Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Happy Pioneer Day

What is going on my dearest Familia???????????!

I'm glad you all had a good week this week. I soo wish I could go and see Bryce Canyon again at this time of the year. As I am reading Levi's journal I try to picture that part of the state and just how pretty all the rocks and the landscape is. Happy 24th of July for you all. This week I watched Legacy with some members and I thought about all the men and women who made sacrifices to follow a prophet of God to the other side of the country just so they could practice their religion in peace. I often think of how the church is just recently really starting to grow in this part of Peru and I try to imagine what it will look like in 25 years from now. Everybody is so amazed that there are so many missionaries from Utah here. They call Utah the Factory, and I guess that's true just becuase the state was founded with all members of the church. Many of the missionaries here are recent converts (within the past five years), and even though they don't understand everything about the church, they show their faith and confidence in our Savior by serving a mission and trying to build the kingdom where they live.

Monday we pretty much just did the usual stuff, went shopping a little bit and then played soccer in the afternoon. I FINALLY got some advice about how to play soccer. One of the Elders finally taught me some basic technique things that should help me to improve. It's not that the Latinos are mean and don't want to help people learn the sport, it's just that they know if the gringos actually learn the correct form and technique to soccer that they will get beat every time they play becuase we're so much bigger and stronger than they are. Hopefully I wont be such an embarrassment now is all.

On Tuesday I met a member in the ward right next to mine that lived in Utah for ten years and just recently returned to Peru becuase his visa just ran up or something. It was interesting to talk to him about home. He worked at Winder Dairy for eight years and when I told him that I lived in West Valley he started telling me all about it. It was pretty fun to talk about temple square, trax, the U, the freeway, and the MTC with him. He lived in Sugar House and said that he loved his Spanish Ward there. The world is kind of smaller than you might think.

This week was filled with learning experiences for me just because I went on splits with the zone leaders again. Something that I learned and will take to heart is that knowledge doesn't qualify somebody for baptism. They only need a desire and repentance. We were teaching a girl for the second time on Friday and she said she felt that she needs to get baptized. So the zone leader I was with said we should interview her that same day but I was a little hesitant becuase we haven't taught about a lot of other things. He told me that if she has a desire to get baptized and wants to repent, she can get baptized then learn line upon line for the rest of her life. I really took that to heart and I feel that I just need to teach people what they need to hear to have that desire grow in every single one of them

I had a really cool experience on Saturday. We were teaching a young man who said he believed he needs to get baptized but he needs to wait a few months. We told him that he can pray and ask God if he should get baptized next week. He eventually did pray really fervently and I just felt overwhelmed by the love that our Father in Heaven has for every single one of us. I was really surprised at the power of prayer. We asked him how he felt about his prayer, and he said he wants to get baptize next saturday. This was an investigator of the Sister Missionaries so it will not count for us but I feel really good that a son of God will take that step.

Well, that's it for this week. I hope you all have good weeks and do interesting things. Say hi to all the RMs for me.

Love,

Elder Child

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