Te amo Peru!

Well, there's not much to report for this week, but Irving and Diego committed to a new baptismal date of October 21! They said they are receiving their answers poco a poco (little by little) and we are really excited about their progress!! We also found a former investigator that the elders were teaching a year or two ago. He had a lot of the lessons and went to church a few times. We knocked on his door, he let us in, we reviewed the restoration and invited him to be baptized on October 21 and he said yes!! So things are going good. 

We got to watch women's conference and it was awesome!!! I really liked Sister Eubank’s and Elder Uchtdorf's talks. And I’m super pumped for general conference this week!! 

Even though the mission is flipping hard sometimes, at the end of the day, I love being a missionary! The time goes so fast and it is such a special time to be a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love being able to meet so many of God's children here in Peru. And despite all it's challenges, Peru is a beautiful country and its people are so loving. Te amo Peru!!

Eating lunch with Familia Guerrero

 

  I ate Kraps!!

 This is Mosi(:

On second thought, make my potatoes (rice/bread/chicken) a salad

Que tal? (How are you?)                                                 

This week has been normal, with some really awesome lessons. We had a super great lesson with Irving and Diego about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and now they understand the purpose of baptism, and how each step gets us closer to our Heavenly Father. Irving also went to stake conference yesterday.

After cancelling our citas (appointments) for more than a month, we were finally able to meet with Napoleon and Pilar again. We had a super spiritual lesson about the plan of salvation, which was just perfect for some health and other problems they're going through. Pilar (who is a little more cold and quiet than Napoleon) was crying as we shared our testimonies of the plan of salvation and eternal families. It was a pretty special moment. Then last night, two brothers from the ward went with us and gave Napoleon a priesthood blessing and the spirit there was really, really strong. 

We went looking for a contact of some elders from 5 years ago, and found him in a little tienda (store). When we told him we were missionaries he pulled out his bible, and I just knew everything was gonna go downhill. He and his friend who joined us, started telling us about how when Christ comes, the United States will be the first place destroyed because it's super wicked apparently, and a whole bunch of other stuff that he backed up with irrelevant bible verses. And his biggest problem with the church is that missionaries can't date or fall in love on their missions.................................. it was a pretty interesting experience and it was pretty hard to escape. 

This week I’ve been reading a lot of conference talks and I really like "Faith Is Not by Chance, but by Choice" by Elder Andersen. I really liked this quote:

Your faith is either growing stronger or becoming weaker. Faith is a principle of power, important not only in this life but also in our progression beyond the veil. By the grace of Christ, we will one day be saved through faith on His name. The future of your faith is not by chance, but by choice.

We always need to be strengthening our faith and rooting it deeper and deeper into our souls. This is the true church of Jesus Christ!! Have a great week everyone. 

Doing service 

Our Pensionista's birthday 

Our district at Chan Chan 

 With a senior missionary couple that works in the temple. She's from Peru and he's from Cedar City

MIRACLES!

Buckle up everyone because this has been a killer week!! 

1. I am no longer the only gringo in our district!! hola. 

2. We met two brand-new babies!! The bishop’s wife and another sister in the ward had babies this week. They were extremely cute

3. Irving and Diego, the two new investigators from last week, are amazing and so prepared. We have had three lessons so far and a family home evening, and they accepted baptismal dates for September 23!! We are pretty pumped. 

4. We had...wait for it... 7 INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH. That is not a typo btw. Irving and Diego, Aura and her daughter, Napoleon (after a month of him cancelling our appointments, he finally went to church), Talia, and Pilar. Some only stayed for sacrament meeting, and Napoleon was the only one who stayed all three hours, but WE ARE MAKING PRGRESS!! woot woot. So here's a bit of information about them. 

Aura and Luciana: Aura's husband is an inactive member. They’re not married, and he is currently in a pretty sticky situation and they are not in a position to get married, but she is excited to keep learning the gospel and going to church.

Napoleon: y’all have heard about him, but we haven't had a lesson in forever, but tonight some brothers from the ward are going to give his wife and him a priesthood blessings and then we'll have a lesson

Talia: her sister is currently the only missionary serving from our ward and she gets home in two weeks. Talia was going to get baptized a few years ago, but decided not to. She knows the church is true and is just waiting for the spiritual confirmation that she should get baptized

Pilar: works in the house of a member family and is not progressing much, but we'll see. 

Funny: Hermana Inmunda saw my weird sleeping bag sheets and was literally rolling around on the floor laughing for like 5 minutes, and was still giggling about it for 15 minutes. It was pretty hilarious. 

Have a great week everyone!! The church is true!!

hamburgers with members

here they put your drinks to-go in bags...

 

throw back because hna holmes is home!

Joyful Disciples of Jesus Christ

So, this has been a pretty similar week to last week. Lots of citas (appointments) fell, and lots of contacting. We were able to visit some members and less actives that are lonely or sick and listen to them and be a friend. 

Some of us from zona este did service in alto Trujillo on Saturday. We worked with shovels helping an excavator clear a path to make a road by a new soccer field they're building. It was fun, but I don't know how much we helped with our six shovels compared with the excavator. But we sure were sore when we woke up yesterday. When the elders give us the pictures I’ll send them. 

Yesterday we had two investigators at church. One is a girl we've taught twice and she stayed for two hours and knows a few members. We have an appointment with her tomorrow and think she can progress.

This week we received a reference for a guy that we finally were able to visit last night. His girlfriend is a member of another ward here in Trujillo. We visited him and his brother and sister last night and had a good lesson. They had lots of questions but seem interested. They’re going with us to a family home evening tonight with our ward mission leaders family, and we have another appointment Wednesday. So we're pretty excited about them. 

Our mission motto (that's in Spanish) says that we are gozosos discipulos de jesucristo. (We are joyful disciples of Jesus Christ) I’ve been thinking about that this week cuz sometimes I’m not very joyful about walking around all day to citas that fall. But there are lots of scriptures that talk about the joy we can have when we serve the Lord. So this week, be joyful! 

“Joy is powerful, and focusing on joy brings God’s power into our lives.” --Elder Nelson

Our District

This is our pensionistas cat. he only likes us cuz we give him food

 "15 Months" - yikes! 

(I hope Hermana Stevenson didn't spray paint that!)