a sit down with him and told him that he really needs to show us that he wants these changes in his life. So everyone please pray for him. We are also working with some other potentials but it has been going a little rough with finding but my companion and I are really determined to work harder this transfer. 

Our laundry lady is our mamita pretty much, but she's super awesome and she made us robes of the Peruvian flag with our names on them. Well I hope everyone has a good week and a Happy new year!

PRAY FOR DAVID

We passed Christmas down here really good. Christmas Eve we ate dinners with the families in the wards but we spread out the dinners with the times so we didn't die of eating so much food. We pretty much just ate a lot of turkey and drank Inka Kola, but it was good. At one member's house we ate goat, and it was very tasty. The members here in the ward are awesome because they gave us some presents. 

So down here in south america for Christmas they do things a little different. The 24th they have a party and dinner with their families and they wait until 12:oo am and then everyone shoots off fireworks and then after the fireworks they open their presents and then party until 6 am. I wanted to do something a little different for the elders in my room because they are all Latinos. SO we all stayed up and we went to the roof at night to watch the fireworks and it was pretty cool. The fireworks were shot right over our heads and it was great, haha. Then after they went to sleep I wrapped some presents for them which were soccer jerseys I had got earlier in the week and I put them under a little Christmas tree that we have. 

It was super awesome to see their reactions on Christmas morning because they were so surprised that there were presents under the Christmas tree and they all ran over and opened them up like little kids and they were super happy. It was just cool to see because they never have had presents to open up in the morning. 

Later on that day we had a zone breakfast and we ate a TON of french toast and then we played some games and we played white elephant. 

Later that night we ate Christmas dinner with the family Bravo. They invite us over to eat dinner with them every Sunday night and they are just a really awesome family. So that's how Christmas went. 

We also had the chance on Christmas Eve to deliver presents to kids. We went to a very poor part of our ward where there are just dirt streets and shacks. The members bought presents for us to deliver to these kids. We brought about 30 presents and we had them wrapped. When we arrived, all the neighborhood somehow knew we had presents so they all came running towards us. It was insane to watch it all. There were about 100 people and we were only able to hand out to about 30 people. The adults were asking for more but sadly we didn't have enough for everyone. 

So from last week we had a lot of potential people that had gone to church but in the end sadly they all kind of failed us and they didn't want anything. But this week we had 2 really big miracles. The first was David Rojas. David is one of the most chosen people that I have ever seen. The only thing that is preventing him from being baptized is that he needs to get divorced from his ex-wife and married to his current spouse that he's living with but not married. To make a really long story short, David is just a really awesome, noble guy and he got married awhile ago. He had a kid but later on his wife just leaves him and takes the kid and some of his credit cards. Later on he figures out the the kid actually isn't his kid and that his wife cheated on him. He found a new wife and has a kid and he has been trying to get divorced from his old wife but she has pretty much disappeared and he has tried many different ways to find her so he can get divorced and marry his current spouse. All the legal stuff and everything is ready he just needs her signature. He wants to get baptized so bad so that he can have an eternal family. So if everyone can pray for David and ask that he  can find his ex-wife that would be great! We have talked to him about how God can work miracles in our life and how He can help him find his wife. It is just so sad to see because he has literally done nothing wrong in his life, and he just wants to have a happy family. But we know that God can work miracles for him. 

The other miracle was Giampier or Jhon Pier. We contacted him last Sunday and had a lesson with him on Friday and he's 20 years old and he lives with his dad. His parents are separated, and he says that he really wants to change his life and start off good the new year. He accepted to be baptized the 25 de enero. In the first lesson with him he told us how good he felt inside and how he just felt an immense peace and happiness like he had never felt before. So that about sums up the week. I hope everyone enjoys the new year!

NAVIDAD!

Feliz Navidad! Well this past week again was a week of miracles. First off we were blessed with the opportunity to have the baptism of Alex Huanuco. It was amazing to see him go through all of his trials with his family opposition and smoking and drinking problems . His mom, 2 daughters, sister, nephew and his uncle came to his baptism and it was cool to see all of his family members support him because he didn't think that anyone from his family would come. 

Alex on his baptism day

So right now we are working with 2 Venezuelan families and a single Peruvian dad. The first Venezuelan family, we found this guy named Helder but its pronounced Elder, LOL. We had a Light the World family night, and he was there and we took out a lesson with him. He lives with his wife Susana and his kids, 10 year old Diego who looks like Cancho from Nacho Libre. His friend Freddy lives in the same building as him and Freddy's son, Edgar. We taught them and invited them to be baptized but they said they wanted to go to church and see how it is first. We taught them lesson 1 and they really soaked it up. Helder, Freddy and Edgar came to church on Sunday and they said they enjoyed it a lot. We have a lesson tonight with them to see if they really want to be baptized and so please pray for them! 

We also found Michael in the street contacting. This is the other Venezuelan family. Micheal lives with his mom Yamile and his two little brothers, Willy and Raniel. Willy is 9 years old and Raniel is like 5 . We taught them and they said they wanted to go to church as well. They all went and they really enjoyed it, and we are going to visit them today so please pray for them! 

We also found another guy contacting in the street named Leonardo. He is a separated dad and he has problems with drinking. He accepted to be baptized the 25 of January. He didn't come to church but he told us he wasn't going to be able to because he had family coming in for Christmas and he had to go get them.  

Yesterday, Sunday, was an incredible day. We had prayed as a mission to ask to see a rain of escogidos that would come to church on Sunday for the special Christmas meeting and when Sunday arrived we had 15 nonmembers that came to the reunion sacramental.  9 of them are the people above that I mentioned that we are working with on baptismal dates and the other 6 we have lessons with throughout the week! What a Christmas miracle! We had prayed saying that we would prepare the crops and asked that the Lord would just send the rain and He did! The Lord is so great!  I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas!

Last Minute Miracles!

SO last week I was able to go back to Santa Clara for the Baptisms of Yari, Rosario and Keisy. It was a good feeling to go back there and see everyone again! I was talking to Elder Nye and he told me how Yari and Rosario passed through some last minute opposition but they made it through. He also told me how Keisy has been reading the B of M and that she's already in Alma and that she also wants to serve a mission. That's probably one of the best things is when you are able to help baptize someone that wants to become a missionary! I was also able to see my Venezuelan converts. I was talking with Edileidy and she said that she also wants to go on a mission, haha! Here are some pictures from the baptism.

L to R: Elder Nye, Keisy, Yari, Rosario, Elder Bittencourt, Jackson

Also last week my companion and I have been grinding duro down here. We worked hard all week and we were praying hard that we would see a miracle on Sunday in church. We prayed fervently Saturday night and Sunday in the morning that we could see a milagro in the church. We called our list of people to come to church and there were two people that said they would come to church by themselves. So we were at church waiting outside the doors greeting the members and everyone and we hadn't seen anyone new and the sacrament was about to start and so we went in. We were a little frustrated sitting there thinking why we hadn't found anyone until after the sacrament meeting we looked at our phone and saw that we had missed calls. We called the number and 2 women that we hadn't contacted told us they were waiting for us outside and we went and got them and they were able to go to the second hour. Their names are Difilia and Alejandra, two sisters. We have a lesson with them later this week. But how the Lord answers our prayers! We prayed so hard and the Lord delivered. 

Another miracle we saw was we had a noche de hogar and we arrived at the members house and they invited us in but told us that the guest hadn't arrived. We told them that we were going to contact a little bit longer until their friend they invited came to the house. We did a contact around the block and on the other side we found a single mom with her 3 kids. We went to her house with her really fast and blessed her house and we have a lesson with them tomorrow! We were able to work all week long and see the miracles in the end! I know that God does hear our prayers and works according to the desires of our hearts! Enjoy your week!

New Area

Well transfers went good last week! I am in my new area, El Valle, in the Zone of Campoy. There is a lot of dirt in Campoy, surprise, haha not. My new area is a quite a bit smaller than Santa Clara was but it is super populated.  In Santa Clara there were 800 members with 200 that attended and it was a pretty big area. Here there are 1062 members with 200 that attend and it is a bit smaller so that just shows how densely populated my new area is.

Jackson at a little farewell party his last area had for him.

We had 2 new areas that were opening in the Zone but the day after transfers they both got shut down because the new missionaries that were in the areas were just here in Peru waiting for their visas to come. 

Right now we are teaching 4 people. Alex Huanaco is a separated dad who lives by himself in his mechanic shop. He has problems with smoking so please pray for him that he can have the strength to overcome his problems. We are also teaching a family of 5: Diego 10, Dayana 13, Marcos 17, and Porfirio and his wife Amerita. The parents aren't married and they don't really want to get married for now so we are just working with the kids. They have all come to church twice and they are doing good. Just pray for their parents that the Lord can touch their hearts so that the kids can get baptized and in the future that they can get married. 

Jackson and his new companion

The New Zone is only 12 missionaries which just feels so weird coming from a zone of 20 Elders. It's also super weird to have sister missionaries in the zone again. This past Friday we also had a really cool activity we got to do as a zone. We went to a really poor part of the zone and with the YSA of the stake we had a bunch of toys and we gave them out to all of the little kids. We sang some songs and the YSA did a dance and then we handed out some food and toys. 

Jackson's new zone

Have a good week!