Monday, May 4, 2015

Hello family this week was great just like the last week.  The time is still flying by and it is insane.  The first highlight from this week.  TEMPLE.  We went to the temple on thursday with Luis!  There were other converts there too but it was the first time for Luis.  It was really awesome.  Luis was super worried about the water and how his head was going to be and all that.  But we went in the temple and there was (as always) a peace inside that is so special.  Literally words can't describe what we can feel inside the temple.  The temple president talked to our ward before we did the baptisms and he said that the veil in the temple is very thin and sometimes it doesn't exist.  After that we did the baptisms and afterward we were talking to Luis and he looked happy.  We were talking to him and he thought he was only going to get baptized for 1 person but he did 4 and he said that he was fine and his head didn't hurt him at all.  It is so good to see that he is progressing so much.  

The next highlight from this week was on Saturday.  So this week in our district meeting we had talked about being persistent and we all agreed to be more persistent and just go straight into testifying instead of accepting no for an answer.  Anyways, there wasn't really a differenece in the first part but on Saturday we understood what being persistent really means.  First of all, we were going  to the house of a lady that just got reactivated and she wasn't there but her son answered who is like 45 and told us to come back in an hour.  We came back in an hour and she wasn't there.  After about 20 seconds of walking away we both looked at each other and said why did we not talk with him??  So, FOR THE THIRD TIME we rang his doorbell.  He came out and accepted us and we ended up putting a baptismal date with him for the 6 of June.  

Second, after that we went to a house of this 80 year old lady who had listened to the missionaries before when I first got here.  We went and she said she was busy so we said just for 10 minutes and she again replied no.  Then we said how about just a prayer in your house?  So she went inside to ask around and then she came out and said another time and again we said that the prayer would help her and she said ok, come in.  Then we started to teach a little and at the end of it all we put a date with her also for the 6 of June for baptism. 

Then after that we went to search for a new investigator that we have and he wasn't there but his older sister answered the door and she said no one was there so then we contacted her.  She said that she was really busy at that moment but we kept on persisting and she finally said ok, ya, come in.  So we entered and it turned out that she wasn't doing anything but anyways we started to teach her.  She was probably paying more attention than any other investigator that I have ever had in the mission.  She was able to answer all the questions we gave her and at the end she didn't accept baptism yet but we got invited back for another time.  So all in all we got 3 new investigators from being persistent.  Before this I don't think I really understood what persistent meant but now I do.  It is really easier than it seems to go into a house to teach.  We were able to do great things on Saturday just from going one step farther. 

Also we had another lesson last night in which we were teaching about family history.  We have a convert Yolanda who has gone to the temple but hasn't taken names because her grandpa doesn't want her to be baptized for his parents so we were talking to her grandpa last night to try and get the names.  In the end we didn't get the names quite yet but we were able to soften his point of view a little bit.  And something that I really recognized in this moment was that we are actually in the church of Jesus Christ.  I already new it but this lesson just confirmed it.  Being able to teach him and respond to his questions with scriptures from the Bible (because he doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon) just reassured my testimony.  We are literally in the same church that Christ established in his time.  

This was a great week.  I hope you all have a wonderful week this week and that you have success in everything you do.  Love you all.  Oh and we have a baptism this Saturday if all goes as planned so that will be fun!  Love you all!!

Monday, April 27, 2015

Hello my wonderful family!!  That is so crazy about this week, Blake is married!  The week went by kind of slow because I think I was excited for Blake haha.  Friday it is a good thing that we had our baptism because if we didn't it would have been a very trunky day.  Anyway, this week was a really good week!

I am going to tell you all this story first so you can understand things later on in the letter.  This week on Tuesday we had a couple things in the church.  1.  Rocio had her baptismal interview.  2.  Luis had his temple recommend interview.  Anyways, we got to the church and only the sacrament room had light.  The other half of the building had no power.  So we called Luis and told him not to come because the bishop said he wasn't going to do interviews.  Luckily we got the sacrament room before anyone else so Rocio could have her interview.  But then people were turning the power off and turning it back on trying to fix it and I was just like NOOOO don't do that haha but oh well, she passed and it all went well.

First thing first...  The baptism!!  So Friday we had the baptism.  It was awesome.  Seriously I think one of the best baptisms I have had.  Despite a few things that happened.  So we were cleaning the church and filling up the font a couple hours before and then the light started to flicker in the church.  This is about an hour before the baptism that it happened.  So the light flickered and then it completely ran out.  So we ran back to our room and grabbed the little flashlight that I have and then we called the other missionaries in our ward to see if they had one and they did but weren't there so I had to crawl through their window and go through their stuff to find their flashlight and then we had to run back to the church.  So we kept filling it up after in the dark.  6 o clock comes which is the time that the baptism was going to start but nobody was there.  There is a thing here called la hora peruana.  Which means that everyone shows up late for everything.  Seriously it is so bad.  So the first person got there about 5 minutes late.  Rocio got there about 10 minutes late and then the bishop who was going to conduct got there 35 minutes late so we had to wait for him.  And the relief society president was going to give a talk in the baptism but wasn't showing up so I had to ask Elder Hiatt to give one of the talks at the last second.  But then comes the baptism and the whole thing started at about 7 so it was already dark.  We all go to the font and there is no light so the only lights we have are from the flashlights.  But, she was baptized and the spirit was so strong.  Afterward she bore her testimony and it was so strong.  After three years of investigating the church she was finally baptized and she wrote on Facebook afterward (someone told us) that she was so happy that she completed one of her goals and now she has a lot of goals to come.  She even talked with her husband about getting sealed in the temple so we are putting the goal with them that in one year they can go to the temple and get sealed with their children.  Really it was such an awesome experience.  There was white in Perú and Salt Lake on Friday.

Another thing that happened was that Luis again is doing so good.  He still thanks us so much for visiting him and he tells us how happy it makes him and how sad he was before we found him and it is wonderful.  He is so happy now.  And anyways, he is making friends in the church and we went to our missions office of family history and we printed out names of his family and he is going to the temple with us on Thursday to do baptisms for his ancestors.  It is seriously so great.  When we went to the family history place I also saw Elder Tonga so that was fun to catch up and see how everything is going.  But that is the update on Luis.  All is well.

Also we have an investigator named ____ .  She is the girlfriend of a young man in the ward.  Well he is about my age and is going to go on a mission in this coming year.  Anyways, she wanted to learn more and we taught her and she accepted baptism for the 9 of May.  I might have already told you all about her.  but anyway our lessons with her this week were so good.  She is reading and praying and said that she felt good when she prayed.  Also she said that before when she prayed she just repeated everything and now she is actually praying and feels like she is talking with God.  She is excited to get baptized so hopefully all of that works out.  Yesterday in our gospel principles class she sat down and the teacher said this class is for converts and investigators and I told the teacher she is an investigator.  The teacher said this because she seriously looks like a member!

We had an interesting experience this week also but what I will say is that it is interesting that when people have problems they call the missionaries.  We have 19 and 18 years and grown people are calling us to fix their problems.  It is awesome.  it really makes you think and realize that we are set apart by a leader with the authority from God to help people with their problems.  We really are representatives of Christ and the people recognize it.    

Oh and la hora Peruana.  for example.  Our church started at 2:20 yesterday.  20 minutes late.  Normally it isn't that bad but there is an example for you. 

 

All is well here in Perú.  Love you all.  

Monday, April 20, 2015

I will start off by saying Friday is going to be a great day!  I will be in two places at once.  Here in Perú and in Salt Lake.  Two very different places but I will try to be in both places at once with the help of my cardboard cut out.  Also Friday is going to be an awesome day because we have a baptism!!  It is the lady that has been an investigator for years and years but she finally decided that she wants to get baptized.  We had a lesson with her and it was easy.  She just accpeted it in the blink of an eye.  We originally made the date for Saturday and then she said that she couldn't so we changed it for Friday and I was thinking about it and in my head I was like oh, that is perfect!  My brother is getting married that day.  So that should be a fun day for us all.   I hope that you all enjoy it.  

Also, today I learned a lesson.  So I was running low on money for the month and for a couple weeks I knew it so I was using less and less and today something just told me to go take out money from my personal account.  So I went and did it and when we were eating lunch this guy walked in.  He shook our hands and he was really small and he told us that he was from the stake Maranga which is in our mission.  He was a happy little guy and he started talking to us and we were eating afterwards and he was just sitting there and I noticed he was hungry because he was happy but he was looking at the food a lot.  So I asked for a menu and brought it to him and told him to order and he was like no it's ok and so I told him to just do it and so I bought him his meal.  It wasn't anything huge or anything like that but maybe he needed that meal more than I thought he did.  But it was cool because something earlier in the day when we were by the ATM told me to take money out and I did it and hey, something good happened!  

Also this week I had an interchange with our district leader and it turned out so good.  We were able to find two new people and we put a baptismal date with both of them!  One of them is a young man that was sitting in front of his door.  We were actually going to teach his uncle but his uncle wasn't there and we started teaching him lesson one in his door.  It was cool because the teenagers usually don't pay much attention but he was the whole time.  Focused.  Then when I said the first vision it got kind of silent.  Seriously there is something so special about that experience.  Every single time we say it as missionaries it is almost impossible not to feel the spirit.  He accepted baptism for the 16 of May.  Also, we had a lesson with this girl that is dating someone in our ward and we started to teach and if people cry it is normally at the end when we bear testimonies but I noticed that her eyes started to get watery and she started crying at the start of the lesson.  The whole entire time there was a special spirit there and she accepted baptism for the 9 of May.  At the end the Bishop's wife gave her testimony and the whole thing was just really awesome.  

It is crazy how fast the time is flying by.  People are completing so much time in the mission.  I want the time to slow down sometimes.  It feels like just yesterday I was here in Perú and didn't understand a thing the people were saying and struggling and now I am almost done training Elder Aroni and it is just crazy how fast time flies by.  

I hope that you all have a wonderful week and that all goes well on Friday :)  Love you all.  Haz lo justo.

Monday, April 13, 2015

One thing that happened this week was a miracle.  With our recent convert Luis, we were teaching him and we are going over the lessons again.  He is getting worse because his pain is getting more and more in his head.  And still the doctors don't know what is wrong.  He was getting discouraged and it is hard.  Anyways, we starting teaching him about the Book of Mormon and we read the last two parragraphs of the introduction with him.  He normally reads extremely slow and it is tough and his head hurts.  He started reading and he was flying through it and the spirit just entered the room.  When he finished he looked up at us, stunned, and said, "I DON'T FEEL ANY PAIN!!!" He repeated the words and had the first smile I had seen on his face in a very long time.  He said that we are the only thing that helps his head.  Every time we go over, his pain seems to go away.

Unfortunately, his time without pain only lasted for a little bit.  He came to church on Sunday and the Bishop asked me to sit on the stand because I had a talk.  So I sat up there and during the sacrament hymn I saw my comp get up and leave with Luis.  I was like uh oh, what do I do, what do I do?  Because here in South America if you aren't there at the end of the hymn the door is shut and you don't get the sacrament.  It was the second verse out of 3 and I decided to get up and go see what was going on.  Luis had a terrible pain and was in the bathroom because he needed to spit or something and so I got them back in before the hymn ended and after my companion told me that Luis wants to tell us every time that we leave his house that he hopes that God blesses us because he doesn't know if he is going to live.  At the end of church I was talking with him and shook his hand and he started to cry and said please don't stop visiting me.  It was tough to see.  Being a missionary, you really develop a love for the people that you teach and they develop a love for you.

Also, we are teaching a grandma and her granddaughter and they have both accepted a date for the 9 of May.  It would be awesome.  I hope that they are able to come to church and be baptized this day.

Also, this Sunday I had to give a talk in sacrament.  Of course on missionary work.  People in this ward are probably getting tired of listening to me haha.  I think this was my fourth talk in this ward.  But I like to talk so it was good.  I talked a little bit about the talk the Elder Bednar gave two conferences ago.  About why we invite people.  I talked about how Alma Dad and Alma Son both had conversions.  They were both doing bad things at first and then they repented and started to preach the gospel.  Alma Son said that he repented almost to the death but after, his soul felt no pain.  Then after he had the desire to share the gospel and this message.  I talked about how we should all have this joy because like the third article of faith says, we believe that everyone can be saved through the ordinances of the gospel.  ( not the exact words ) but an important word there is THROUGH.  A person has to be a member if they want to be saved.  There  are really only two options.  Salvation or no Salvation.  If we want to be completely forgiven we have to be baptized and after partake of the sacrament worthily each weeki.  So someone has to be a member to gain salvation.  To someone it might sound harsh but it is like that.  That is why we should be so anxious to share this message with everyone.  We are literally bringing the Salvation to people.  

I love you so much family.  I pray for you all.  Have a great week!  

Monday, April 6, 2015

Hello wonderful family!!  Happy Easter to all.    This conference was amazing.  Something that hit me really hard was the statement that our of all the days in the year, the most important day is the Sunday that Christ resurrected.  Isn't that crazy?  Out of 365 days, the most important one is when Jesus Christ lived again!  He defeated death.  He was alive, dead, then lived again!  How sweet the joy this sentence gives, I know that my Redeember lives.  This conference was absolutely incredible.  I was thinking back to the difference between this one and all the conferences as a kid when I would play ping pong or be on my phone or sleep until the prophet talked.  This conference for every single one I was glued to the screen and after I was looking around saying wow, that was incredible.  Some of my favorites were of course Elder Holland's.  From the very start it had me on the edge of my chair.  It was incredible.  We are literally all on the cliff of some of us even falling and the Savior is there to catch us.  He is always waiting there and will never go away.  Also the talk about where we have to hear the music.  It is like hearing the bell in the Polar Express.  We need to be like little children with a lot of faith to be able to hear the music.  Also, another favorite was from Elder Ballard in priesthood.  He did a "personal" interview with everyone there and it was crazy.  We all need to continually ask ourselves the questions that he asked us, we need to always keep ourselves in check.  

Also, another favorite one was the Prophets talk especially when he was talking at the start about the temples.  In Perú in June they are dedicating another temple and that will make two here in Perú.  We are so blessed to have temples here in the earth that make us families forever!

So this week a couple exciting things happened!  First of all a lady, ____ has been an investigator for 3 years almost and still isn't baptized.  Her husband is a less active and her little daughter of 9 or 10 years is a member.  With my other comp, the lessons always felt a little empty.  Something was always missing.  But with Elder Aroni she seems like she is always thinking in the lessons and she is feeling the spirit more.  Anyways this week, the relief society president called us and said that she wants to be baptized this month!  It is crazy, after so much time of waiting she wants to be baptized.  There are people that are specifically prepared for specific missionaries.  There is seriously something different in the lessons with this companionship than the last one.  She has been prepared to listen to us in this time.  

Also, a couple weeks ago we had a aunt and her niece contact us saying they wanted to listen to us.  The girl didn't say anything and it kind of freaked us out.  We went to her house and she lives right next to a place where they make the headstones for the graves.  We got a little freaked out and she wasn't home that first time so we were kind of relieved haha.  Then the other day we felt like we should go back.  We went and tried and she was there.  We went in and her uncle and grandma were there.  We sat down to teach and she told us that her Dad had died when she was young and she kind of threw the blame around at everyone including God.  We talked to her and she felt better.  She had also had a problem in the past week and we helped her with that.  Anyways, she was excited to read the Book of Mormon.  She is going to read it and pray.  We have another lesson with her today so we will see how it went.  Hopefully all goes well and she was able to read and pray.  

That is the most exciting things that happened this week.  We had one day that was really hard where basically every door didn't get opened and the ones that did got shut in our faces.  But hey, every no means we are one step closer to a yes.  Hopefully I will have more stories to tell next week.  I love you all.  Work hard in everything and have a great week!  

Monday, March 30, 2015

This week here in Lima/Callao was a good week!  It is always a good week when it ends in a baptism!  We had the baptismal interview and ____ passed it so that was good.  But I was just hoping that his pain wasn't going to come back before the baptism.  He told us a cool story this week.  He said that the day he went into the church he had been walking around Callao all the morning long looking for a church.  God Guided him this day.  He said that every single church he went to was locked.  One of them even said welcome!  Push the door and come in and he pushed and it was locked.  He was approaching another church and the doors started to shut and he got up to it and the doors were locked and he couldn't enter.  He went to all of this until he finally went to our church.  He made it to the church and my companion and I were there to greet him.  He said that he felt something special from the first time he entered.  So that was seriously a miracle.  His baptismal day came and we went to his house to pick him up.  He started to tell us a story that was strange.  His Dad had normally been really nice and loving but the day of his baptism he was saying things like it doesn't matter if his head hurts he needs to go to work and he just started getting mad at ____.  So this isn't all but it was crazy.  Whenever we are going to do something good, there are always challenges that come.  It is hard sometimes but we just need to endure to the end.  ____ even recognized that this was a challenge trying to get him to fall.  But anyways, the baptism came and we had the assistants there and hermana and presidente Borg.  They went to the baptism and it was so awesome.  There was so many people there and the spirit was so strong.    

Another thing we did this week is that we had multizonas.  This is a training that we have with the president and the assistants.  It was crazy good.  We started out the morning listening to the president and after we had a visitor come and he talked to us about the Atonement.  And this visitor just happened to be an ex comp of President Borg in his mission. And now he is a missionary here in Perú and a secretary for the area presidency.  He knew so much about the Atonement.  We were reading all these verses and I understood so much more about the Atonement.  The whole entire time we were just flipping back and forth between Matthew, Mark,  Luke and John.  It was like a scripture chase in seminary all over again.  And this day we also received new cards to pass out to the people.  They are about the new video that the church did for Easter.  It is so good.  It is awesome because in our church we know that Christ lives.  That He resurrected and that His mission didn't stop at His death.  He can help us today and He is still doing miracles.  If you all haven't seen the new video that the church did, you should all go see it.  Gracias a que el vive.  I highly recommend it.  

That is pretty much what I have for this week.  Not a whole lot other than that happened this week. I hope that you all have a wonderful week and that you all learn something new in conference.  It is such a blessing to have a prophet here in the world.  He guides us and actually talks with God.  Love you all.  

Monday, March 23, 2015

This week was another good week.  _____ continuing to progress and his baptism is this Saturday.  In the whole zone for our Noche Blanca (White Night), we could possibly have 19 baptisms.  It would be such a miracle if we do.   I am excited to see what happens.  We will know in a couple days how many baptisms we are going to have.  With him there isn't a ton to say - just that he is progressing and is pressing forward and keeping his commitments so it is good.  

This past week we have found a lot of new investigators.  We found a lot of young men to teach - 4.  One day we taught three of them at the same time and it was the first lesson with them.  It was funny because at the very start my companion was talking and the kids said, “We don't understand you.”  My companion’s mind just completely got blown.  They are all Peruvian and they didn't understand him.  It was just because they weren't paying much attention in this moment but my comp was like, “if you can understand him, (pointing to me) how can you not understand me?”  It was hilarious.    We were teaching them in the house of the young men’s president and they weren't paying attention very much so I was like ya, we are going to watch a video thinking they would pay attention to the video.  Good idea,  I thought.  We put the video in the DVD player and then there was no control.  We were looking for the control and we couldn't find it.  We searched for like 10 15 minutes looking for it and then it wasn't there and then it was late so after that we had to go and we didn't even have time to talk about what we hadn't seen.  We have another appointment with them tonight and we are going to watch the video.  So hopefully we can find the control this time.  If not I might cry. 

Also this week was fun because we started to do something new in the mornings.  Every time we leave the house the first thing we do is contact people or knock on a door to contact two different people.  And in the first contact we give them the invitation to be baptized.  That is one thing our whole zone was lacking was the invitations to be baptized so I thought of something my comp and I could do.  This invitation thingy.  And so far we have had some success.  We have had some people that have accepted baptism.  So we have appointments with them this week so hopefully all goes well and they are actually interested and didn't just say yes because there were two teenagers knocking on their door talking to them about God.  But really it is cool.  There are so many people here that are prepared, we just have to be willing to find them.  We are going to keep up this new thing and hopefully we will be able to see a lot of people accept and progress. 

Other than that I don't have that many stories from this week.  We have just been teaching, teaching, teaching this week.  We set goals that were a lot higher than normal this week and so we worked so hard to achieve them.  We didn't achieve all of them but we did with a bunch of them.  And our numbers were way higher than normal.  The district leader called us last night and was like "wow, you guys worked hard this week."  So it was such a good feeling.  The time flies when you are working hard.  You get back to your room at night and just want to collapse on the floor.  And it is such a good feeling.  

That is what happened here this week in Bellavista 2.  And it is super hot here.  Yesterday it was about 90 degress someone told me and 55 percent humidity.  I seriously step outside and the sun just burns and burns and burns.  It is super hot so I am excited for when it is winter here again.  We just hit autumn so hopefully winter comes soon.  But it seriously is super hot.  

And also another fun fact, this past week the people in our sector starting asking where I was from.  So that is fun. I don't get "gringo my friend" all the time now.  This week they said Spain and Argentina.  Which I don't get because I don't talk like either of them.  

I love you all.  Eat some Cafe Rio and watch some basketball for me.