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
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Do You Help People?
Hey Familia, how's it going?
This week wasn't horribly interesting with a lot of drama or anything special but there was some pretty cool thing that happened and some special lessons that I learned. I'm glad to hear about all the summer activities that are going on in the ward and in all of your lives. I told Alex this, but I seriously wish I could have gone down to Bryce to see the cool rocks and to be out in the middle of nowhere for awhile. I kind of miss all that nature stuff becuase it really is pretty crowded and polluted here in Arequipa. But there's cool stuff too, like the three volcanoes and some Inca natives and ruins. I also could not believe that you finally decided to adopt, I'm really proud of you mom for making that sacrifice. It may seem like a struggle at first but I'm sure Karl will really appreciate the love and support he feels in our family. (Ha Ha). That's super crazy, I could not believe that Karyn totally went and shaved her head off!!!!! Everybody else should do crazy things too just to keep my life a little more interesting.
Monday we played volleyball and soccer, sorry no basketball to report on. It was pretty fun like usual, it's good to unwind and take a little break for a few hours from the daily routine of things. Also last Monday I was able to purchase a church movie about how special the Book of Mormon is, it's called How Rare a Possession. It's really good, I've seen it once before in Seminary. It's the story about Parley P. Pratt and also an Italian man who found the Book of Mormon on the side of the street in New York in like 1910. That Book of Mormon had no cover or title page or anything so he had no idea what the book was but he knew it was the word of god. He had to wait like 40 years to finally get baptized and to know the name of the book that he read for almost his entire life. Super interesting, you should definately buy it.
I think it was Wednesday when we found a really cool young man by the name of Carlos. He is from the selva in Pullcalpa, Peru. He had listened to the missionaries a little bit before and had played soccer at the church a few times. He was super receptive and said that he wants to get baptized. He's 19 so he can recieve the Priesthood which is what this ward and stake needs. Also, we found another man by the name of Victor who had heard from a taxi driver that the missionaries help people. So he asked us, "Is that true, do you help people. I have always wanted to talk to missionaries but have been scared to do so." So of course we said that we could help and that we want to talk to him more. I hope we will be able to talk to him more this week.
We also went to a Stake Dance Festival this week. It was interesting to see all the different dances of Arequipa and some more areas of Peru. For the most part I like this culture, but they don't like to make or keep commitments, which is what they need to get baptized. That is what happened again this week. We had a lot of people to bring to church but none of them showed up.
Well, I'll just keep going on and trying. I know that eventually all of our work will pay off. That's about time for me this week, so more next week.
Elder Child
This week wasn't horribly interesting with a lot of drama or anything special but there was some pretty cool thing that happened and some special lessons that I learned. I'm glad to hear about all the summer activities that are going on in the ward and in all of your lives. I told Alex this, but I seriously wish I could have gone down to Bryce to see the cool rocks and to be out in the middle of nowhere for awhile. I kind of miss all that nature stuff becuase it really is pretty crowded and polluted here in Arequipa. But there's cool stuff too, like the three volcanoes and some Inca natives and ruins. I also could not believe that you finally decided to adopt, I'm really proud of you mom for making that sacrifice. It may seem like a struggle at first but I'm sure Karl will really appreciate the love and support he feels in our family. (Ha Ha). That's super crazy, I could not believe that Karyn totally went and shaved her head off!!!!! Everybody else should do crazy things too just to keep my life a little more interesting.
Monday we played volleyball and soccer, sorry no basketball to report on. It was pretty fun like usual, it's good to unwind and take a little break for a few hours from the daily routine of things. Also last Monday I was able to purchase a church movie about how special the Book of Mormon is, it's called How Rare a Possession. It's really good, I've seen it once before in Seminary. It's the story about Parley P. Pratt and also an Italian man who found the Book of Mormon on the side of the street in New York in like 1910. That Book of Mormon had no cover or title page or anything so he had no idea what the book was but he knew it was the word of god. He had to wait like 40 years to finally get baptized and to know the name of the book that he read for almost his entire life. Super interesting, you should definately buy it.
I think it was Wednesday when we found a really cool young man by the name of Carlos. He is from the selva in Pullcalpa, Peru. He had listened to the missionaries a little bit before and had played soccer at the church a few times. He was super receptive and said that he wants to get baptized. He's 19 so he can recieve the Priesthood which is what this ward and stake needs. Also, we found another man by the name of Victor who had heard from a taxi driver that the missionaries help people. So he asked us, "Is that true, do you help people. I have always wanted to talk to missionaries but have been scared to do so." So of course we said that we could help and that we want to talk to him more. I hope we will be able to talk to him more this week.
We also went to a Stake Dance Festival this week. It was interesting to see all the different dances of Arequipa and some more areas of Peru. For the most part I like this culture, but they don't like to make or keep commitments, which is what they need to get baptized. That is what happened again this week. We had a lot of people to bring to church but none of them showed up.
Well, I'll just keep going on and trying. I know that eventually all of our work will pay off. That's about time for me this week, so more next week.
Elder Child
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)